Two years ago, Westvaco Corp. opened a new company forest south of Adolph in Randolph County. But this 8,400 acres of land isn't just for timber cutting to feed Westvaco's paper mills in Maryland and Virginia. This forest is for research. Lots of West Virginians are still out of work.
Timber is among the fastest growing industries in the state.
Bill Maxey, director of the West Virginia Division of Forestry, scoffs at the idea that timbering threatens Appalachian biodiversity. In that way, biological diversity can warn humans about environmental problems that could endanger our own well-being. Scientists, however, still understand very little about how various species interact. No one knows for sure how the disappearance of some bug or flower might later affect trees, or air quality, or human life directly. Edward O. Wilson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard University scientist, says researchers don't know if the total number of species alive on earth is 10 million or 100 million.