Surfing, Trees and Vancouver Island

As some of you know, my older brother, Jeremy Sherwin, is a professional surfer. Check out this spread from his sponsor REEF on and about surfing Vancouver Island, the NW logging industry and sustainability. I hope I can make it up to surf Tolfino before I head back to the city of San Francisco.

CLICK HERE TO CHECK IT OUT (Select Go To: PAGE 25)

As I flew over to Portland last month in a Cessna I saw many patches of logged terrain. Yesterday I was looking at the business section of the Seattle Times attempting to gain some insight into the stock markets. (ha!) I was drawn immediately to the price list for commodities, of which includes lumber. The World Bank estimates that forest products are a $270-billion-a-year business and the worldwide appetite for everything from paper to building materials shows no sign of slowing. Global wood consumption is expected to rise by at least 20 percent by 2010 and by over 50 percent in 2050, according to the Resource Conservation Alliance.

Here are some images I took last month of land that has been cleared. Most of the wood pulled from this region are Douglass Firs which are prized for their strength in construction as well as a common Christmas tree. Here are some images from the plane of cleared Doug-Firs and a small paper mill outside of Seattle. Look at all those wood chips!!!