Researcher Warns Consumption,
Setasides On Collision Course

MISSOULA, Mont. —(AP)— A University of Minnesota researcher of global population and consumption trends warned Sunday of the consequences of saying "no" to mining and logging while saying "yes" to rising consumption of natural resources.

The wood, steel, aluminum, petroleum, cement and other resources will have to come from somewhere as the world's population doubles in our children's lifetime, doubling global demand for natural resources, Jim Bowyer told the opening session of the 1997 Mansfield Conference at the University of Montana.

Bowyer is director of the Forest Products Management Development Institute in Minnesota.

"We are the greatest-consuming nation the world has ever seen," Bowyer said. "But in the United States, on a daily basis, we are making decisions which serve to limit, vastly reduce and in some cases eliminate the extraction and production of raw materials. And we never talk about consumption."

When President Clinton announced plans to buy out a proposed gold mine outside Yellowstone National Park, he did not announce a parallel program to decrease the U.S. consumption of gold, Bowyer noted.

"When the Rocky Mountain Front was closed to oil and gas exploration, there was no parallel program to decrease our reliance on oil and gas," he added. "I could give example after example. Each decision we make sounds logical, but what happens when you add the pieces together? Where are these things going to come from?"

The world's population already is at 5.88 billion and will at least double in a child's lifetime. And if the current birth rate continues, the total could reach 25 billion within that lifetime, he said.

"Throughout the world, and especially in Asia, the capacity to consume is rising at an unprecedented rate," Bowyer said.

In the next 50 years, there will be demands for one billion new homes, Bowyer said. And that number will be even higher if — as per-capita income increases — families that previously housed several generations under one roof are able to afford several houses.

"How will we house all those people?" Bowyer asked. "With the projected increased demand for wood alone, we will need a new British Columbia coming on line every year. How do we provide for that kind of demand and still maintain environmental quality?"

He suggested:

— Finding ways to make more extensive use of renewable resources;

— Surveying the world's forests and deciding which are best suited to management for wood fiber, and then managing those forests intensively;

— Developing genetically improved tree species;

— And, giving "careful consideration" before setting aside resource-rich lands as parks and preserves.

Plan ahead for the demand, Bowyer said, "and you can also provide for environmental quality. But if we do not realistically address the demand for resources, we will lose our ability to protect the environment."