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FORESTRY CORNER

HELSINKI — Preliminary research pres-
ented to a Club of Rome conference here, and
described as one of the most important
pieces of forestry research in years, has
portrayed acid rain as a time bomb that
takes about 20 years to go off, but once it
does the effect is devastating.

Paradoxically, during the early period,
pollution from carbon dioxide and nitrogen
dioxide encourages the growth of trees so
that early effects of acid rain are masked, or
at least rendered ambivalent.

The research is based on a 30-year collec-
tion of pine needles that Professor Taisto
Raunimaa of Helsinki University’s physics
department says is unique in the-world.

Chemical analysis of the needles and
computer projections show that it takes a
long time before acid rain cuts the growth of
trees, but when it does, the results are
staggering. Moreover, the projections indi-
cate that cutbacks in growth will continue
even if acid rain is abated.

“Tt’s like water in a tube,” Prof. Raunem-
maa said in an interview. “The longer the
tube, the longer it takes the water to run out
once you shut it off at the source.”

In a companion paper presented to the
conference, Dr. Thomas Brydges of the
Ontario Environment Ministry’s acid rain
program said that people have to start
thinking of forests as non-renewable resour-
ces if present practices continue.

“By the year 2000, world demand
will be dangerously close to world
supplies under conditions of ideal dis-
tribution,” he said. “The renewable
| supplies will not be able to meet total
| demand ... unless new approaches to
forestry are adopted ona broad scale.”

In an interview, Dr. Brydges added:
“People like to think of forests as renewable
so that whatever mistakes we make we'll

necessarily so.”

In his paper, he said the demand of
growing populations, the cutting of trees for
fuel wood and to create farmland, air
pollution, the lack of reforestation and the
need to set forests aside for environmental
reasons such as the protection of water
supplies all threaten the world’s forests.

“Tt appears that the current abundance of
global forests are operating as non-
renewable resources.”

In another paper, Dr. Norman Myers said
acid rain damage in West Germany is so bad
that timber losses amount to $800-million a
year.

“The damage is affecting one-third of the
nation’s forests with three-quarters of fir
trees showing injury and four out of 10
spruce trees, which account for about two-
fifths, of the forests, showing injury.”

The damage in Czechoslovakia and
Poland may even be worse.

Prof. Raunemaa told the conference that
analysis of tree rings showed that the
growth rate of trees in Finland had

‘increased by about 30 per cent since the
beginning of, the century, with the most
rapid rate of increase occurring after 1940.

“The increase is attributed to an increase
in global carbon dioxide and in nitrogen
deposition, other’ factors being negligible,”

- he said.

Acid rain presumably helps this process
in its early stages because “‘the acidic
deposition accelerates the leaching pro-
cesses in the soil, which at first results in
increased nutrient availability.” This is a

always be able to recover. but that’s not —

0/Lumber Worker/Summer, 1984

presumption only, “since no clear-cut evi-
dence for growth change has been
obtained.”

However, after continued acid rain depos-
its, nutrients such as potassium, calcium
and magnesium ar leached out of the reach
of roots and aluminum, which is one of the
most common compounds in soil and in its
natural state is harmless, is dissolved and
becomes toxic.

It then attacks root systems, which leaves
trees less able to take up moisture and more
vulnerable to insects and drought. After

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| ACID RAIN DEVASTATES FORESTS

that happens, growth rates level off. The
projections of Prof. Raunemaa and his
research partner, Professor Pertti Hari, also
of Helsinki University, show that in most
cases they then plunge precipitously.

If the time lag is 20 or 30 years, and Prof.
Raunemaa is betting that it will be at least
20 years, the plunge takes the growth rate
far below what it was at the turn of the
century, “Maximum growth occurs around
1990,” Prof. Raunemaa told the conference,
“followed by a short decline over about one
decade.”

His conclusions refer only to trees grow-
ing in Finland’s sandy soil, which although
extensive, are among the most sensitive
growth areas in the country.

The computer projections are bolstered by
chemical analysis of the pine needles, which
have been gathered annually from 1955.
The analysis shows that potassium levels
increased in the needles until about 1970,
and began dropping around 1975.

“Tt’s one of the most important pieces of
forestry research in the past five or six
years,” Dr. Brydges said. “The chemical
data confirms what we always suspected
would happen. It’s very hard to getthat kind
of historical evidence because usually
nobody saves things like old pine needles.”

Dr. Raunemaa said that painstaking
analysis was done on about 20 compounds
or elements in the needles, but the most
dramatic changes were in the levels of
potassium. =

In the end; acid rain may not kill the trees,
Dr. Brydges explained. The tree may die of
natural causes as from insects or disease,
but it may do so because acid rain has so
weakened its defences that it can resist no
longer.

In his paper, he stressed that insects and
parasites have 20 or 30 generations to adapt
to air pollution, while a tree cannot evolve at
anything near the same rate.

“One area of immediate concern in Can-
ada, is the die-back ‘of sugar maples in
Quebec and more recently in Ontario and
New Brunswick,” Dr. Brydges siad. “Field
studies being conducted this summer will
provide some insight into (the problem).” _

TORY LIKES
UNEMPLOYMENT

EDMONTON (CP) — Unemployment is
good for the economy because it controls
wage levels and increases productivity,
Alberta Manpower Minister Ernest Isley
says.

“From an economic point of view, if you
define full employment as everyone having
a job, that’s not a healthy thing,” Mr. Isley
told reporters yesterday after the release of
Statistics Canada unemployment figures.

The figures showed that Alberta’s jobless
rate dropped to 11.8 per cent in June from 12
jper cent in May.

Mr. Isley said he would not want Alberta
to return to the days when there was virtu-
ally no unemployment.

“I think that’s what caused many of the
problems that we’re facing today,” he said.
“We got into a situation where wages
started moving ahead too fast because of
virtually zero unemployment, where pro-
ductivity of workers wasn’t there to do a
good job.”

Mr. Isley said the current unemployment
situation is not healthy because the supply
of workers is drastically exceeding the
number of available jobs. However, he said
he would feel “comfortable” with a six per
cent unemployment rate.

“Six per cent wouldn’t be that bad espe-
cially with a participation rate of over 73 per
cent in the workforce,” he said.

The minister said a six per cent unemploy-
ment rate would result in a balanced econ-
omy with high levels of productivity and
upward mobility for workers.

He said during the boom years, when
unemployment was as low as 3.5 per cent,

“The skill level of the worker didn’t match —
the skill level required in many of the jobs
being filled,” he added.

Unemployment is also good from a
humanitarian point of view, because
“there’s a psychological value to success-
fully finding employment,” Mr. Isley said.

Mr. Isley expressed cautious 0
over the latest unemployment figures,
saying they could mark the beginning of a
positive trend.

“With all of the significant developments
that have been made in the past 12 months
in the oil and gas industry, I have to feel
optimistic.”

FROM THE
INTERNATIONAL

WILLAMINA, OREGON — IWA Local
8-1 defeated a decertification campaign
orchestrated by Willamina Lumber Com-
pany president John Hampton in an NLRB
supervised election here on June 20. The
vote was 142 to 104.

The depth of support for the IWA is
significant since there are only about 65
dues-paying members in the plant. Willa-
mina was the scene of a strike which began
on July 18, 1983 and ended with an uncondi-
tional return to work on October 12. In an
effort to save the bargaining unit, Local 3-1
signed an agreement earlier this year which
contained a number of concessions, one of
which was the removal of the Union Shop
provision. At the time, Local 3-1 Directing
Business Agent Art Zerkel was quoted as
saying: “We may have lost this battle but
we'll be back to fight again.”

dim Speaks, Region 3’s Assistant Director
of Organization, spent considerable time on
the Willamina campaign and said one of the
keys to its success was the fact that despite
the temporary setback of a less-than-suc-
cessful strike, “those employees knew they
needed continued union representation.”

“Jim (Speaks) did a great job for us,”
Zerkel said, “‘but it wouldn’t have been
possible without the support we received
from a lot of strong union members in the
plant who worked real hard to keep their
union together. I can’t single out any group
of people or any individuals for credit
because everybody contributed in one way
or another.” ~

Willamina managementreportedly pulled
out all the stops during their decertification
drive. In addition to “loveletters” and
leaflets, company vice-president Otto Laus-
chel spent the entire swing shift prior to the
election: campaigning against the IWA in
the mill.

“Several people asked him for guarantees
against wage cuts,” Zerkel said, “but he
admitted he couldn’t give them. So all that
he accomplished was to convince them that
they needed the protection of a union
contract.”

In a related development Zerkel said that
unfair labor practice charges against Willa-
mina Lumber for discharging 11 IWA
members during the strike for alleged picket
line “misconduct” are still pending. The
charges were dismissed by the regional
office of the NLRB but were returned from
Washington, D.C. “for further investiga-
tion.” The media had reported the dis-
missals but not the referral.

The victory at Willamina was the second
for the IWA this spring. In early May Local
3-180 easily defeated a decertification
attempt at the Industrial Forestry Associa-
tion tree nursery in Toledo, Washington.
That vote was 99 to 40. Like the Willamina
effort, the IFA decertification drive was also
company inspired and orchestrated.

Region 3 President Vernon ‘Red’ Russell
said the two recent victories are an indica-
tion of a “growing distrust of management
on the part of workers”. “It’s like Little Red
Riding Hood,” he said, “and managementis
the wolf. They have been sweet-talking
people and taking things away but always
keeping that slick smile on their face. Now
people are starting to see their teeth after so
many others have been eaten up.”

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