Hardwood Floors August/September 2017

“While there are some financial benefits to it, really my focus is giving back. I’m leaving things better than where I found them. And that’s why I do it, for my children and the next generation.”

Michael Dittmer, owner of Michael Dittmer Hardwood Flooring also owns two FSC-certified tree farms.

Sustainable Growth The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service reports that, in the United States, the average annual net growth of hardwood trees is greater than the average annual removals. They further report that the growth to removal ratio is about 2:1. This means that for every tree harvested in the United States, another two are regrown in its place. As a result, standing U.S. hardwood volume now totals 738 million acres. Approximately one-third of all the available land in the United States is forestland. Today, there is more standing timber than there was at any time during the past 50 years, and less than half of the new growth is harvested each year. To further support the sustainability of wood, there are numerous certified forest programs available that promote responsible forest management and long-term sustainability initiatives.

There are three main forest certification programs in the United States. These include the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), and the American Tree Farm System (ATFS). Each of these programs promotes responsible forest management, and each of them also requires a long-term harvest plan designed to preserve and renew resources. It is important to note that, unlike forests in Europe and other areas of the world, most forests in the United States are privately owned. Most are only a few hundred acres in size, and most are harvested only once a generation. As a result, many privately owned forests in the U.S. are not certified by one of these programs because the process of becoming a certified forest can be both time-consuming and expensive. Fortunately, most private forest owners manage their forests responsibly

anyway. Not doing so would deplete the trees they rely on to produce income. Michael Dittmer, owner of Michael Dittmer Hardwood Flooring, owns two small-acreage FSC-certified tree farms. Dittmer has worked in the hardwood flooring installation business most of his life and relocated to Putnam, Illinois, from the suburbs of Chicago when looking to make a lifestyle change for his family. What started as a quest to enjoy the more simple things in life grew into a business nourished by his passion for ecology and desire to more effectively use the land. “We started to think about how we could add value to the property, and how we could make it better for the environment. The decision…let’s start planting some trees,” says Dittmer. “When we bought the property, it was logged off 30 years ago and not in the best of shape. Even though it was just marginal farm ground for planting trees,

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