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Our Environment Comes First!

The Maple Flooring Manufacturers Association (MFMA) is dedicated to preserving and protecting America's forestlands, while providing the forest products critical to the nation's well-being.  Since 1897 MFMA has established itself as the authoritative source of technical and general information on maple flooring.  MFMA and its members are committed to providing the highest standards of quality available from America's forests.

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Wood flooring and the environment

The Big Question:  Are we running out of hardwoods?
  • There are 737 million acres of forests in the U.S., one-third of the nation.
  • Every day the forest industry, together with federal and state forest agencies, plants more than 1.5 billion more trees.
  • Forest Statistics of the United States, 2002, shows that the U.S. grows six times more hardwoods than are harvested each year.
  • There were 82 percent more hardwoods in 2002 than in 1952.
  • In 1952, 180 billion cubic feet.
  • In 1987, 328 billion cubic feet.
  • In 1986 the U.S. used 5 billion cubic feet.
  • In that same year 9.5 billion cubic feet of timber was added to the hardwood forest industry.
  • Hardwoods have increased in every region of the U.S.
  • Wood is the only natural resource on Earth that is at once renewable, recyclable, biodegradable and re-usable. The energy required to grow our timber supply is free. It comes from the sun.
  • Although wood consumption accounts for almost half of the total annual industrial raw material tonnage, lumber and wood products manufacturing processes account for only about 4 percent of energy consumed by industrial raw material manufacturers.
  • More than 1,750,000 Americans are employed in the forest products industry. Many millions more employed in the home construction, home furnishing, transportation and heavy equipment industries owe their jobs to this one basic industry that converts harvested timber to finished products.


Note: This information was provided by the Evergreen Magazine and NHLA's Forest Resource Fact Book.