Appalachia--Science in the Public Interest

Fall 1997 Number 53

Appalachian Sustainable Forest Center

New Project: Non-Timber Forest Products. ASPI wants to investigate environmentally benign non-timber forest products and is thus seeking funding to explore Virtually Wild Ginseng (see Technical Paper #38) and Native Vermiculture.
Appalachians are panicked by the procession of logging trucks and unsustainable logging practices, the advent of chip mills, mountaintop removal in certain areas, and the ravages of unplanned development. How can we preserve our forest treasure and still offer a livelihood to our people? Some are tempted to describe every profitable forest product but on second thought need to prefer to favor forest products that are good for both environment and pocketbook. Several years ago the great Cherokee medicine person Hawk Littlejohn's refused to assist us in cutting a videotape on Appalachian herbals. He did not fault our intentions, only the inevitable consequences. Viewers with a little knowledge and less ethics would simply decimate the native herbal stock. So we are concentrating on forest products that can be enhanced, protected, sustainably harvested, and easily propagated. Let's establish clear criteria and encourage existing alternative forest product groups such as the Boone Ginseng Cooperative.

Shorts

ASPI as well as the Rockcastle River Rebirth and the Rockcastle County Judge executive were recognized as "Kentucky Watershed Showcase Site" award. Frank Elson, president of the Kentucky Waterways Alliance says he is using this cooperation among regional and local environmental groups with county government as a model so that others will "emulate the successes seen on the Rockcastle River." ASPI's work includes both the annual River Day and the series of talks on forested watersheds given to over 15,000 school children in the past three years.

Than Hitt of the Appalachian Restoration Campaign (ARC) has undertaken an unprecedented ecological assessment of the Central Appalachian forest as a project of Heartwood. If you wish to assist contact him at P.O. BOX 5541 Athens, OH 45701 E-Mail: appalachian@envirolink.org

Demonstration Centers

Construction. During the summer we have completed three projects: our crew rebuilt the retaining wall on the caretaker's house at the Sand Hill Community Land Trust; we have extended the eaves and reroofed the cordwood building at the Livingston property; and we have built a 400- square foot library annex onto the main office building at Mount Vernon. The last of these projects frees up space for holding moderate sized meetings at the office and gives those who would like to study library materials a chance to get away from the hustle of office work.

Small Town Garden Demonstration. We at ASPI are convinced of the value of demonstration. We tore up half the blacktop of the parking area and turned it into 15 raised beds for garden produce along with another in front of our greenhouse. The production has baffled the neighbors, nearby public grade school parents and students, and led to innumerable comments. The plots as of early September have produced over 500 pounds of garden vegetables (tomatoes, kohlrabi, mustard, beans, peas, cabbage, corn, onions, broccoli, beets, radishes, Swiss Chard, cucumbers, carrots, collards, pumpkins, hot peppers, lettuce, sweet peppers, endive) in the order of production. Peanuts, Jerusalem artichokes and celery are growing but not yet producing. Certain pests did do damage to the squash, cantaloupes and pole beans. The fall garden has been hurt by dry weather but we hope that turnips, kale, endive, mustard, and lettuce will weather the season -- for autumn is normally a big producer. The marigolds also helped ward off veggie-loving critters and they added a touch of beauty as well.

Publications & Outreach

The 21st Simple Lifestyle Calendar will be rolling off the presses by the time you receive this newsletter (order form included). This is on the Animals of Appalachia. The calendar celebrates these wild and domestic companions who make life so much more pleasant in our region. We hope buyers will again enjoy the Warren Brunner black- and- white photographs. Mark Spencer has added interesting reminders for each day along with notices of holidays and events throughout the year. The price is the same as for the last eight years, so you have a bargain.

Earth Healing, our environmental program has now moved from monthly to a weekly spot that follows a favorite Bluegrass music program on WOBZ London Channel 9. The station is increasing its viewing area to 10 counties and the programs are also being made available to share with other stations. We have reached out to interview people in other places - Long Branch Environmental Education Center's new "Bio-shelter" in North Carolina, the Farm's "Cob" House and Sue and Adam Turtle editors of the Temperate Bamboo Quarterly in Tennessee, Gene Wilhelm on western Pennsylvania nature conservancy lands, volunteers and staff at the West Virginia Mountain Institute on its 25th anniversary, and Anthony Flaccavento and the solar wood kiln in Virginia.

Return to Peru. Mark Schimmoeller is again busily assembling his team that will return to the highlands of Peru this fall to instruct residents in building solar food cookers. The Kentucky Jesuit Mission has sponsored his trip and that of Joshua Bills. Andy McDonald who was on the 1994 team is rejoining through other funding. We would encourage those wishing to donate for materials and incidental costs to send it to ASPI Outreach project. We are attempting to spin this project off and are encouraging and giving advice to a new- formed struggling non- profit founded by Michael Fortan and Greg Harmeyer called "Empowering Others." Hopefully our outreach will be part of their program in 1998. The criteria for taking overseas interns continues to be: knowledge of the native language, actual use of the appropriate technology being taught, willingness to modify design through input of the people, and invitation by groups within the host country.

Resource Assessment Service

Environmental Resource Assessments is a book that is nearing completion. Since it is encyclopedic in nature (over 200,000 words) this work is being placed on CD- ROM and we hope that it will be available by the end of the year. We would like to thank a number of people especially editors Mary Davis and David Cole as well as those reviewing specific sections: Greg Williams, Ernie Muhly, Phil Stern, Jack Kieffer, Danielle Schrader-Frechette, Joshua Bills, Gene Wilhelm, and Paul Kalisz. Al Fritsch calls this a massive undertaking that is still not finished but has involved a major portion of time for over a year. A good part of August was taken up by Al and Joshua Bills documenting success stories in the East, South and Midwest. We add a special thanks to Jesuit professor of photography at Creighton University, Mike Flecky, for both his work here at ASPI and for gathering examples from the far reaches of the Midwest. Also a note to Andrew Stockinger, a 1996 intern and UK student who collected some data as well. Now that it is moving to its final stage we can return to performing the backlog of assessments in the East and Midwest.

ASPI Home Page:
www.a-spi.org
Once you arrive at the ASPI homepage, click on any of the highlighted text for further information, and scroll to the photographs with text section for all ASPI related programs. Also, be sure to check out the interesting environmental homepage links by clicking on their banners at the top right of our page. Enjoy!

NON-TIMBER FOREST PRODUCTS: AN ECOLOGICAL PLEDGE

KNOWLEDGE - I WILL BE A CHAMPION OF A HEALTHY DIVERSE FOREST AND RESOLVE TO KNOW THE MULTITUDE OF PLANTS THAT COMPOSE THE UNDERSTORY OF OUR FORESTLANDS.

COMMONS - I AFFIRM THE COMMONS OF ALL FORESTLANDS AND THE MATERIALS THAT GROW THEREIN. WE ARE STEWARDS OF THE LANDS UNDER OUR CONTROL AND NOT ABSOLUTE ARBITERS OF PARTICULAR FOREST PRACTICE. THUS WE ARE ACCOUNTABLE TO THE LAWS AND REGULATIONS THAT WILL PRESERVE THIS FORESTLAND FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS.

VALUE - I BELIEVE THAT PLANTS AND NON- TIMBER PRODUCTS OF OUR FOREST HAVE AN INTRINSIC VALUE APART FROM CURRENT OR FUTURE ECONOMIC USES. THEIR PRESENCE AND BIODIVERSITY IS A RICHNESS IN ITSELF WORTH ESPOUSING AND PRESERVING.

RESPECT - I RESPECT THE PRIVATE OWNERSHIP HABITS AND BOUNDARIES OF OTHER FORESTLAND PROPERTY HOLDERS AND WILL NOT TRESPASS OR REMOVE PLANTS FROM THESE LANDS WITHOUT THEIR PERMISSION.

PRUDENT REVELATION - I REFRAIN FROM TELLING OTHERS ABOUT ANY SPECIES THAT COULD BE OF ECONOMIC VALUE UNLESS I AM CERTAIN THE PERSON WILL NOT HARVEST OR ENCOURAGE OTHERS TO HARVEST THE PLANT IN AN UNSUSTAINABLE MANNER. I RECOGNIZE THE PROPENSITY OF MANY PEOPLE TO BE IMPRUDENT IN THEIR RELATION TO FOREST PRODUCTS.

PROTECTION - I WILL NOT INTRODUCE EXOTIC SPECIES INTO THE FOREST THAT MAY THREATEN THE NATIVE ECOSYSTEM, NOR WILL I ENGAGE OR ALLOW EXCESSIVE UNSUSTAINABLE TIMBER HARVESTING OF THE FORESTLANDS UNDER MY CONTROL. FURTHERMORE, I WON’T INTRODUCE RELATED SPECIES THAT MAY INFECT THE GENETIC POOL OF THE NATIVE SPECIES PRESENT.

PRESERVATION - I WILL NOT REMOVE OR ENCOURAGE OTHERS TO REMOVE PLANTS THAT ARE RARE, ENDANGERED OR THREATENED SPECIES, OR THAT NEED TO BE PROTECTED.

ENHANCEMENT - IF PHYSICALLY ABLE, I PLEDGE TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF MY NEIGHBORING OR PRIVATE WOODLANDS BY CAREFUL FOREST MANAGEMENT THAT INCLUDES REMOVING EXOTIC SPECIES THAT THREATEN THE BIODIVERSITY OF THE FOREST UNDERSTORY. MAY OTHERS DO THE SAME.

GREEN ECONOMICS - I PLEDGE TO FAVOR SPEAKING ABOUT ECONOMICALLY VIABLE NON-TIMBER FOREST PRODUCTS THAT WILL, IN TURN, DEMAND A HEALTHY FOREST AS A CANOPY AND THUS A NECESSARY COVER FOR THE CROP TO BE SUCCESSFULLY HARVESTED.

SUSTAINABLE HARVEST - I WILL ONLY TAKE FROM THE FOREST FOR ECONOMIC OR OTHER REASONS THOSE AMOUNTS AND IN A MANNER THAT WILL ALLOW THE PLANT TO REPRODUCE AND THRIVE IN THE FOREST.

Hemp Considerations

BY AL FRITSCH AND PAUL KALISZ

ASPI is never afraid to consider both sides of controversial issues. So it is in the case of industrial hemp - an illegal crop that has some strong points, and, like all things of this world, some weak points as well. The easiest way out of this controversy would be to not contest the current ban on production of industrial hemp. But this would be an unacceptable cop-out, given the rate at which our native forests and other ecosystems are being degraded in the interest of annually producing millions of tons of pulp to be made into paper products.
Pro-hemp people can taut a host of advantages of their wonder-crop:
- it makes a rugged fiber that may be used for rope and twine:
- the fiber can be worked into an ultra-soft and durable cloth for shirts, trousers, and dresses;
- hemp out-produces trees to the extent that, calculated on a yearly basis, as much pulp may be obtained from one acre of hemp as from 4 or 5 acres of trees;
- the oil from hemp seed and pressed oil cakes have exceptional nutritional value & versatility;
- industrial hemp is non-toxic and non-psycho-active, having only 0.09% THC compared to the 7-10% found in drug-quality marijuana.
Furthermore, the rationale for curbing the production of industrial hemp during the 1930s was, at best, spurious and apparently initiated by special interests in forest plantations or in the production of synthetic alternatives to hemp fiber. This led to passage of a 1937 tax that made hemp taxable as a drug, thus removing the economic incentive to grow hemp without actually outlawing the crop. In fact one of us (AF) remembers the lifting of the tax during WWII when international sources of hemp were controlled by the Japanese.
Given that there are social and ecological advantages to hemp production, is it a panacea of hope for the tens of thousands of small tobacco farmers faced with losing their source of income? Hardly.

Value Once hemp is widely cultivated and becomes less of a novelty, the per acre per year profitability of this fiber crop will likely be closer to that of corn than to that of tobacco. A family economy cannot be sustained by cultivating 2 to 5 acres of corn!

Capital Intensity The major hemp proponents are large farmers with hundreds of cleared acres ready for production. Heavy machinery and chemicals will almost surely be used on this land to replace the slaves and low-paid labor associated with hemp's earlier production in Kentucky. This means that hemp production will require big up-front investments affordable only by those with abundant land and capital.

Freezing Out The Little Guy Industrial hemp production is a golden opportunity for large landholders to make a killing with a product with good market prospects, while small farmers go broke. The glory of the tobacco cooperative combined with government regulations was that it guaranteed that even the little guy had a market share. Lack of capital and land will keep the small farmer from competing in the hemp market. Unless strict regulations are enacted prior to legalization of hemp production, the pro-hemp campaign plays into the hands of the fat cats.

ASPI Home Page

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