There isn't a more sustainable, more natural, or more beautiful resource than American Hardwoods. Sustaining our environment and upholding best forest management practices have always been at the core of WM Cramer Lumber Company's guiding principles
From using legal loggers to insure sustainability, to using our own wood waste powering over a million board feet of kiln space, our business as well as our philosophy begins with the understanding that shared prosperity depends on maintaining a healthy balance between our business world and the natural world around us. We are proud to actively participate in the amazing success story of forest management in the Appalachians.
Did You Know?
- The forests and trees are a renewable natural resource.
- Wood is recyclable, biodegradable and durable-sometimes lasting for centuries. When it is no longer needed, it can be returned to the earth.
- The inventory of hardwoods standing in U.S. forests has increased by over 90% in the last 50 years.
- The United States has 738 million acres of forestland.
- Annual hardwood growth rate surpasses harvest by 70 percent.
- Steel building materials consume 3 times as much energy as wood and 16 times as much clean water.
- Trees, which are dying, give off carbon dioxide rather than absorb it. Young, fast-growing trees absorb the most carbon dioxide while giving off the most oxygen.
- Each year 1.7 billion trees are planted in the United States - more than five trees for every man, woman and child in America - an average of 4.8 million seedlings each day.
- Demand for American hardwoods provides incentive for U.S. land owners to manage and conserve natural hardwood forests for the long-term supply of high value hardwoods, discouraging conversion for other uses such as agriculture or fast-growing tree plantations.
- American hardwoods derive from managed bio-diverse natural forests, providing habitat for a wide range of species, and insuring resilience to fire and pests.
Reliable objective evidence of sustainable forestry is readily available from The 2003 and 2010 National Report on Sustainable Forest, the RPA Assessment and an independent peer reviewed study from Seneca Creek Associates , "An Assessment of Lawful Harvesting and Sustainability of US Hardwoods."
![Appalachian forest.](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/65c164a64126e6d952ef9815/6638e10ed9411536ccdb2d35_Appalachian-Forest-20.avif)