This is the Environment Show. It's about our stewardship of the Earth and the beauty
and mystery of life in all its forms. I'm Peter Burling, coming up. Holiday shopping
is over, but we can still help the environment as we buy things. E-commerce is here to stay,
but how do you shop green over the internet? There are e-scams and green scams, as well
as ways to do it right. Bobby Kennedy has launched a bottled water company that will return
all profits to the riverkeeper movement. Both the Weather Service and the old Farmers
Almanac say this winter will be a mild one, and on the Earth calendar, strawberries are
being picked in Florida. It's part of a great American harvest. These stories and more coming
up on the Environment Show.
You're listening to the Environment Show, and I'm Peter Burling. As the past holiday shopping
season illustrated, e-commerce continues to grow by leaves and bounds. With a few clicks of a
mouse and little information about your credit card, you can purchase that towel made from organically
grown cotton that you've always wanted. But for those of us who want to buy products that don't
harm the environment, how do we know that what we are buying is indeed environmentally friendly?
Leo Fleming reports on what e-shoppers who want to buy green should look for. As I unwrap my
noon time indulgence of a Big Mac and fries, I sit back and surf the web, and I'm greeted with
phrases like, Earth friendly gifts and products for the home garden and office. Earth friendly products
made from renewable plant-based natural ingredients visit our website. These are just a few of the
advertisements designed to entice people to log on and buy green. But while it may sound easy
enough to sign on and order anything from water filters to games for kids to candles and incense,
what guarantees do we have that the products that arrive on our doorstep are indeed green?
Green is a relative term, first of all.
Carolyn Nunley is a senior project leader for Consumers Union in White Plains, New York. Consumers Union
publishes the popular Consumer Guide Consumer Reports.
Everything has an impact of some sort or another at various points through its life cycle.
Products take energy to make. They take energy to be shipped places, of course, the materials that
they're made from. And then what happens to them at the end of their useful life has impacts.
They're also impacts as they're used, as they use energy water as consumers use them.
So throughout the life cycle, every product has some kind of impact on the environment.
So the question isn't so much, is this product green or not? It's what's green about the product?
Or how is it greener than other products?
Nunley says the green claims companies make can range. They can relate to the product itself being green,
or green claim could simply mean that the proceeds of a sale go to an environmental group.
So make sure you are clear in what a manufacturer means when they say green or environmentally friendly.
Do I really need this? Nunley says before you log on and shop, that's the most important question you
should ask yourself. Is buying a product the best way to meet this need? Is there some other
less material or energy-efficient energy intensive way to meet this need? Can I buy a service rather
than a product, for example? And the other thing to think about is does the product perform well?
It's no more environmentally friendly in many cases. If you have to use twice as much of a product,
say a paint, if the paint doesn't cover well, and you have to use twice as much of a
environmentally friendly paint than a conventional paint, you're using twice as much of the product.
And it can sort of counter-bound with the environmental savings that you get from the product itself.
To get a feel for how buying environmentally friendly products online works, I visited EcoMaw
at www.eco-maw1word.com, which boasts itself as the largest environmental site on the internet.
Tom K. is founder of EcoMaw. He says when you log on, you can buy from 54 different categories
of earth-friendly products, everything from energy-efficient light bulbs to organic clothing and food.
K. says there are two ways a consumer can shop at EcoMaw.
The first way they would shop around is that they would go to the category of interest and then go
down the category and it would be links to various other websites that carry and sell the products.
The second way is there's a search engine on every page on the site and you can type in any word
and it will search all the articles that we have in EcoMaw.com slash green shopping, which is our
green shopping magazine and various advertisers write articles such as Kate Pick consumers and any
word and any of the articles would come up and then lead and any other articles that have the same
word and lead to various other websites. K. says he understands an online consumer's hesitancy
in buying but there are ways to protect yourself. So anytime you order anything you can always return it.
That's the law. So if you're not happy with it you can return it. Secondly, we very much
try to have a humanistic understanding of the various companies that advertise with us. We do our
homework. We get to know how they get started. We sometimes do research and find out if is this
environmentally correct company. I.e. if a company wants to be in a clothing section and they only
sell regular cotton and they don't sell organic cotton or hemp. They might not be acceptable because
a lot of pesticides are used in growing regular cotton and very pesticides friendly even though it's
better than poly cotton and you always have to look through the best alternative in every given
area. Perhaps the best way to shop at these sites is to look past flashy politically correct jargon
and make sure we understand what the manufacturer is telling us about the product, what makes it more
environmentally friendly and who backs up their claims. That's according to Carolyn Nunley.
Is it the manufacturer's claim or is there some independent third party that will verify the
information. There are a couple of organizations Green Seal and Green Cross being two of them that
certify environmental information about products. They Green Seal for example develops a set of
criteria for various product categories that relate to the environmental impacts of those products
and look at various products on the market to see which ones meet those criteria.
So as electronic commerce continues to find its place in the marketplace both Nunley and Kay say
it will become even more important to read between the lines. Nunley says consumers union is beginning
a project where they'll take a look at Green Claims by companies and then develop an online
encyclopedia reporting for the environment show I'm Leah Fleming. In future programs will report on
other environmental consequences of e-commerce. Will it be a plus by limiting the expansion of new
shopping malls or will it increase air pollution and traffic as individual purchases are delivered by
truck. Stay tuned.
Good for you and the environment every American has the right to crystal clean drinking water from
a public water supply all of our profits will be used to protect and restore America's waterways.
Those words are inscribed on the blue Tiffany design label of Keepers Springs bottled water.
The product is being produced and marketed by a venture founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Chris Bartle and John Hovey. Bobby Kennedy describes how the venture got started in April
1990. We launched a bottled water called Keepers Springs and the point of distinction with that
bottled water is that 100% of the profits go back to benefit the keeper movement. The license
rivers sound and bay keepers who are now patrolling and protecting waterways across North America.
The original keeper was started by a coalition of commercial and recreational fishermen who began
patrolling the Hudson River in 1966 tracking down polluters and bringing them to court.
It was started by a blue collar coalition of commercial and recreational fishermen and a little
village fishing village called Crockentville in New York. Most of them were former Marines who
got together in an American Legion Hall in March of 1966 to start to talk about blowing up pipes
on the river and they instead decided to work within the law and they were very successful and
helping to clean up the Hudson River which today is an international success story and the
richest water body in the North Atlantic. The miraculous resurrection of the Hudson has inspired
the creation now of keepers on 41 waterways actually across North America. As an environmentalist
Kennedy says bottled water has not always been an easy sell. A lot of environmentalists have been
concerned about the growth of the bottled water industry that it would distract people's attention
from the need to protect public waterways and we saw this launch as an opportunity to not only
recapture some of the revenues that are mainly going to foreign companies from selling American water
but also to educate consumers each label tells people you know you can drink bottled water but
don't turn your back on protecting public waterways. Kennedy is optimistic about the future of his
company because of shifting attitudes about bottled water. It was always I think a source of pride
from Americans when we went to Europe or to Latin America or Africa Asia really any continent
the world where people commonly bought bottled water that you didn't have to do it in our country.
The waterways were owned by the public they were being used by the public and everybody drank
out of their tap and nobody would dream of buying bottled water but for a number of reasons some
of them good reasons and some of them not so good bottled water is a trend now in the United States
50% of Americans now drink it some of the time 30% of us drink it as their primary source of water.
So you know one of the reasons is that it's convenient it's trendy the other reasons are that
people are genuinely concerned about what's in the public waterways. Kennedy acknowledges that there
are many brands of water on the market which makes selling a particular brand particularly challenging.
Most people the fact is cannot distinguish them so you have to give them a reason to buy your water
rather than another water and one of those reasons is that people select by its price another is
the appearance of the label the perception that there's some prestige attached to it and we're
betting that people will will buy our water because it's priced roughly the same as the other
waters out there but that 100% of the profits come back to the environment. Drone water itself can
have an environmental impact and Chris Bartle CEO of the Enterprise is confident that the keeper
springs operation is environmentally sustainable the water comes from a spring in the vicinity of
Utica New York. The spring is a high capacity source it has positive outflow at up to 500,000
gallons a day and we're not drawing even a tenth of that we could supply quite a lot of quite
a high percentage of the New England bottle water market and not even come close to that.
The water is pumped from a spring about a half a mile uphill where it is osanated and bottled.
Carly keeper springs water is on the shelf and major retail outlets in the New York metropolitan region
but Chris Bartle says the plan is to go nationwide. Ultimately what we'd like to see Peter is we'd
like to see us the brand become a national brand with local sources and the profits from each area
going back into that area is environmental groups. That's the way we would like to see the brand
develop that's the pitch we'd like to make to each local community and one of our primary purposes
for being is to give people a sense that they can you know with a simple purchase of a bottle of
water invest in their communities well being. Kennedy and Bartle say they're getting a good
deal of encouragement and advice from Paul Newman who started producing and marketing his own brand
of salad dressing some years ago with all profits going to charity. If Kennedy's keeper springs
water takes off as a business venture American consumers will be able to boast that the more they drink
the cleaner the water depths.
We welcome another affiliate to the Environment Show family it's W E I U FM at Eastern Illinois University
in Charleston Illinois. The Environment Show is a national production it's made possible by the
W. Alton Jones Foundation the William Bingham Foundation the Turner Foundation the J.M. Kaplan Fund
and Heming's Motor News the monthly Bible of the collector car hobby www.hemmigs.com
We're always anxious to hear what you have to say you can contact us by email at green at wamc.org
that's green at wamc.org or by phone 1 888 49 green
Witter is officially here and climate forecasters are predicting a relatively mild winter across
much of the continental United States and while the U.S. weather service never likes us to mention
the old farmers Almanac predictions of both institutions for the first winter of the new millennium
are quite similar the Environment Show Stephen Westcott has more on what we can expect.
According to the National Centers for Environmental Prediction the Pacific Northwest will
experience the most severe weather conditions in the continental U.S. this winter. Dr. Lewis
Yusselene is director of the department which is part of the National Weather Service.
Well the National Weather Service went to forecast for the United States this year
has a major storm track affecting the northwest with above normal precipitation and about
average temperatures but we're looking at a situation developing for this winter that's
similar to last year whether we're record rainfall and snowfall in a Pacific Northwest.
In California we're also looking for above normal precip with below normal temperatures. Dr. Yusselene
says La Nina the cold weather phenomenon in the Pacific will play a big role in bringing stormy
weather to the Pacific Northwest that's because La Nina shifts the Pacific jet stream north
which directs stormy weather toward that region. For the southern third of the country from
New Mexico to Florida Yusselene says it will be dry and a little warmer this year.
In the northern Midwest we expect below normal temperatures or to near normal temperatures but
above normal precip will be confined to the I'd say the Wisconsin Michigan area of the upper Midwest
and the temperatures will be about average there. As we move north eastward we expect more variable
conditions and in fact the certainty of a forecast decreases as we move into the northeast but
right now we're expecting temperatures to be variable perhaps slightly above and precipitation
to be average for the middle Atlantic states up to the northeast. Dr. Yusselene says it's important
for people to remember that when the National Weather Service makes its long-term weather forecasts
they are general regional predictions which means variations such as storms or mild conditions could
occur. The old Farmers Almanac is also predicting a relatively mild winter across the continental U.S.
Managing editor Susan Peary says while November and December were mild January will bring colder
temperatures to many parts of the country. Another kind of maybe warming swing in the east in
February and March but cold weather in the west during those months. We're looking for a lot of
snow in northern New England in the Great Lakes in the Pacific Northwest and out in the Rockies.
So a lot of the ski areas of the country we think starting pretty soon will start to get a lot of
snow. In many other areas the snowfall and precipitation for the winter will be below normal.
Susan Peary says the Almanac is predicting some heavy snowstorms for the Rocky Mountains this
March. She describes what southern residents may see this winter. The southern states are going to
start out a little bit cooler. Everybody's always really interested in the forecast for Florida
and we're actually calling for cool or average temperatures down there almost every month until
about April when we say it's going to start getting unusually warm. As for the Great Plains the
Almanac says the coldest periods will occur in late January early February and mid-March.
The best chance for snows in the plains is late January mid-February and mid-March. Susan
Peary says the Almanac uses several factors to make its winter weather predictions such as solar
cycles, historical records and observations, ocean temperatures and upper weather patterns. Dr.
Yusselini says the National Weather Service relies heavily on ocean temperatures, atmospheric
observations and numerical models to make its long-term forecasts. He adds that satellite
technology is playing an important role in predicting weather patterns. Both polar orbiting satellites
and geostationary satellites which allow us to measure the important temperature, moisture
and wind fields around the globe. I think a key aspect of this is that you have to be able to
make these measurements around the globe to produce a forecast for any particular region,
whether it's the United States or Europe or whatever. You need global observations and we're
relying increasingly on satellite data to make those observations. You can find more information
about the National Weather Services Extended Forecast on your personal computer at www.nws.noa.gov.
That's www.nws.noa.gov. And check out the website for the old farmers Almanac at www.almanac.com.
For the Environment Show, I'm Stephen Westcott.
And now it's time for the Earth Calendar. As we speak,
strawberries are being picked in West Central Florida. It's part of the Great American Harvest.
Chip Hinton is the executive director of the Florida Strawberry Growers Association based in Plant
City, which is located about 23 miles east of Tampa. He says all strawberries are handpicked.
Well, the strawberries that are grown in Florida can be broken out into two different areas,
the day neutral in the early varieties. And most of those berries come from the state of Florida,
developed for our unique climate here and the state of California. Those two varieties
account for virtually all of the strawberries in state of Florida. Now from that, our predominant
local variety is the sweet Charlie, which developed through our land-grant institution at the
University of Florida. Our predominant California variety is the Cameroza.
Strawberries grown outside of Tampa are harvested from around the beginning of November through
Easter. Most are marketed to Eastern states and the Midwest. Hinton says the growing process begins
in September. We will come in at the end of our summer and we will actually till in our cover
crop, which is used to put as a soil amendment as well as a control for weeds. We will sterilize
a soil, bet it, use whatever non-liquid fertilizer that we will utilize. Put down our drip irrigation,
put down our plastic. Over a period of 10 days, we will allow the sterile into work.
Then we will put our plants down. Each plant is put in by hand, state of Florida. That's roughly
120 million plants. And that starts occurring the last week of September and goes throughout
October through the first week in November. Hinton says strawberry farmers in Florida are using
smaller amounts of fungicides and pesticides in the growing process. He attributes this to farmers
being more aware of the negative effects chemicals have on the planet and to their rising costs.
In addition, chips as most strawberry farmers in Florida are now using drip irrigation which
reduces the amount of water needed to nourish a crop. Strawberries have been grown commercially for
decades in Florida, but chip Hinton says he has seen the industry expand dramatically in recent years.
Our median size farm is 21 acres. And we have about 150 farms here in the state of Florida.
The, and it is a small industry in that it's only 6,000 acres. In fact, you could put the entire
acreage for both California and Florida. All the acres of berries grown for the fresh market within
the city limits of plant city. So it's not a, it's not a big industry from that extent, but it is a very
capital intensive industry. The cash flow in an acre of berries can be $25,000. And you can very
easily have three quarters of a billion dollars in cash flow from just the industries from California
and Florida. Our industry has been in a range of $150 to $160 million. An amount that's tripled in the past
15 years. And we're hoping that we'll be able to double it again in in the next 10 years.
Chip's advice to consumers is to look for strawberries that appear shiny with few if any bruises.
He says you should refrigerate them when you get them home from the store and be sure only to wash
them right before you eat them. As futurists predict scientific advances which you'd come about
of the new century, I anticipate the genetically engineered cross between the strawberry plant,
wheat and the cow that bears strawberry shortcake as fruit. Do you suppose it will be a plant or an
animal? You're listening to the Environment Show and I'm Peter Burley.
This is the Environment Show and I'm Peter Burley. Still ahead. Trees today and long ago.
Chipmills are having a big impact on forests in the southeast. They devour a whole trees and
turn them into chips to make wallboard. We talk green about them. Trees 20 to 40 million years ago
produce sticky sap which trapped living things which can be found in amber. We meet a scientist who
has reconstructed the amber forest. Stay with us.
We're talking green and I'm Peter Burley. Today we're going to be talking about our
southeastern forests and chipmills. We're going to hear a lot about them but basically a chipmill
takes a whole tree and turns it into chips. The chips are about the size of a quarter and about
twice as thick they're used for wallboard and paper. Since just about any tree can be chipped
every stick of wood in the forest can be clear cut and used and as a result thousands of acres
in the southeastern feeding the mills. The growth of chipmills has been phenomenal. Once study
identifies 140 mills in the southeast of which 100 were built since 1985. And any program that
results an extensive tree cutting we know engenders a lot of controversy. So I've asked two guests
to join us who have opposing views about chipmills. They're Dana Smith, executive director of the
Dogwood Alliance which is an alliance of environmental groups dedicated to protecting southeastern
forests and an outspoken critic of the chipmill industry. Also with us his Bob Slokom. He's
executive vice president of the North Carolina Forestry Association. His group represents timber
companies forest owners, chip mill owners and industries related to forest products.
Dana let's start with you. From your perspective what are the problems associated with chipmills?
Well as you said we have seen proliferation of chipping facilities spring up across the
southeast over the last 10 years. And our concern is that the expansion of this industry
has resulted in the expansion of industrial scale clear cutting and the replacement of native
forests with pine plantations. And we're really concerned because of the potential for
negative economic impacts in local communities. We work with a number of local saw milling
operations that are concerned about the clear cutting and the impact that it could have on their
business. We work with a number of recreation and tourism businesses who are concerned about the
impact of unsightly clear cuts on their economic well-being. We work with local communities,
citizens who live in communities where these chipmills have been constructed. And they are
concerned about their quality of life and everything from increased logging traffic to the noise
from the chipmill to the loss of the forest around them that contributes tremendously to their
community quality of life. Okay well that's a lot of things that let's sort of take them one at a
time. Bob's Locom tell us a little bit about the clear cutting issue, the concern that chipmills
have inspired a lot of clear cutting that would not be taking place under normal logging operations.
I think that probably the first point to make is that chipmills are nothing new. They've been in
the South for a hundred years. We started making paper in North Carolina in 1906 and we've been
turning wood into chips as part of the integrated forest products industry ever since. And so this
is nothing new. But before you move on, has there not been a vast growth in the industry, a hundred
plants built in 15 years? That sounds like a big expansion. Oh there's certainly more chipmills here
now across the South and there used to be and there's several reasons for that and probably the
most notable is that the industry has gone through a structural change and really what has changed
is the point at where where wood is turned into chips. It used to be that wood was taken into the
pulp mill as logs and the industry is shifting very rapidly to where the wood comes in as chips.
So it's a question really of only changing the point at where wood is chip. These facilities
are out there and actually it's a more efficient process from the standpoint of the industry and
the production of paper and paper products. But Dan, do you see it that way? Is it just a question of
where it's chipped or is what you see going on in the forests different than what it was before
the mills expanded to the extent that they have? Well I think there are two responses to that if I'm
a one is that there are clear examples of where the industry has expanded production and in order to
feed that expansion they have constructed new chipmills. The most notable example of that comes
to mind when will them at industries expanded its production and its hogs fill pulp mill in Kentucky
and to feed that expansion they set up two chipmills one in North Carolina and one in Missouri to feed
a chip mill in Kentucky. So the idea that a lot of the shift in the industry or the the reason why
chipmills have been constructed is because pulp mills are simply shifting their production from
onsite chipping to offsite chipping doesn't hold true in all cases. The other response to that is
where it does hold true we have to ask why is it that the industry is now shifting their
chipping from onsite at chipmills I mean at pulp mills to offsite locations and what we've been
able to determine based on information that we've looked at from research that's coming out of
the North Carolina State University School of Forestry is that forests around pulp mills are
experiencing the highest levels of drain on the forest and so it's much more economical for
the industry to transport chips from long distances which is how far they have to reach now in
order to get the supply that's available. It's much more beneficial economically and cheaper for
them to set up a chip mill in a distant site. Let's hear from Bob Slorken on that one is is that an
accurate analysis? You see it? Well not entirely no. Certainly the industry has expanded production
the demand for wood and paper products has increased. We've got more people, they demand more
wood products so certainly production has increased to meet the demand that people have placed on
wood products so certainly when a pulp mill has expanded production it also needs to expand
the amount of wood that it takes in so that part of it's certainly correct but certainly true
that it's more efficient in many ways in terms of shipping chips and so on but the the notion that
all of the forests around chipmills are around the pulp and paper mills has disappeared and so
they've got to go out these huge distances it's just up here myth. Bob one of the questions that
is frequently raised is that since the chip mill can chip just about anything there is much more
clear cutting than would have gone on if one had more traditional forestry that's designed to
produce logs. Is there anything to that? I mean does that present a different kind of environmental
problem than than logging has in the past? No I don't think it does because that that particular method
clear cut or a regeneration cut has been going on as long as we've been practicing forestry.
It's one of several methods of harvesting timber and certainly we're going to harvest trees but
from the standpoint of the industry our goal is trying to make sure that we have forest now and
certainly well out into the future and whether or not there's a chip mill does not
is not going to demand or force one harvest practice over another. That gets to an interesting issue.
We've heard a lot about certified forestry and certified lumber products. Are there chipmills
that are operating on a certified basis? In terms of what producing certified chips? Right which then
produce certified wood products and for those who are not familiar with this certification involves
an outside source. There's really no generally accepted certification process. The industry is
looking at several of these programs but they're in terms of producing certified chips or
paper. I'm not aware of any. Right just so we're clear about that. Home Depot has just said that
they're going to be working towards certified lumber and there are numbers of organizations that are
at least internationally now looked at as qualified to certified but that's a different issue.
I'd like to hear a little bit from you Donna about some of the trade-offs from an economic point
of view that you were referring to i.e. tourism versus milling. We have said work with a number of
local sawmillers across the region who are concerned that because chipmills can take trees that are
relatively small diameter and size that they are in effect chipping up the future saw timber of
tomorrow because these are local mills that depend on more mature trees for their survival and
these mills tend to use select logging as opposed to clear cutting and they tend to employ a lot more
people per unit or per you know unit of wood harvested then does the chipping industry. Chipmills
typically only employ about six to eight people directly and so they're not that economically
beneficial to the local communities where they operate and could have the potential to offset any
positive economic impacts by the negatives that they pose to local sawmills and as I said earlier
we work with a lot of recreation and tourism industries. The American Camping Association is now
joining the dogwood alliance and calling for a moratorium on chipmill permits in the southeastern
region. Tourism industries we've got tourism industries that also are calling with us for a
moratorium on new chipmill permits because they believe that the negative impacts to the visual
beauty of the landscape would far outweigh any positive economic benefit that the timber industry
could provide and at the same time they could have a serious adverse economic impact on their
local tourism and recreation industries. Well I have a moratorium on future mill sounds like a
direct frontal attack how are you folks responding to that. The idea of a moratorium chipmills
are no threat to the environment it makes for a nice myth but they're no threat to the environment
moratorium is simply unwarranted. The idea that the inner the industry somehow is split on this issue
again is simply not true. Well let's follow up on the tourism issue. I presume the reason that people
in the tourist business don't like clear cuts is that people don't want to take vacations to see
clear cuts when they could see a real forest is this a legitimate concern that they have or these
clear cuts taking places taking place in areas where they don't have an impact on the recreational
forest user. Peter I'm going to speak to North Carolina. The forest products industry in this
state is the second largest manufacturing industry in North Carolina and has been one of the
principal industries that built the economy here. Tourism is also an important part of the
industry and are an important part of the state's economy and both have thrived. Tourism
continues to increase the forest products industry has done well and I am aware of absolutely no
data studies even antecedal information that shows that there is some kind of adverse trade-off
or because we have a forest products industry we can't have tourism. So I don't think it's true.
Dana, how do you respond to that? Yeah, there was a study that just came out of the US Forest
Service in August of 1997 and it was called assessing economic trade-offs in forest management
and in that study the forest service basically found that forests do not have to be mind-logged
or otherwise extracted to stimulate the development of new jobs and that there are substantial
evidence out there that shows that the contributions that a forest makes and intact forest makes to
the quality of life in an area can affect the rate of economic growth and that unsightly clear
cuts and a decision on the part of a community to expand industrial forestry does have the potential
trade-off in terms of recreation tourism and just overall the ability to attract people to come
to an area. So I guess that's an issue which people will differ on my understanding is that
there's some kind of a study that the forest service is now doing that we believe that the study was
out of the Pacific Northwest and in fact the forest service has acknowledged that so flawed that they
have withdrawn it and pulled it back in internal for the term. I was referring to a study that was
supposed to be going on in the southeast isn't the forest service doing a broader one on the whole
chipmills situation that was going to be done I think in 2001. No they're doing a
overall forest sustainability study across the south that is not a chipmills study it's a look at
the overall sustainability issues related to forests across the region and it is not chipmills study.
Bob let me ask you something. Can I respond really quickly because even though it's not
built as a chipmill study one of the major reasons why the forest service and the EPA and Fish
and Wildlife for undertaking this regional assessment is because of the concerns that citizens have
been raising about chipmills and industrial clear cutting and pine conversion in the south and it
will be an important component of the broader sustainability study. Okay Bob I'd like to ask you
something that's still not clear to me and that is when it comes to chipmilling does that involve
areas which you can harvest for chips and not a clear cut or is most of the input to a chipmill
of the product of clear cut. There is in North Carolina with the exception of a timber harvest where
we're thinning a stand and removing a few trees to open it up for the better trees to grow and
produce better products. There aren't any acres that are harvested solely to produce wood for a chip
mill that simply doesn't happen economically it's not even feasible. So there's a chip mill and
the production of chips is part of an integrated industry and you know what what goes on is designed
to make the highest and best use of the products that are harvested. On any given acre peter you're
going to harvest timber and some of the material is going to go to the saw mill some may go to a
pulp mill or chip mill for paper and some may go to other manufacturing facilities based on the
quality of the wood and what's out there. And so it's not necessarily a clear cut is that what I
do. Not all the time no. And in fact one of the things that has led to a from the standpoint of
really health and productivity is the fact that we haven't had good markets for a lot of this low
quality material and the harvesting that's gone on over the past has they call it selective harvesting
but what it is is high grading. We can take the best and leave the rest. In the moment with
junk. In the moment that's left, uh, Danad, do you want to comment on whether we're seeing more or
less clear cutting as a result of the growth in the chip mill industry? We're definitely seeing more
clear cutting. We can document that when we fly over the region and and look at what's happening
around these chip mills and it's almost as if you can fly from chip mill to chip mill by following the
clear cuts. At the industry admits that this industry is that the chipping industry is opening up
markets for wood that was otherwise not utilized. And so to to think that you know they would be out
there cutting that wood anyway even though it wouldn't be used without these chip mills is in our
opinion ridiculous. Okay well I want to thank you both and clearly we have not answered any
questions but we raised a lot for people to think about. My guests have been Dana Smith who
is executive director of the Dogwood Alliance, an environmental group or Alliance of Environmental
Groups and Bob Slokom executive vice president of the North Carolina Forestry Association. They both
been talking to us from North Carolina. We know you have some views about this issue so share
them with us. Our number is 1-888-49-Green. We've been talking green and I'm Peter Burleigh.
In this electronic age we still occasionally read the mail to come to the post office so you can
write us it's the Environment Show at 318 Central Avenue Albany New York 1-2-2-06. That's 318 Central
Albany New York 1-2-2-06.
If you saw the movie Jurassic Park you'll remember the life-like Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur that
scientists brought to life by using genetic material. The DNA was fictitiously extracted from a resin
or amber that preserved the material for millions of years while scientists will not be recreating
dinosaurs anytime soon. Researchers are finding plants and animals that lived millions of years
in the past and which have been preserved in amber. Scientists George and Roberta Ponyarm
have recreated a forest which existed in what is now the Dominican Republic 20 to 40 million years
ago. They led an international research effort to extract DNA from insects encased in amber
and their research is the focus of a recently published book The Amber Forest. I spoke with
George Ponyarm about what he found. They clues that this ancient forest left behind in amber a
truly amazing not only the beautifully preserved insects present but also flowers even pollen grains
we can find vines seeds moss lichens liverwords and mushrooms then at the other end of the
spectrum we can find frogs lizards feathers hair and bones mammals in addition there are
interactions between organisms that are generally not found in other types of fossilization
which are present in the Dominican amber now is that because the amber was sticky when creatures
or organisms bumped up against it how do you capture those interactions many may realize that
amber is a fossilized resin it comes out of the tree on the sap just as a pine sap does today
it comes out it's very sticky it's fairly liquid and it has the ability to capture very delicate
organisms and to preserve them in intimate detail this is because when the organism lands in the
sticky material it perishes very quickly maybe it can try to flap its wings a little bit move its
legs possibly struggle a few millimeters or centimeters along but then it perishes so if it's
in the act of doing something mating for instance we have a pair of mating lightning bugs illustrated
in the book or if it's carrying a parasite or something else usually it dies with the parasites
still attached in exactly the same form it was when it was living now take me through this for the
next 65 million years the bug is mating with its partner gets stuck in the amber then what happens
after it gets stuck and they both perish after they both perish then there's a process the chemical
process that occurs the sugars in the resin slowly pull the moisture out of the tissues of the
traps organisms and at the same time certain components in the resin enter and fix the
tissue so it's almost like you were fixing them in a preservative like from alohydro or alcohol
or something then slowly over a period of time the resin begins to harden and it then eventually
will drop from the tree fall to the ground be covered with debris and eventually it's washed
the all the amber in the debris tends to be washed down into a floodplain or a floor a lower area
that may be then carried right into the sea into a shallow sea eventually the resin becomes hard
and starts to acquire the characteristics that we attribute to real amber and what are the largest
organisms that one can find in amber as opposed to pieces of them I noticed your book had beautiful
pictures of what looked like entire organisms uh yes I think probably some of the vertebrates
are the largest especially the lizards we have we've recently examined one annulus
lizard that stretches four inches is four inches long and that certainly would be the largest
the largest organism that I've ever seen in any amber deposit I'm sure every scientist
who works with amber ruse the day the Jurassic Park came out but I have to ask you will there be a
time where will science be sophisticated enough someday to capture DNA from amber and be able to
put that in a living organism well this is the amber provides a wonderful opportunity to
to obtain DNA from some of the fossils there and several laboratories have been successful in doing
that and I think that it it holds a wealth of material and especially plant material and things
and allows you to tap in and to get gene sequences that might be very useful and it could be
inserted into the genetic code of modern day plants is your research with amber ongoing and if so
what's what's on your agenda oh well yes we're continuing we're now looking at some of the amber
deposits found in Lebanon these this is the amber deposits go back to 130 million years so they
definitely overlap with the dinosaurs many of the insects there are completely extinct at the
generic and family level and so this is very exciting because it gives some of the first
a number of first appearances of the of the groups that insect groups that occur
that was George Poinarm co-author of the amber forest published by Princeton University Press
by studying amber he's able to find and document plants insects and animals and ecosystems
that vanished millions of years ago
thanks for being with us on this week's environment show i'm Peter Burley if the
winners get any warmer we'll drink more bottle water which can help the river keep her movement
but strawberry pickers and weather forecasters will get stuck in the amber before it's
sold on the internet it's all terribly confusing and listening to this program again will not
clarify a thing call 1-800-323-9262 in order show number 523 the environment show is a national
production which is solely responsible for its content Alan Chartac is executive producer
Stephen Westcutter's producer and the show is made possible by the W. Walton Jones Foundation
the William Bingham Foundation the Turner Foundation the J.M. Kaplan Fund and Heming's Motor News
the monthly Bible of the collector car hobby www.hemings.com
be good to the earth and join us next week for the environment show
well
you
