Home & Garden...

We can do a lot to conserve wood resources. While of course wood is a popular and decent material for loads of home applications - from building, to furniture, to exterior items like fences, there are also great reasons to conserve wood.

Obviously the first big issue is that wood is not the quickest resource ever. Yes, it renews, in some cases easily, but it's an incredibly slow renewable process. Forest destruction for human use ruins whole eco-systems and animal livelihood. If you're someone who is only concerned about how wood use might affect you personally then there's still plenty to worry about. Forests and trees in general provide flood control, insect control, relaxation and recreation, keeps groundwater steady, and of course there's a little thing called oxygen that most of us humans enjoy.

Ideas for wood conservation related to home applications:

• Build a green roof - which makes up for some lumber use.
• Use wood harvested in sustainable manners when you need to have wood.
• Consider another material first. You can build perfectly good walls out of cob, adobe, recycled bottles, straw bale, adobe, and more. You do need to research because some of these options take more wood (such as a partial wood frame) than others.
• Try engineered wood instead.
• Build with a faster growing wood, like bamboo.
• Build smaller and use less overall resources.
• Recycle lumber from building sites and deconstruction projects.