Salvaged/Industrial Forestry

Logs can be salvaged from conventional logging operations that concentrate on certain commercially valuable tree species while ignoring or attempting to eliminate others. On the West coast of the U.S., for example, many large timber companies that focus on softwoods like redwood, Douglas fir, and cedar view western hardwoods such as madrone, tan oak, and bay laurel as “weeds” and “junk woods” that compete with the species for which they are managing, sometimes going so far as to poison them. When these companies log an area of forest, the commercial softwoods go to the mill and the hardwoods are generally chipped and burned in cogeneration facilities and the like.

While we do not condone the forest practices that produce this class of salvaged logs, we believe it is better to divert them from the chipper and use them for flooring and other high-end uses than to burn them for electricity production.