Forestry

Forests conversion involves removing natural forests to meet other land needs, such as plantations, agriculture, pasture for cattle settlements, and mining. Unfortunately after the process of farming is complete the outcome is irreversible. The outcome is irreversible since deforesting land for farming; the soil is depleted of its nutrients.

As the population grows more and more lands are being stripped to provide wood and land use for agriculture.

One management practice is logging and which are located on steep slopes, the effects of these activities on watersheds will depend mainly on the layout of roads and skid trails and the quality of their maintenance. Other important factors are the felling and skidding techniques which are used in silvicultural treatments, protection against fire and pests, and other forestry activities.

Forests or trees might be considered a non-renewable resource if they are cut down faster than they grow back. Many people think that the best wood is called "heartwood." This is the kind of wood that grows deep down in the middle of very old trees. If trees are lot allowed to grow for many, many years before they are cut down, we cannot get heartwood from them. If we cut them down too quickly, we'll end up with grasslands instead of forests, and there will be no trees left at all.

The way to preserve forests as a renewable resource is to cut fewer trees down. For that to work, people would need to find other materials that could be used in place of new wood (like bamboo, fiberboard made from wood chips, or recycled lumber), or we would need to devote more land to growing trees.

Sustainability is a complex idea involving economic, environmental, and social factors. The terms forest sustainability, sustainable forestry, and sustainable forest management are often used interchangeably and are closely linked to definitions of sustainable development. Commonly cited definitions for all these terms generally include or imply the following...