Abingdon, VA

I've been in Abingdon for a little over two weeks now, staying with the executive director of Appalachian Sustainable Development, Anthony, and his wife Laurel. It's probably been the most sustainable time of my life. Almost all of the food I've eaten has been either organic, locally produced, or even grown right here on the farm. I've planted strawberries, split logs for firewood, even driven a Prius! For Thanksgiving, the highlight of our meal was a pasture-fed turkey that had been raised and slaughtered by our host, Kirsty.

Since I arrived the week of Thanksgiving, I've only done three days of actual work on my internship. The rest of my time has been spent doing farmwork, other household chores, and having amazing conversations with Anthony about the ins and outs of running a non-profit. Among these was the time I asked him about the origins of ASD. My paraphrased version of what he said, in quotes as always:

"Well it was the early '90s, and everyone was talking about 'jobs versus the environment.' Unemployment in the area was extraordinarily high, and a lot of people saw environmentalists as people who were trying to take their jobs. A group of us got together and started talking about, well, maybe we can create jobs and protect the environment at the same time. And that's all it was, at the beggining, a group of people meeting informally to talk about how to create a local, sustainable economy here in this area."

This is the stuff that dreams are made of. Appalachian Sustainable Development now has an office in Abingdon, a packing house (for organic local foods) in Duffield, and a sustainable wood processing center in Castlewood. It has created jobs, opened farmer's markets, and even begun creating "outdoor classrooms" at elementary schools. What I'm saying is, if they can do it, so can I, and so can you!

- Lets get to work

120 Acres?!?!?

I spent much of Today at the Appalachian Sustainable Development office in downtown Abingdon. I was researching carbon markets and sustainable forestry certifications. This is the main research component of my internship, with the ultimate goal of getting the forestry operations certified so we can get carbon credits for them.

There are two main certification systems that allow a firm to claim that their wood is "sustainable." The Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) was designed by the wood and paper products industry, is the most popular system in the U.S. and seems to be only marginally better than nothing. For example, there's this little quote:

"Average size of clearcut harvest areas does not exceed 120 acres, except when necessary to respond to forest health emergencies or other natural catastrophes."

120 Acres?!!? Average?!! Except??

I took a few minutes to compose myself after reading this amazing example of greenwashing, and then took heart that although SFI is the most popular standard in the US, it is not generally accepted as "green" by anyone reputable. From "LEED," the green building standard that stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, to environmental groups like the National Wildlife Federation, most legitimate environmental organizations do not consider SFI to be a true standard for sustainability.

Instead, these organizations and many others use the Forest Stewardship Council, or FSC, standard. FSC was designed by environmental organizations and is generally considered to be the greener of the two standards. However, not everyone agrees with FSC. When I mentioned to Chad the Horse Logger the other day that part of my internship was to get FSC certification, for Sustainable Woods, he told me that he didn't think it went far enough because it allowed for some clearcutting.

I've just started my research, so I don't know the extent to which FSC allows for clearcutting. I only hope its less than 120 acres...

-Peace and Plants

Andon

Sources:
Sustainable Forestry Initiative: www.sfiprogram.org/
SFI vs FSC (pdf): www.yale.edu/forestcertification/pdfs/auditprograms.pdf

Quality Control

We've been having some quality problems as of late*, so I spent all day today going through every piece of flooring in an order to look for defects. Thankfully I did not do this alone. Allow me to introduce a couple of my co-workers:

Kathlyn's job is to make the business operations of this non-profit more, well, profitable. This includes both Sustainable Woods and ASD's agricultural operations. My main boss, she is a bright-eyed, energetic woman whose attempts to avoid cursing can be extremely amusing.

Nick takes care of sales for sustainable woods, and seems like he might be more at home on a college campus than a sales seminar. He knows a lot about sustainable wood products, and he has to: his job is to convince people to buy our products rather than, say, bamboo flooring. From the fact that bamboo is invasive in the US to the fact that its disappearing in China, the reasons to go with a local, sustainably harvested floor are many, and Nick's job is to explain them all.

-Peace and (Native) Plants





*This post was written in December 2008. Sustainable Woods has since switched their milling contract and resolved the quality issues described here.