2 Plant
Dreams on Trees
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the article.
The Columbus Dispatch - April 29, 1994
by Scott Powers
Couple cultivating rain forest varieties
Steve and Sherry Brunner are not your
typical tree farmers.
First, they specialize in trees that
normally are found only in the world's dwindling rain forests.
Second, their three specialty-wood farms
are in Costa Rica, thousands of miles from their German Village home.
On this Arbor Day, their hope is to both
preserve and profit by offering farm-raised tropical hardwoods to help ease market
pressures that encourage the lumbering of teak, cocobolo, cristobal, amarillon and other
varieties.
The Brunners were honored with the National
Arbor Day Foundation's 1993 Good Steward Award for their "economically inspired
solution" to tropical deforestation. The Rainforest Alliance is likely to certify
their farms "Smart Wood" sources, only the sixth such source in the world. And
last Saturday the Woodmen of the World granted the Brunners their annual conservation
award.
In February, a group of touring architects
visited the Brunners' Tropical American Tree Farms and went away excited at the prospect
of having ecologically sound sources for tropical hardwoods, even if the wood won't be
available for several years.
The Brunners wouldn't even mind some
competition - or a lot of it.
"I'd be happy to have other people do
it. This is one of those businesses that you're happy to share with other people,"
Mr. Brunner said. "If you went down there and planted 10 times what we're planting,
it isn't going to affect the value of what we're producing because, of the world
consumption of tropical hardwoods right now, only 1 percent comes from plantations. The
rest is coming from rain forests."
Mr. Brunner, who until several years ago
operated a successful German Village-based real estate business, purchased some beachfront
property in Costa Rica in the early 1970s and made frequent trips to develop it. Each time
he went, however, he saw more and more of the rain forest being slashed and burned, until
it was apparent that Costa Rica's forests were vanishing quickly.
"I realized I was witnessing firsthand
the destruction of part of the world's richest ecosystem," he said.
Then, about 10 years ago, while Brunner was
trying to buy wood in Costa Rica for some buildings on his property, he discovered another
phenomenon - the wood was no longer available. So much forest had been cleared that Costa
Ricans were experiencing shortages of wood.
That's when Brunner decided there were
needs to be met - both commercial and environmental - and began planning his farms.
The Brunners consulted experts ranging from
foresters to lumberyard managers. They bought more than 3,000 acres of former
cattle-grazing land and planted their first trees in 1992.
About the same time, Mr. Brunner sold his
real estate business to devote full attention to the farms. The Brunners now spend abut
half of each year in Costa Rica.
They and 40 or so farmhands have planted
more than 250,000 trees of 34 varieties, and they will plant more in June. Many of the
trees are incredibly fast-growing by North American standards. Teak trees - each worth up
to $25,000 in timber - can be harvested after eight years.
At the same time, the Brunners are
preserving land. Sherry Brunner said about half of their acreage is being maintained as
natural rain forest, and the Brunners have created natural-growth corridors between
segments of rain forest.
Eric Gartner, a partner with Sidnam-Petrone
Architects in New York City, said the architects that went to Costa Rica were looking for
an answer to a dilemma: the demand for fine tropical hardwoods for homes and offices
remains high, despite concerns about tropical deforestation. They were discouraged until
they met the Brunners, the only ones who demonstrated both a strong commitment to the
environment and a keen understanding of American markets, Gartner said.
"To me, they are going above and
beyond." |
