Hiawatha Sustainable Woods Co-op

Environmentally Responsible Forestry

The Hiawatha Sustainable Woods Cooperative (HSWC) is a timber management, processing, and marketing cooperative of local forest owners. Its purpose is to maximize the long-term aesthetic, ecological, economic, and recreational benefits from area forest resources. The Cooperative stresses environmentally responsible forestry which includes:

* education;
* professionally-trained foresters and loggers;
* locally based, value-added manufacturing of wood products; and
* third party certification of sustainable forestry practices

by the Forest Stewardship Council.

Karen Stettler, one of the founders of HSWC, is fond of quoting Dr. Donald Bullock, Assistant Professor of Agronomy at the University of Illinois: "If we fail to seek the counsel of the end users of our research, then the very real risk we take is designing projects which go to great lengths to give detailed answers to questions nobody is asking." HSWC, through its motivated members, aims to ask the right questions.

Combined Efforts

HSWC is working with the Experiment in Rural Cooperation, a sustainable development partnership established by the University of Minnesota. In addition, the Forest Cooperative Resource Center of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy provides consultation services in assisting the Cooperative.

Of particular interest during its development stage is creating innovative training programs for loggers, foresters and ecologists; comparing and evaluating kilns (electrical, solar, de-humidification, wood), and developing innovative financial strategies.

Rebuilding the Forest

A major reason for establishing the Cooperative was the devastating wind storms that occurred in 1998. Michelle Huling-Halverson, a member of the Cooperative, says, "Like the blow-down of 1905, the 1998 catastrophe has spurred the growth of the Hiawatha Sustainable Woods Cooperative leading to economic development in the area. Instead of feelings of despair when looking out over woods resembling an unfinished game of pick-up sticks, I feel an excitement about all that has happened in a short time and all the opportunities that lay ahead for the Hiawatha Sustainable Woods Cooperative."

Anne and Pete Joria of Houston, Minnesota joined the Cooperative "because we wanted to support the individuals who have taken the initiative to start the Co-op; because of its emphasis on sustainable use of resources; because it returns the profits of timber sales to those who own and manage the resource; because it provides a network where landowners can find the help needed to manage their land responsibly; and because of its emphasis on respect for the land."

Educating Co-op members is a major goal states Karen: "the Cooperative has organized quarterly educational field days since its inception in mid-August 1998. The first event focused on the blown down timber. A variety of people were on hand to discuss issues and possible solutions for landowners who had been impacted by the severe winds that downed many healthy trees."

Sharing Member Resources

A second educational event was a workshop titled "Forest to Finished Product" that highlighted proper felling techniques. Experts demonstrated state-of-the-art techniques and provided horse-logging demonstrations. Also, Jim Beeman, a leader in establishing HSWC, conducted a sawing demonstration and a lumber grading session. Karen Stettler goes on to say that "the effectiveness of a cooperative lies in the resources of its members. We have the opportunity to provide assistance to other Co-op members in various ways by volunteering hours with projects needing more hands, by sharing or renting tools and equipment, and sharing knowledge and expertise."

Several HSWC priorities structure the Cooperative's activities, including sustainability/certification, using a third party monitoring system; value-added processing instead of the landowner selling the resource as standing trees in the woods or as logs; education-based participation using the Cooperative's tremendous resource of information within its members; team approaches involving the logger, forester, ecologist, and landowner working together to make the best decisions for the sustainability of the land; training to create the system with certification to support the cooperative team; relationship-building for members; and, community building through new jobs and providing finished products locally.