Forest Products Industry

Stretching from Bhutan to Papua New Guinea, the Indo-Malaya forest biome harbors one of the last major primary forest areas in the world, hosting more than 5,000 threatened species. Source: Timberbiz Sixty percent of its original vegetation is already lost, and the remaining primary forests are under pressure from unsustainable agriculture, logging, and competing land use. Over 560 million people in the region depend on the resources provided by these forests, such as water regulation, carbon sequestration, and timber and non-timber forest products. To maintain the integrity of these primary forests, so they can deliver biodiversity, climate, and livelihood benefits, a new Global Environment Facility (GEF) funded initiative, the Southeast Asia and the Pacific Forests Integrated Program was launched at an inception workshop in Chiang Mai, Thailand, hosted by the Department of National Parks, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of Thailand. The program will be led by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The program channels US$42.4 million in GEF grants and US$185 million in co-financing to three country projects in Lao PDR, Papua New Guinea, and Thailand and one regional coordination project aiming to protect the primary forests of Southeast Asia and the Pacific. It aims to improve the management of 3.2 million hectares of protected areas and over seven million hectares of landscapes, restore 8,500 hectares of degraded ecosystems, mitigate 34 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions, and benefit nearly 20,000 people. Country projects will be implemented by FAO and UNDP and executed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Lao PDR, the Conservation and Environment Protection Authority of Papua New Guinea, and the Department of National Parks, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of Thailand. The Regional Coordination Project, led by IUCN and FAO with partners such as CIFOR-ICRAF and Grow Asia, will bring together countries across the region to align their strategies, share knowledge and practical experience, and catalyse coordinated action across the biome. Eight countries in the region participated in the inception workshop – Bhutan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Thailand, and Viet Nam – and further developed the program’s objectives and coordination mechanisms. Countries and partners agreed on priority outputs that the six-year program should address, including a regional vision on primary forests, a primary forest investment forum, and a knowledge and learning hub. The program will support the development of coherent policies, frameworks, and strategies at national and regional levels to help minimize the loss of primary forests and promote the recognition of other effective area-based conservation mechanisms in primary forest landscapes. The regional coordination project will enhance collaboration and south-south cooperation to facilitate knowledge exchange, technical support, and capacity development for improved management of primary forests across borders. The program is one of five GEF integrated investments for primary forests under the GEF-8 replenishment. The program will connect with the GEF-8 Critical Forest Biomes Integrated Programs for the Amazon, Guinean Forests, Mesoamerica, and the Congo Basin to drive global systems change in globally important tropical forest landscapes.

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Picture a hospital and you might imagine concrete, stainless steel or plastic. But University of Oregon researchers hope to make wood, often overlooked in health care facilities, more commonplace in those settings. Source: Timberbiz Exposed wood, they’ve found, can resist microbial growth after a brief wetting. During the study, wood samples tested lower for levels of bacterial abundance than an empty plastic enclosure used as a control. “People generally think of wood as unhygienic in a medical setting,” said assistant professor Mark Fretz, co-director of the UO’s Institute for Health in the Built Environment and principal investigator for the study. “But wood actually transfers microbes at a lower rate than other less porous materials such as stainless steel.” Numerous studies support those properties of wood. A UO-led research team including scientists from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego and Portland State University wanted to explore what happens when wood gets wet and then dries. In a recent study published in Frontiers in Microbiomes, they shared their discoveries about the effects of moisture on surface microbes and volatile organic compound emissions from mass timber. Mass timber is an engineered wood material emerging as a popular construction alternative in the U.S. But exposed wood is rarely used in health care facilities. That’s due in part to strict building codes that are slow to evolve, Fretz said. Another reason: widespread misperceptions about wood and pathogens. “We wanted to explore how mass timber would stand up to the everyday rigors of health care settings,” said Gwynne Mhuireach, a UO research assistant professor. “In hospitals and clinics, germs are always present, and surfaces occasionally get wet.” For the experiment, blocks of cross-laminated timber were sealed in disinfected plastic boxes to create a microenvironment with carefully controlled temperature and humidity. To simulate a health care setting, air was filtered and exchanged at rates similar to hospital codes. The team sprayed the blocks with tap water, inoculated them with a cocktail of microbes commonly found in hospitals, and took samples over a four-month period. An empty plastic box was used as a control. The researchers compared coated and uncoated wood samples under three types of water spray events: just once, every day for a week and daily over four weeks. The results of the study indicated wood is effective at inhibiting bacteria and revealed clues about wetting that will inform future research and development, Mhuireach said. The empty plastic control box had greater viable microbial abundance than the wood samples, excluding the first 14 days after inoculation. Wetting the wood blocks reduced the abundance of viable bacterial cells, with no discernible difference between coated and uncoated specimens. During wetting, microbial composition reflected what’s common in tap water more than the hospital pathogens the team introduced. The experiments were the first to explore relationships between microbial communities on cross-laminated timber surfaces and the emission of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, under dry and wetted conditions, Mhuireach said. VOCs are chemicals that spread quickly in the air and are responsible for odors as diverse as perfume, mold or “new-car smell.” Some present health hazards, but others are beneficial. Wood can emit compounds called terpenes. Many smell pleasant and inhibit microbial growth. Mhuireach VOC emissions plateaued after wetting, which the team interpreted as a slight increase compared to an overall downward trend. The study marks another milestone for the UO’s work to promote the use of mass timber in health care facilities. That effort began in 2020 with funding from a Wood Innovations grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Fretz said. That led to the formation of a focus group including architects, engineers and experts in health care building codes. Funding from the grant helped support the recent project on wetting. Through his work with the TallWood Design Institute, a collaboration of the UO and Oregon State University, Fretz has been working to promote the production and use of mass timber, including materials manufactured in Oregon. Construction using engineered wood produced from cross-laminated layers of veneer or lumber started in Europe during the mid 1990s and is growing in the U.S. Stronger per pound than steel or concrete, mass timber boasts a smaller carbon footprint. Exposed wood also promotes health and healing, Fretz said, because it appeals to our inherent tendencies to connect with nature. The benefits of that human trait, what architects and designers call biophilia, go beyond mere aesthetics. Numerous studies link biophilic design to better health care outcomes, including shorter hospital stays, faster healing and mental wellness. Wood’s ability to inhibit the spread of pathogens may stem from pores that trap bacteria or antimicrobial chemical compounds that occur naturally, Fretz said. It could also result from wood’s capacity to absorb moisture. A respiratory virus shed indoors travels in a droplet of water. Fretz said wood will dry out that droplet faster than plastic or stainless steel, reducing virus survival time.  

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