Richard Vlosky, director of the LSU AgCenter’s Louisiana Forest Products Development Center, speaks about the international forestry sector on March 12. Photo by Olivia McClure/LSU AgCenter News Release Distributed 03/18/15
BATON ROUGE, La. – Louisiana is benefitting as countries around the world turn to the state to satisfy growing demand for wood products and forestry expertise, said Richard Vlosky, director of the LSU AgCenter Louisiana Forest Products Development Center.
Forestry has long been Louisiana’s No. 1 agricultural commodity, adding $2.9 billion to the economy in 2013, according to the AgCenter’s Ag Summary. Around the world, sustainable energy efforts have brought new attention to sustainable forest management and product development, Vlosky told attendees of the March 12 Global Agriculture Hour, an event sponsored by LSU AgCenter International Programs.
Wood-based energy is a burgeoning phenomenon globally. In Europe, pellets made of compressed wood fibers are commonly used for electricity generation.
That benefits the U.S. South, where companies are building pellet plants to satisfy Europe’s rising demand. The German Pellets GmbH plant that is under construction in Urania in central Louisiana will be the largest pellet plant in the world, Vlosky said.
While Western Europe is making use of those technologies, countries in the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia are still transitioning from centrally planned to free market economies.
“As such, they lag in the overall modernization of their respective forest sectors,” Vlosky said.
The United Nations has been working for decades to strengthen infrastructure, policy and business competitiveness in those countries. It has not been easy, however, because governments tend to own forests, and some countries do not have sufficient infrastructure to make and transport products, Vlosky said.
Vlosky led the forest products marketing team of the UN’s Economic Commission for Europe from 2003 to 2012. Although its focus is on Europe, the commission includes the U.S. and Canada, which combined are the largest suppliers of wood in the world, he said.
The forest products marketing team is made up of 50 experts from academia, industry and nongovernmental organizations, who conduct studies, make policy recommendations to governments and organize forums, conferences and workshops.
Workshops for policymakers, companies and others in the forestry industry are among the team’s most important contributions, Vlosky said. People need to be educated about emerging technologies, such as online marketing and communication tools. They must also understand the increasingly global nature of the business to remain viable, he said.
“The globalization of the sector has become so apparent that wood can flow from Scandinavia, from South America, from Chile, from the West Coast of the United States all to Louisiana to build a house,” Vlosky said.
However, deforestation poses a barrier to a sustainable global supply of wood.
Most deforestation around the world is not a result of timber companies, Vlosky said, but of indigenous people who practice slash-and-burn agriculture. Illegal logging is another problem that has proved complicated to solve. Certain species of endangered trees — such as mahogany, which grows in Central and South America — can sometimes be worth a year’s salary, he said.
“It’s a much bigger issue that just people stealing wood,” Vlosky said. “It’s a huge societal, economic problem.”
Vlosky hopes that education efforts will counter those kinds of problems and strengthen forests and economies around the world. The AgCenter’s contributions, including a website about current forestry issues, have been helpful, Vlosky said. The website address is www.UneceFaoIufro.lsu.edu.
“People in all these countries know about the AgCenter,” he said.
Olivia McClure