What's behind your label?

It has been said that the only constant thing is change itself. After 72 years of operations, Pyramid Mountain Lumber in Seeley Lake, Montana has seen its fair share of change. Like most small businesses, this little mill has had to adapt, strive and grit through many seasons fraught with challenge. The lumber business as a whole has had to overcome continuous scrutiny which left many on-lookers from the sidelines.

While any business would be foolish to mismanage its raw material resources into extinction, most consumers would hardly think twice about how the responsible sourcing of a 2x4 happens. Like so many industries, the lumber industry of today has evolved from mistakes of yesteryears, and Pyramid Mountain Lumber leads the way with a proven vision for Montana forest lands.

While some might view any new way of doing business as a burden with which to contend, Pyramid Mountain Lumber has welcomed the opportunity to display the professionalism that has always been a part of every board-foot it produces. Pioneering the phrase 'stewardship' and calling yourself the "The Stewardship Company" in the wood product manufacturing world of today means you better rise above average and strive for greatness, because that little word 'stewardship' will be scrutinized on every log and every board.

In partnering with the Sustainable Forestry Initiative® (SFI) program, Pyramid Mountain Lumber welcomes the third-party scrutiny needed to verify such claims. It is a partnership that has repeatedly attested to the highest quality behind Pyramid's production efforts and not just in its products. With over ten years of successful annual reviews by third-party certified auditors, Pyramid continues building a legacy which strives for greater awareness of the challenges that face this generation and beyond and champions local efforts for global impact.

Addressing forestry in the era of climate change requires consideration of all of the effects of every timber management decision. Historic wildfires fueled by the unharvested tinder of yesterday has changed the idea that ignoring the forest and leaving it to its own maintenance will prevent environmental disasters, especially given retrospect of massive atmospheric carbon plumes summer after summer. Thankfully, today's forestry leaders understand that we must solve tomorrow's problems through coordinated "actions" today.

So, what exactly is the SFI program you may ask?

SFI is a nonprofit organization committed to promoting and fostering socially and environmentally responsible practices within the forestry industry. If you ask anyone who knows what goes into that SFI Certified Sourcing label about what it takes to garner approval for lumber products, they will likely tell you it takes a team of people to make it happen. In fact, it takes more than a team of people, it takes a community of people working together. Teams might move a ball down the field but communities move the future.

That SFI Certified Sourcing label on Pyramid Mountain Lumber wrapped products says a lot more about who Pyramid is and who they do business with than it does about the product itself. Coincidentally, the resulting products reflect the exceptional caliber of people involved.

Behind that label an independent professional logger takes hours of their limited off-time to learn how to recognize forests of uniquely significant value; value that exceeds the boards it could produce. There's also an eye for old growth areas by certified foresters who recognize an ecosystem where the opportunity cost to a streambed exceeds any amount of profitability at the local hardware store.

There are sawyers optimizing every cut on every log and reducing waste to the absolute minimum. Included is the repurposing of waste in one mill that is shipped to other mills to contribute to products such as medium density fiber board and similar composite materials.

In that label is the commitment to produce more lumber per log and optimally extract value from every part of the harvest. It considers practices, policies, people and plans beyond technology and gives consideration to all ideas, new and old. That label represents countless hours of collaboration by landowners, mills, conservationists, loggers, foresters, indigenous tribal representatives, regional, state and federal custodians who are actively working towards common goals.

If you consider for a moment all of the people who care about the forests, you may conclude that the ones who are the most invested in preserving its beauty with the greatest vigor might just be those who build life in its shadow; life beyond a single generation, like Pyramid's third generation in the Seeley-Swan Valley and counting.

Partnering with SFI is an easy choice for the Pyramid community, and others like it, because it is an investment into their home. It is the preservation of beauty in the natural landscape while enhancing resistance to devastating wildfires and fostering a local economy. It's promoting biodiversity with forest floors that serve as ecological expressways for unthreatened and rebounding species alike. By partnering the Pyramid namesake with SFI, they are putting character and principle on display with the sustainable products that those qualities yield.

So, what is behind that label? Well, it's simple. It's our families and our careers. It's our world and passions. It's our sweat and sometimes even our tears. It's our time; past, present and future.

While the labels might not spell out all of that, SFI labels really tells the whole story behind each board. While there is so many labels vying for our attention these days, if you know what you are looking at when you see it, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative labels say a great deal more than most. Hopefully, the next time you see that label, it will say something it didn't say to you before. Maybe something like "proud people doing the right thing the right way." Perhaps it may even make you want to join us by investing in a shared vision that goes far beyond that simple little label.