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Cutting down trees means less trees, right? Not if the trees are cut in a way that stimulates healthy, straight and ultimately more tree growth. Most flooring mills in the US today are using what are called “Sustainable Forestry Practices”. Not because they are required by law to do so or because the lumber industry has finally been taken over by the environmentalists but because it just makes good business sense.

Last year I had the opportunity to visit a flooring mill in Wisconsin owned by the Conner Family. John Conner and his brothers now own and operate a lumber mill called WD Flooring. While there I was able to tour the forest and witness the tree selection and cutting of a small section of the over 40,000 acres of forest that they own and manage. They taught me how they select each tree carefully in the logging area to ensure that they leave enough trees to provide appropriate shade. The right amount of shade is critical to ensure that the new trees coming up will grow straight and tall with fewer branches from the trunk as it reaches for the sunlight at the canopy. Fewer branches in the trunk means longer boards with fewer knots. Also, cutting some of the trees from an area will stimulate more growth as more sunlight reaches the forest floor. They also ensure that diseased trees are removed to promote a healthier forest. However, they do leave at least one diseased tree in an area so that the wood peckers, bugs and other pests can have a place to go and leave the rest of the trees alone.

After looking at aerial photos of the forest that they manage from 1920 and compared them to current photos, it is easy to see that sustainable forestry practices work and that there is far more timber on the Connor land today. In fact, forest growth in the US has continually exceeded harvest since the 1940s, and today, growth exceeds harvest by 47 percent.

Sustainable forestry promotes higher yield for the logging industry, longer higher grade flooring material for consumers and more trees for our planet. So yes, cutting trees for flooring does create a greener planet if done properly.