Sustainable Forestry and Wood Products

Beautiful Wood

from Beautiful Woods

Environmentally Friendly Hardwood Building Products

   SW - Brochure -final - pdf.pdf

Sustainable Woods Hardwood Flooring Preparation & Care Manual

SW - Caring for your Flooring - Final - pdf.pdf

• custom cabinets
• trim and molding
• hardwood flooring
• wainscoting
• paneling
• finished lumber for your building needs

Also, sold directly from our Sustainable Woods Processing Center, the following products are available:

• kiln-dried lumber
• green lumber
• cants for pallets, crossties, etc.
• firewood (slabs)
• sawdust
• timber bridges

When you purchase Sustainable Woods™ from Appalachian Sustainable Development, you know that your wood comes from well-managed forests. We guarantee it!

We source our wood from forests managed and harvested under a rigorous set of standards designed to ensure long-term biodiversity conservation, water protection, and timber production.

With the future of our local forests in mind, we selectively harvest and process a wide variety of hardwood species and grades, including both well-known and under-utilized species.

SUPPORT THE LOCAL ECONOMY

Sustainable Woods™ lumber comes from private forest lands within the Central Appalachian region of Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee. Your purchase provides income to small private landowners, local loggers, and sawyers. Take this local support one step further by contracting with an area woodworker to produce a beautiful finished product.

The logs are processed into quality kiln-dried lumber at our Sustainable Woods Processing Center in Russell County, Virginia, using solar power and wood waste heat - little need for fossil fuels!

Now you can obtain quality Appalachian hardwood lumber that:

• Supports sustainable forest management
• Benefits the local economy
• Provides you a quality product at a reasonable price

Contact us for a current list of prices and species.

OUR FACILITY

Our Sustainable Woods Primary Processing Center (SWPC) in Castlewood, Russell County, Virginia, was constructed in 2001. The SWPC purchases logs exclusively from sustainably managed forests and converts them into rough, kiln-dried lumber, which we make available to local woodworkers and entrepreneurs.

A view of our facility from the Russell County Fairgrounds

OUR MARKET PARTNERS

Our Sustainable Woods Processing Center currently provides rough green and kiln-dried lumber. To obtain more finished wood products, we encourage you to contact our market partners. But remember:

ASK THAT YOUR WOOD PRODUCTS BE MADE FROM Sustainable Woods™ LUMBER!

Otherwise, do you know where your wood comes from?

HOW YOUR PURCHASE INFLUENCES SUSTAINABLE FORESTRY

All forests are not alike. Some wood comes from forests that are managed well, and some wood doesn't.

Since the first wave of major logging and land clearing in the Appalachians in the late 1800s and early 1900s, our Appalachian forests have made a dramatic recovery in terms of acreage and volume. However, regular high-grading and diameter-limit cutting of these second-generation forests over the past 80 years have severely affected the quality of the remaining timber in these forests. In fact, this degradation is often used to justify the use of clearcutting as a way to "start over again".

We at ASD take a different approach, applying a "worst first" philosophy that takes into account the past history of the forest stand, its current condition, and the ecological and financial characteristics of the tree species in the stand. This approach often includes removing a high proportion of lower grade trees and less valuable species as a first step in "restoring" the forest to a productive mix of top-grade, high- value tree species.

Therefore, while we do produce clear top-grade lumber of high-value species such as oak, sugar maple, ash, poplar, and cherry, we also produce significant volumes of lower-grade lumber of these same species, as well as both top-grade and lower-grade lumber of lesser known and under-utilized species such as hickory, beech, black gum, red maple, etc.

Of course, buying and using lower-grade lumber and lesser-used species does not in itself guarantee that you are helping the forest. It is important to know that this wood is coming from a well-managed forests, such as those managed under ASD's Standards. In other words, seeking ãsource-certifiedä lumber is a critical aspect of "green" purchasing.

What You Can Do
So what can you as a user and consumer of wood products do to promote sustainable forestry in our region?

• USE lesser-known species for your next wood product purchase
• USE "character-marked" lumber in your next project or product
• BUY Sustainable Woods lumber, rough and kiln-dried, direct from our facility in Castlewood, Virginia.
• ASK for our Sustainable Woods lumber when you purchase your wood products from any of our market partners or other local wood product manufacturers in the Appalachian region. Tell them how important better forest management is to you and to our forests.
• LEARN more about our program and sustainable forest management. Call 276-623-1121.

Sustainable Woods Certification
 

More and more people are becoming interested in where their wood comes from. They want to know that the harvest of the wood they use to build their house or new deck has not contributed to soil erosion or water pollution, to the destruction of important wildlife habitat, or to deforestation and the conversion of forests to parking lots and sub-divisions. The concerned personâs environmental ethic is extending beyond concerns over endangered species in far-off tropical rainforests to include concerns over how his or her daily activities affect the surrounding land and community. These people want to certify that their purchases are "green".

By developing a rigorous set of standards, we at ASD have created a way to hold ourselves accountable to the landowners we work with, to the woodworkers who buy our lumber, and to the general public who purchase the products made from our lumber. From defining how large of a streamside buffer to leave in a timber harvest, to checking every parcel of land for the possibility of threatened or endangered species, not only the landowner benefits, but society as well. By purchasing our "source-certified" Sustainable Woods™ lumber, wood product manufacturers and the consuming public contribute to the future of this region's forestland.

FOREST STEWARDSHIP COUNCIL CERTIFICATION
ASD, by developing and enforcing it's own set of standards, currently "self-certifies" the forests we manage and our Sustainable Woods™ lumber. In the near future, however, we plan to seek "third-party"certification through the Forest Stewardship Council certification system. Just like an independent auditor audits our organization's financial books each year, FSC certification will independently verify the integrity of our practices and our product claims.

The Forest Stewardship Council is an independent, non-profit organization created in the early 1990s, with the goal to encourage better forest management that balances environmental, economic, and social interests. The FSC has established itself as the leader in setting standards for forest and forest product certification worldwide. Important retailers such as Lowe's and Home Depot, among others, have committed to the FSC system

FSC certification involves two components. "Forest Certification" applies FSC standards of responsible forestry to a piece of land. "Chain-of-Custody Certification" ensures that there is a tracking system of wood products that carry the FSC label from the forest to the consumer. A "certifier," which is an independent third party that the FSC accredits to apply its standards, conducts both types of certifications.

FSC VERSUS OTHER CERTIFICATION SYSTEMS
Both in the U.S. and internationally, there are a number of competing forest certification systems. We support and intend to participate in the FSC system for the following reasons:
- FSC has a balanced membership of environmental, social, and economic interests
- FSC has the highest standards for environmental and social responsibility
- FSC's system is independent, requiring third-party audits
- FSC has "chain-of-custody" system
- FSC is worldwide

For more information on the FSC, please visit www.fscus.org, or www.certifiedwood.org.