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Note: This issue is no longer available for purchase. "Minnesota White Pine: Window on the Past - Bridge to the Future"
In the course of our investigation, we came face to face with Minnesota's forest products industry, a technological marvel well positioned to compete in the global marketplace. Not surprisingly, white pine now accounts for less than one-half of one percent of the state's annual harvest. Pulpwood has replaced lumber as the states' primary forest product and fast growing aspen - a stable of the OSB and paper industries - has replaced white pine as the species of choice. Great reading for anyone longing for a good news story about the multiple benefits that flow from well-managed forests: beautifully photographed and brilliantly illustrated with lots of charts and graphs.
Evergreen
Magazine |
In the 14 years we've been publishing Evergreen, we've never seen so much public interest focused on a single tree species. Clearly, many Minnesotans wish a concerted effort to restore the states' once magnificent eastern white pine forests could be mounted. But wishing won't make it so. For one thing, the cost to taxpayers
may be prohibitive. For another, the public's white pine perceptions are a bit off the mark. Contrary to what some have suggested, there never was a vast sea of old growth white pine growing in Minnesota. Clearly, the success of any ell conceived white pine restoration strategy hinges on managing for the
future, not preserving the past.