Our company's environmental consciousness has evolved over years of research. Knowledge came and still does as we answer big questions. Who are the biggest users of tropical hardwoods? What success has been made in reforestation? Where is it and who is doing it? What can M. Craig Cabinetmakers, as manufacturers of products built to give use for hundreds of years, do? What can our industry as a whole do? How can we work through all the confusing statistics and data and find tangible information?

Furniture makers are high profile users of tropical hardwoods, even though the percentage we use is quite small. Of the entire amount of lumber coming into the United States, an estimated 3 to 6% is used in the furniture industry.

If a spotlight is on our industry, let us use this as an opportunity to address the problem. Not only can the consumer watch us respond and join in, but hopefully all industrial users will watch and follow suit.

After I attended the 1991 Pan American Furniture Manufacturers Symposium on tropical hardwoods in Grand Rapids, Michigan, I decided there were three things M. Craig & Company and its patrons and representatives could be doing. First, participate in securing actual parcels of tropical forest, second, actively participate in reforesting projects and finally, share information with our audience.

Our company recently committed to support the Hardwood Forestry Fund Contribution project. This group approaches precious resources like a business. Buy them so as to protect and utilize them. When business and ecology get together and pull in the same direction good change occurs. Raising consciousness takes time and lots of it. Meanwhile, roads are being built, saws are running and our planet is at risk of dying. The time for action is now.

By buying and planting large tracts, the H.F.F.C. can insure and maintain a part of the forest, while planting seedlings and moving towards sustainable yield.

Every dollar invested by us and you, with a specific request for the funds to go towards Bolivian Project, will help. The two thousand seedlings M. Craig & Company sponsors each year will yield many times the wood we use in a year. Keep faith. Remember the United States has nearly twice as much land in forest today as one hundred years ago.

Write to the Hardwood Forestry Fund, donate dollars, read through their newsletters. Take heart, we have. The thirty families who make up the work force of M. Craig & Company Cabinetmakers make their living off of a few trees a year. We plant two thousand seedlings a year and build a product to last hundreds of years; in our estimation that is good stewardship.

The Hardwood Forestry Fund Contribution
Post Office Box 2789
Reston, Virginia 22090

Finally, we are using this catalogue and some of the expense in printing it to share information with our representatives, buyers and friends. It is an effective means to pass along what we have learned. Following is a list of group's names and addresses we wish to share with you. Great headway and heretofore unprecedented positive change is occurring in many business sectors as the result of industry and concerned consumers joining forces. Our ultimate hope is that mutual responsibility will result in sustainable growth and prosperity for both the Americas.

W.A.R.P.
(Woodworkers Alliance for Rainforest Protection)
Box 133
Coos Bay, Oregon 97420

Tree Amigos (Adopt an Acre of Tropical Forest)
Center for Environmental Study
143 Bostwick NE
Grand Rapids, MI

Global Releaf
Post Office Box 2000
Washington, D.C. 20013