DRAFTWOOD:
A TRULY CARBON POSITIVE APPROACH
Most people don’t know what “green” in a consumer
sense really is, because consumers are barraged with advertising
that confuses everyone. But I would like to use any forum available
to educate consumers about making awesome choices to support the
environment. This is my life’s work. I will share with the
reader, some of the journey to this point in time. I bet you get
a kick out of reading about it. Certainly something to talk about – those
Organic Horse Loggers up in the mountains.
I work with a small “treeroots” organization that promotes “restorative
forestry”, Healing
Harvest Forest Foundation.
We call it “restorative” because we know the quality
of the forest products produced conventionally on a per tree and
log basis is declining. So we don’t think we can sustain a
decline. We think that in order for any natural resource management
or extraction to be sustainable it must be restorative. You may ask:
Restorative to what? Restored to a forest that is as similar to a
virgin forest of North America as possible. “Restorative Forestry” imitates
nature and only takes the worst trees first and allows the best trees
to remain to grow as large, old and profitable as possible. This
is a long term approach that is gaining acceptance equal to the understanding
of it by the public, particularly environmentally aware consumers.
Our approach is one of being “carbon positive” in our
actions of addressing human needs for forest products. This means
we use a power source that doesn’t burn fossil fuels which
contribute to global warming, but instead process, digest and convert
captured solar energy in the form of hay and grain into a biological
power source of working animals. We log with horses, mules and oxen,
animal power. That’s the anthropological culture side which
supports the silvicultural approach. Our methods leave the biggest,
best and healthy trees in the forest which stores more carbon in
their large bodies and yet increases carbon sequestration buy promoting
some new growth to replace the lesser and declining trees that are
harvested. This method and group are the most “green” producers
in the country - maybe the planet.
The most cool thing about it, is that it cost exactly the same as
any other log home, no premium extra charge for being “GREEN”!
Now - what you may do to be a part of this is to visit our web site
and read more about what we are doing. The gist is to buy a DRAFTWOOD
Turman Log Home, made exclusively from our logs, harvested using
restorative forestry principles….and we will get a sales commission
on the home. This money will be used to start a combination endowment
- self insurance fund for the ground level workers. This is what
we call “ecological capitalism”, where the people that
do the best job taking care of the eco-system, make more money for
their work. This could be one of the most revolutionary consumer
driven changes in the world. What we want and need from every reader
is to spread the word about this project, invite them to contact
us about it and help us sell a home made from our logs.
*Our industry has challenged us to back up the notion that people
really care about the environment so anyone paying any attention
that really cares about the environment may help. Building starts
are down, everyone is worried about the future, but someone out there
is planning to build that dream vacation log home or any kind of
home….we may enhance the dream to actually having the home
owner come to the forest and see the logs harvested if they want
to.
Go to Turmanloghomes.com and tell them you want a DRAFTWOOD Log
Home…it is as green as the real world gets…..They can
build state of the art, timber frame or log homes, your design or
they will design for you.
Thanks for taking the time to read this and spread the word…
Jason Rutledge – rutledge@swva.net
* Industry means the existing manufacturers who have never before
considered the sustainable question about their products. Most of
their other wood comes from bad practices, like Clear Cutting and
High Grading. They don’t think enough people care to matter…let’s
prove them wrong and do what is right for the environment. Or maybe
the do care and want to do things differently if possible, here is
our chance…either way it is a win/win.
Thanks again!
