"Forests Are the Future"
By W. Henson Moore
President & CEO, American Forest & Paper Association
Trees are the source of infinite means in our daily lives. They provide
shelter for wildlife, aesthetics for the eye, oxygen for the air, comfort
for the mind -- and renewable material for the thousands of products
Americans use daily.
If you were to close your eyes for a moment and reflect on the many ways
paper and wood influence your life, you probably would be surprised. Did
you read the paper today, or a book or a magazine? Did you wash your face
or brush your teeth? Did you sit down in a chair at a table or a desk? Did
you drink a cup of coffee or pour a bowl of cereal? Read a letter? Write
one?
While you may have done all of those things before 9:00 in the morning, you
probably took each of them for granted. We all do -- everyday.
But now close your eyes for a moment and imagine your world without books or
letters or pictures or paintings. Think about life without pencils or paper
or wooden floors and wooden doors. No newspapers, or shoeboxes, or egg
cartons. No menus, no music, no park benches and picnic tables. No
photographs, no coffee cups, no postcards or packages. No classrooms, or
living rooms, or bedrooms, or bathrooms - and no toilet paper.
Without forest products, your children have no boxes for their crayons and
cough medicines, Band-Aids or baseballs. They have no history books, no maps,
no fine paintings or piano lessons. No basketball games or gymnasiums, no
bleachers or baseball bats. No cafeterias or chocolate milk, no Christmas
trees or comic books.
Indeed, we all take our forest products for granted because they are so
readily available and are such an integrated part of our lives. But if they
were to disappear, the life we know would change forever.
Thanks to responsible forest practices like protecting water and wildlife
when timber is harvested and replanting trees, forests and wood products
will be part of our future.
Each year, the third week of October is designated as National Forest
Products Week (NFPW). Set aside by Congress in 1960, NFPW is a time to
appreciate and recognize all the ways wood products touch our lives. Think
about it. How many times has a tree touched your life today?
