opportunity. 1. f. An opportune or convenient moment or circumstance for something.
Diccionario de la Lengua Española (Real Academia Española), 2022.

Gabriel A. Gutiérrez Tejada
President of the Andalusian Forestry Association
&
Antolino Gallego Molina
Coordinator LIFE Wood for future

During the 19th century, with the development of the iron and steel and metallurgical industries, the rise of iron and steel as materials for construction and other purposes destabilized the traditional use of wood in Spain, reducing its local demand and excluding this noble material, historically and culturally linked to human progress, from the economic and social transformations that were to come in our country.

The forestry associated with timber exploitation, the origin of most of the forest management techniques developed by then, languished until it was defenestrated by a new misanthropic vision of nature, which has been excluding the management of the Iberian mountain and its exploitation in large areas supposedly protected and whose pernicious effects (due to management deficit) we are currently suffering in the form of large fires, absence of forest production and rural depopulation.

However, almost after the first quarter of the 21st century, changes are taking place in the construction sector -singularly in industrialized construction-, probably as a consequence of the lessons learned in the last crises but, above all, as a result of the new regulatory trends at European level, which place wood again in a leading role in one of our main economic activities.

Granada, which has been dazzling the world for almost eight centuries with the wooden coffered ceilings of its royal Nasrid palace, the Alhambra, now stands at the epicenter of a social, economic and environmental movement unprecedented in our recent forestry history, due to the repercussions that the new uses of wood will have on the way of looking at the forest, whose need for management is imperative and must consider the requirements of the industry as a driving force for change, for the better, in the indispensable new forestry.

The University of Granada has focused on the needs of laminated structural products. The laricio pine (Pinus nigra Arnold), present in the forests of northeastern Andalusia, has the best technological qualities and enjoys great prestige among European architects for the manufacture of beams for construction, such as those used in the Royal Tobacco Factory of Seville or the cathedral of Jaen. Its main disadvantage, the excess weight, has been reduced by adding poplar veneers, traditionally grown in the Vega of Granada, so that a mixed laminated structural element is obtained, which improves the load distribution not only in the structures it forms, but also in the mountain itself, diversifying the demand for wood between the two species.

This is only the beginning of a series of forest marriages that in the future could contribute to the manufacture of mixed pieces between eucalyptus and poplar, as is already being done in Galicia, reaching high prices in the European market; and the use of other species such as black pine (Pinus pinaster Aiton), Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) or chestnut (Castanea sativa Miller), which achieves the highest value in the European market, as well as the use of other species such as black pine (Pinus pinaster Aiton), Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) or chestnut (Castanea sativa Miller), which achieves the highest value in the European market.

Returning to the Alhambra, the rehabilitation of its structures is currently being carried out thanks to the use of pine wood from northern Spain and even from other European countries, such as Austria. However, in the restoration after the fire of the ill-fated Notre Dame Cathedral, our French neighbors are using oak wood from a forest in the outskirts of Paris. Do we need a better example for the obvious and necessary reflection?

Having stated the above, it remains to take a sensible perspective. The secular absence of forestry adequate to the requirements of quality wood in Andalusia, added to the particular characteristics of the Andalusian forests and the lack of training and tradition in the study plans of academic architecture, suggest the convenience of incorporating its wood to these new markets in a progressive way, For this purpose, an appropriate pairing has been devised with the construction material par excellence in recent decades, concrete, which would be used in smaller volumes, thus promoting a true bioeconomy that would also reduce the biomass available in the forest, whose current destination, for lack of a better industry, is combustion during the great forest fires that ravage our region.

Soon, first in the Sierra de Cazorla, then in the Genal Valley, as has already been done in the land of Siles and will be done in other forest regions of Andalusia, we will have the opportunity to discuss the state of Andalusian timber forests and this great opportunity offered by the sustainable construction sector.

But not everything is a debate and we are working on the germ of a future factory of laminated wood products, a result of university research and business (spin-off) and driven by the owners of Marjal (https://chopomarjal.es/) and FORET (thttps://foretandalucia.es/), essential to add value to the Andalusian wood, especially in the provinces of Granada and Jaén, reducing the carbon footprint in the associated industries in the region.

In Andalusia there is a historical, social and economic opportunity brewing in relation to the new uses of wood in the industry, which can and should add forestry as its best ally in the management of the forest, true “kilometer zero” of a process that is based on the conservation of its renewable natural resources. The Andalusian forestry sector can and must lead the cultural and political change that this historic moment requires: it is time to decide whether we want to be in the locomotive, with the best in Europe, or in the caboose, as we are now. It is time to shout “more wood!” and to give our all for the future of the Andalusian forests and their people.