http://www.yesmagazine.org/23livingeconomy/flaccavento.htm
from the earth, up
by Anthony Flaccavento
Before any course of action, we should first ask:
Photo by Ann Hawthorne
What is already here?
What does nature allow us to do here?
What does nature help us to do here?
Wendell Berry
On November 1, 1996, the day-shift crew arrived at the Louisiana
Pacific Waferboard factory in Dungannon, Virginia. Greeted by a small
group of security guards and a management representative, they were
told to go home. The plant was closed. Permanently. No notice had
been given. Ten years after opening its doors in this richly forested
Scott County community, the plant laid off nearly 100 workers, also
idling loggers who had been supplying the plant with logs. The
profits from this plant, management said, were not high enough to
keep it operating.
The Appalachian regions of Tennessee and Virginia are not in crisis.
Rather, the area is suffering from long-term economic stagnation and
marginalization, and steady ecological deterioration. It is an all
too common story of cultural and economic subordination, of
individuals and communities gradually relinquishing the skills,
knowledge, and bonds that made this part of the world different from
countless others.
But there is another Appalachian tale unfolding. It is the evolving
story of community-based initiatives regenerating the region's
economy and culture from within.
At Appalachian Sustainable Development (ASD), we focus our efforts on
a 10-county area of southwest Virginia and northeast Tennessee. This
part of Appalachia has sustained jobless rates two to three times
higher than US rates, approaching 20 percent in some counties;
poverty rates exceed 30 percent in some counties.
Our plan was clear yet ambitious: to help the community build a more
sustainable economy from networks of small, local endeavors. ASD set
itself the task of transforming two central legs of Appalachia's
economy: agriculture and timber.
In the seven years since ASD was formed, the most important lesson we
learned was this: Building an alternative regional economy-one that
is more just, more ecologically sound and more self reliant-requires
networks of relationships that are synergistic, and a means of
capturing and accumulating knowledge and assets. We have come to call
this an infrastructure for community sustainability.
The foundation of this infrastructure is the ecosystem. Therefore,
the strategy focuses on restoring ecological health, creating
livelihoods and economic systems that are ecologically sustainable,
and building the financial and physical capital needed to add value
to the region's natural resources and bridge the gap between
producers and the marketplace.
<snip>
From forests to floors
ASD's sustainable forestry and wood products program follows a path
similar to our agriculture efforts. ASD forester Emily Duncan works
with interested landowners to assess the health of their forests and
inventory the timber. Together, they create a plan to protect streams
and waterways, conserve wildlife habitat, and regenerate
biodiversity. If appropriate, Emily then marks some timber for
harvesting. The cut includes a high proportion of lower-quality trees
in order to help regenerate both species diversity and better quality
timber for future generations. Trees harvested under our standards
are purchased by ASD, sawed into boards, dried in our dry kiln, and
then manufactured into flooring, cabinets, and other products by
local companies.
This restorative forestry requires at least three things: patient
landowners willing to forego some money in the short term in favor of
long-term wealth, both economic and ecological; skilled loggers,
whether mechanical or animal-powered in their operations; and markets
that pay closer to the true cost for wood products.
The beauty of the process is its affordability. Because of the
proximity of trees to their market, and because of the value
adding-steps in the process, it is possible to pay a substantial
premium to loggers and landowners, while charging only slightly more
to the end user. Sawing the logs, drying the boards, and
manufacturing cabinets or flooring makes every foot of log far more
valuable.
The Louisiana Pacific waferboard factory that laid off nearly 100
people in 1996 relied on extensive clear- cutting for its cheap
supply of timber, and it established no roots in the community. ASD
and its many partners are working towards a different type of
economic development-one that is inextricably local, that builds upon
and adds value to the ecological wealth of our communities. Like a
good farmer, the more we pursue this path, the more we see what is
already here and what nature enables us to do now and into the future.
To contact Anthony Flaccavento and ASD, call 276/623-1121 or visit
www.appsusdev.org.
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