2006 SFI Data
Research Funding
MWV supports its forest management with long-term investments in forest research. Our primary focus is to maximize the growth potential of our existing forestlands. This approach frees other forests to meet other societal values, which is why our research money is spent on more than just productivity. Forest health, water quality, wildlife, ecosystem management and biodiversity are also important aspects of our research, because they are all important to productive, sustainable forests.
MWV's Sustainable Forestry Initiative data include the dollars we spend on forest research and their categories, and this is combined with information from other companies for aggregate publication. MWV prefers to treat these expenditures as confidential information for competitive reasons and to be consistent with our publication of only total corporate research expenditures. We are pleased to describe aspects of our research that are relevant and note that MWV has one of the largest and most comprehensive forest research programs in the world.
MWV also provided funding and in-kind assistance to research studies involving federal and state agencies, colleges and universities, and non-governmental organizations.
Our contributions to outside research efforts are especially important because those scientists use our support to obtain additional funding from other sources. For example, scientists from other organizations conducting their own research on our 8,400-acre Wildlife and Ecosystem Research Forest near Elkins, West Virginia used funding provided by the company to raise more than twice as much money from other sources.
