Built Ford tough

[Ron Wenrich]

Here's something I saw in the Northern Logger.

Ford has launched a series of advertorials - advertisements that are made to look like articles.  According to the Wood Promotion Network, these will be published in The Family Handyman.  The articles state that steel and concrete are superior building products to wood.  Ford has been touting these alternatives as "Ford Tough" in various applications ranging from framing to landscaping.

The Wood Promotion Network has contacted the magazine and is working to a fair solution.  A WPN spokesman says "We hope that Ford and unltimately The Family Handyman magazine will reverse the damage done by this misleading advertorial campaign and publish the facts about wood in a future edition".

[L. Wakefield]

   I know you are serious about this, and I agree. However- I haven't seen their articles and was theorizing what their point might be. I mean, they don't build cars or trucks out of wood. But they also don't use much concrete.. and less steel all the time. So what IS their point? :   lw

[woodmills1]

isnt the follow up that ford has already agreed to spend the money to try to undo the damage they did?

[Ron Wenrich]

Their point is that Ford is supposedly as tough as it gets.  Why they picked on the wood industry is unknown.  It could be that the Ford family is heavily invested in steel, and that is on the ropes.  

Ford does use plenty of wood.  Half of all the pallets used in this country go to auto production.  All those parts are palletized.  

A lot of cars are transported by rail.  There are 3200 wooden ties per mile of track.  Utilities are delivered on wooden poles.
About 18 per mile.

Ford may have been better off talking Ford tough and the toughness of loggers and the wood industry.  Instead it may alienate one of the largest industries in the country.  We will probably never find out if they have recanted.

[Jeff]

If anyone can get a scan of one of those "ads" I would very much like to see one.

Ford Motor Co, offered to be the transportation for the Capital Tree. They were turned down, I believe, because there was already had an offer from International, plus, Ford does not have it's own trucks so it would have had to involve another truck manufacture.

They also offered a token deal of displaying the ornaments (up to 5 ornaments, wow!) at thier dealerships but when asked if they could help us with the logistics of bringing together 5000 ornaments from 83 Michigan counties for shipping to D.C., they declined.

[Forester Frank]

In a move to reduce cost Georgia-Pacific has agreed to lease and use only FORD cars and trucks for use by its employees that drive company vehicles.

No more picking Dodge or Chevy over Ford. I wonder if the guys and gals at the corporate office know Ford's position?

Also, I wonder if Ford is trying to appease some environmental group to get them to back off on the cafe standards?

[Ron Scott]

Ford needs to look back at its History in developing the logging industry and its use of wood in its early vehicles. The "woody" station wagon was a show piece with its wood body. One sits on display at the Ford Sawmill, now a museum at the Ford Forestry Center at Alberta, Michigan, Ford's own logging community, now part of the Michigan Technological University Forest.

Henry Ford and his brother-in Law, Kingsford developed much of the early sawmill technology and procurement of forest lands in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

[marc]

Any one find one of those ads yet? I would like to see one

[Don P]

That brought up a memory,
Henry had the pallets for some parts made so that they became the floorboard of the Model T. Scrap wood was used by Kingsford for turning into charcoal.

[timberbeast]

I drive through Ford River every time I go to my land.  My dad told me that was where the wood from the U.P. was shipped to the Ford factory.  It's right on Lake Michigan just south of Escanaba.

[Ron Scott]

Ford spent a lot of time in the UP searching for quality woodlands and developing state of the art sawmills. Ford built the airborne gliders for Word War II at its large plant in Kingsford, Michigan, named after his brother-in-law Kingsford.

[Jeff]

The Kingsford High school mascot name is the "Flivvers"

Whats the connection?

http://www.popsci.com/space/01/10/01/lookingback1101/

[Ron Scott]

I'm not sure exactly, but named after an old ford car, the Model-T or Model A ? A Fliver is an inexpensive old automobile.

Contact the School or Ford's Historian in Dearborn, MI to be sure. He has a wealth of information on Ford's history.

Might be a good question for the school's superintendent to see if they know.

[Ron Scott]

Ford Apologizes, Changes Tune of Anti-Wood Ads

Ford has now expressed concern about its message in The Family Handyman Magazine after being contacted by The Wood Promotion Network (WPN) and affiliated members.

WPN announced that it had received an official apology from Ford, which agreed to work with the network to develop a third-part series of advertorials promoting the benefits of wood. The new series will be published in upcoming issues of The Family Handyman

They will also work on Ford's recent advertisement in National Geographic Magazine. The ad says that"income from eco-tourism offers an alternative to a destructive logging based economy" in South American rainforests.

[L. Wakefield]

   OK, granted that you make good points- but hopefully there will not be a wood lobby-based decision making process on the part of Ford that results in the pendulum swinging the other way entirely on the subject of timber harvesting in the rainforest. The ecology is markedly different than what we encounter here. I keep running into more info on it. The Boston Museum of Science has an exhibit that tries to portray the dynamics of the nutrient and decay cycle. Evidently the combination of high moisture and high temperature accelerates the decay process such that the layer of humus we have up here as a 'buffer'- allowing the time for new trees to come up- does not happen down there. Insects and micro-organisms move right in at an accelerated rate and harvest what in a more temperate climate would decay for years. It just -'goes away'- and there is no thick organic layer. They had cross-sections of soil to show their point. If they are correct on this, then management techniques in the tropical rainforest have to be different or indeed there is a potential for 'a destructive logging based economy'.

 I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. Propaganda on either side doesn't help. That biosphere is as rich as ours- but the dynamics are different. The lower the socio-economic index of an area, the more difficult it is to sell the idea of sustainable or renewable harvesting and stewardship practices. That requires a cash reserve or additional operating capital to invest in whatever strategies are required to enable the 'natural' cycle to continue to function in optimum form despite the harvest.

   You don't get too far fighting mother nature. She makes a better ally, and that requires understanding. I don't say I have it- I've only gotten as far as the hammocks of Florida- how incredibly beautiful is THAT?!- but that was enough to show me some major differences.    lw

[swampwhiteoak]

LW, you're right about tropical soils in general.  Most of the nutrients in these ecosystems is contained in the biomass, as opposed to the organic and inorganic soil like in the temperate and boreal forests.  This isn't always the case, though, much of the Pacific tropical forests' soil are volcanic and quite rich.

Native peoples in these areas practiced slash and burn agriculture, first with conventional crops.  After a year or two they would let the fields go fallow and manage the openings for fruit trees and other beneficial plants.  Eventually they would let it go and move on.  These practices are somewhat responsible for the diversity of the tropics today.

Tropical wood harvesting seldom results in deforestation per se.  There is usually a wide variety of size classes and many species, only a few of which have any commercial value.  The commercial trees are harvested and the loggers move on.  Logging does create the infrastructure for deforestation by the roads necessary to log the area.  After the area is logged, people might come in and attempt to farm large sections of land, which isn't productive for very long.  Fuel wood gathering may keep an area largely deforested as well. Large amounts of soil are lost and this all gets blamed on logging, when in fact it is a product of poverty, poor educational systems, little policing, and overpopulation.

Actually practicing sustainable forestry in the tropics is quite possible, but difficult.  Competing vegetation and a multitude of pests makes culturing high value trees very labor intensive.  Pollination and fruit dispersal may have irregular, and poorly understood, characteristics which might result in poor regeneration of selected species.  Couple all that with the fact that you might need to keep illegal loggers, fuelwood gatherers, and wannabe farmers from destroying your work. All this makes forestry in the tropics very difficult.

This isn't to say that once an area is deforested, it is lost forever (which is what Greenpeace, et al, would want you to believe).  Remove the cattle, farms, fuelwood gathering, ect., and a forest will return (as long as you have a seed source).  Plantations, both exotic and native, have also had success when planted on deforested tropical land.

According to many authorities on the subject, over 85% of the Brazilian rainforest is still intact, this reflects areas that have been logged and have regenerated.  Thus concludes my limited knowledge of tropical forestry.

In my opinion, Ford's ad in National Geographic should have said " ecotourism is an alternative to destructive farming and land management practices" since logging is only a small piece of the problem.

[CHARLIE]

Ahhhh yes, but logging in the Tropical Rainforest isn't all about trees. There is a diversity of life from insects to mammals and vegetation from ferns to vines that depend on the rainforest. Now don't get me wrong....I'm not a treesitter but when disturbing a forest, and that is what cutting timber does, more than trees should be put into the equation.  :P

[swampwhiteoak]

I agree, Charlie, but logging 1 or 2 trees per acre would most likely have a small effect on the overall ecology of the stand.  The real change comes when the area is converted to another land use.  My major problem with the way these problems are portrayed is that logging is always blamed, as if nothing else contributes.

One of these days, when I get rich :D, I'm gonna have to do some of that ecotourism in the Amazon.  Sounds like a lot of fun.
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCommentary.asp?page=\Commentary\archive\200111\COM20011129a.html

[Ron Wenrich]

I once had a guy call me up and asked if I could cruise timber from an airplane.  Seems several investors were looking at 1/2 million acres of tropical wood in Africa.  

I told him I couldn't even identify the trees let alone get a volume and value estimate from the air.

His next question was how long would it take to log it.  My response was that he could put in a mill, and log it forever.

Not good enough.  He wanted to know if it could be logged in 3 months.

Seems that investors buy up large parcels, then log everything they can, and leave.  The adjoining tracts had already been logged.

Another Internet conversation involved spiking trees to prevent timber theft in Indonesia.  Spiking was being considered on national parks since timber theft was so high.  These were organized thieves.  They hired locals to steal the trees, and they would truck them away.  Also, bribe money paid to officials to keep the timber barons out of jail.

Another Internet conversation involved the managing of trees in Mexico.  It doesn't happen since the drug lords cut all the trees and keep the people in poverty.  It keeps them under their feet.

The problem isn't necessarily corporate.  The problem is money and power.  We can't even begin to comprehend the political problems involved, let alone think about correcting them.

[TxLogger]

I seem to recall an article in the most recent Texas Logging Council magazine that explains that  Ford has donated several million dollars to several environmental groups, some of which border on being eco-terrorists and are definitely anti-logging anything. I know that in Ford's vast holdings this money is seen as a small charitable donation to help the environment.  Looks good on the surface, unless your the guy trying to make a living in the woods.  While some of these groups have good intentions they continue a campaign of mis-information to the general public relating to cutting timber & timber lands.  Most full time loggers that I know are very concerned about Sustainable Forestry--we all want good timber to cut now & for future generations, thats our business.  These groups want no trees cut anywhere & their idea of forest management is just to leave it alone.  As you can see we're on diametrically opposed sides of this.  I not sure which side Ford is on, but their actions based on this & the above information have me thinking GMC or Dodge for my next vehicles.

Tom

[John_Boisselier]

I'd  say that Ford is endangering a lot of their own land holdings by supporting (however peripherally) potential eco-terrorists.  What we've probably got is a bunch of professional "well" educated and thoroughly propagandized liberal charitable organization bureaucrats who are considered to be qualified to make politically correct decisions for the Ford Foundation finances.  They probably have a degree in giving away other peoples money.  I wonder if I'll ever have so much money to give away that I 'd have to hire someone with no sense for big bucks to do it for me.  Just think how many loggers drive Ford trucks.  I agree with the posting about the eco-vacations sounding like a lot of fun as long as they don't try to get me to spike any trees (I'd rather spike their tires).  I heard a public radio broadcast about a whole lot of these trips that actually sound like the scientists involved might actually be interested in helping to develop sustainable whatever with a knowledge base rather than just some whacko theory to shut down whatever that eco-nut happens to be opposed to.  The only problem with these very expensive trips is that I'm sure that a good portion of the finances thereby engendered will go to something to which I would be totally opposed.  If these organizations would ever do something useful like actually teach and help financially and practically the people in any truly endangered areas to practice something sustainable and realistic to support themselves then I would be much more interested in what they have to say.  Most eco-organizations seem to have membership and staff who are very well paid or are wealthy (probably from some environment raping enterprises) and many are terrific consumers, so their grasp on practical making a living reality suffers some in my opinion.  Where is the reality or the science in organizations that get freon banned in the US because it might destroy the ozone layer several miles up in the atmosphere when the government manuals on the subject say that freon is so heavy that it will flow down into low areas and suffocate you if you aren't careful.   It's like making bowling balls float.  If Ford were to think about the contrast between an iron mining site and a properly logged woods, it would probably thing twice about promoting steel as well as knocking logging at the same time.  Enough rant, lets just go out and do the best jobs in our reality that we can.  John

[Ron Scott]

Ford  contributed and transported the Nation's Capital Bicentennial Christmas Tree in 1976 from the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia to Washington DC with a shiny new green Ford tractor and trailer with a senior driver in full uniform.

That was even during the Monongahela NF's clearcutting controversy where there was some protest against cutting the tree. 3 others were planted in its place though.

[woodmills1]

anyone see the back pedling back page ford ad of the wll street journal today? :P

[Ron Scott]

Yes, a Flivver is an old broken down car as I was told in Kingsford, Michigan this past week.