Table of Contents
Introduction
Forests cover 30% of the world’s earth surface and deliver a broad range of products. These products can be characterized according to ecological services (Soil stabilization, Co2 sinks, fresh water supply, climate protection, purification of air, potential source of medicine, conservation of biodiversity, etc.) (Jenkins, 2011), Economic values (wood particles, earning source and non woody forest products, etc.) and social services (employment, recreational value, scenic beauty, custom practices and landscapes). Despite their favorable effect, forests are getting degraded day by day.
According to forest resource assessment (FRA), forest degradation has decreased since 2010 to 3.3 million hectares, but deforestation rates are still higher in the tropics and temperate zones. A few countries in the tropics go for deforestation due to lack of correct forest strategies, insufficient funds and organized contexts. In addition, Agriculture appears financially more beneficial in the short time than the forest, inspiring locals to do deforestation and land use change. Where forest management existed and could be implemented. Forest and agriculture organization (FAO) helps countries to overcome these hinders and help to understand by providing guidelines, proper forest management plans, multiple forestry system, agroforestry, etc.
However, the consequence of forest loss is hazardous and have many negative impacts on the earth, such as global warming, flood, landslip, etc. Because of these dangerous effects of deforestation, many countries around the world have potentially adopted some management strategies to protect forest. In this paper I will outline some of these efficient forests management strategies, which will help to understand the timber harvesting process, role of social contribution, multi-forestry, and silviculture practice.
127 our experts are availableright now
Global Forest Resource
According to the previous estimation, worldwide forest areas were about 4 billion hectares, have declined rapidly in the last few periods of years. However, natural causes have slowed down the deforestation rate to 13 million hectares ever year. Although, the deforestation rate scenarios vary according to the region. For example, while the afforestation rate has increased in Asia, Europe, North America in the last 20 years whereas the rate of deforestation has increased in the other regions of Africa, Central and south America, and also few regions of Oceania (Fig-1).
Globally public awareness is increasing towards the importance of environment protection and the conservation of biodiversity. However, Forest resource assessment (FRA) has imposed some laws to every country to decrease deforestation rate and protect areas for conserving biodiversity. In addition, FAO and FRA launched a program with the help of united nation called (REDD+), the main purpose of this program is to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation by providing sustainable forest management strategies to the developing countries.
Sustainable Forest Management
Sustainable forest management (SFM) address alteration of forest by implementing different strategies. Forest has different levels of planning and they are identified as local and strategic level. Strategic level usually refers, the main purpose of the forest management and includes important decision of the most essential aspects of the forest. On the other hand, decision-based actions that are imposed on forests they can be revised and reviewed again in every 5 years based on the new scientific inventions, natural disaster events sand concession-holders priorities. However, foresters set working territory for employees based on the possible outcome from the forest. It begins with timber harvesting process, road construction, and where there is a need of management intervention. In the intensive timber production foresters set more staff to get better qualities of timber. In addition to that a large number of expertise are also required in forest timber harvesting technology and engineering, ecology, mapping and geography of the forest, biochemistry, conservation of biodiversity, etc. Although forest management has become a lot easier as foresters have adopted silviculture methods.
Silviculture Practice
Silviculture is a method that deals with tree Composition growth, regeneration capacity, even-aged tree stand, uneven-aged tree stand, monoculture, and single species etc. (Wilson and Leslie,2009).In the UN Silviculture method is practiced by the foresters almost in every forest. Because of it can cope with natural disturbance such as drought tolerance, temperature and shade etc. some basic feathers of silvicultures are: It removes tree individuals from a stand that have poor quality or damaged to give the resource away to the rest of the trees, It manages tree density (Thinning procedure), tree composition, canopy density, location and time management. It helps under-planting trees with the same or different species where future of the forest growth is less. It enhances the ability to eliminate aged trees and help to accelerate the formation of better adopted forest types. In addition, SIlviculture reflects a positive outcome in the process of timber harvesting.
Timber Harvesting
In planted forest timber harvesting is the initial goal for every forester and also for concession-holders. Although, an excessive number of logging can damage the whole forest health therefore, it should be remembered the amount of harvested timber should not exceed the limit of total forest growth. Before harvesting timber, sustainable timber processing methods are required: complete map and details of the sites to be harvested, areas to be conserved and other general policies such as staff allocation, vehicles to carry the timber etc. furthermore, a well-planned timber harvesting methods always can minimize the cost of transportation of timbers from forest to mill. These beneficial harvesting methods increase and inspire foresters and stakeholders to adopt newly invented strategies.
Agroforestry System
Agroforestry is a system where two different types of trees or crops can grow, and FAO has introduced this new way of planting crops in the tropics to reduce deforestation. According to FAO 2011, Afforestation rate has become higher in the tropical land since Agroforestry was introduced. Moreover, Not only landowners but also locals are influenced by this method and now they are also contributing to the forest as manpower and with the different ideas. Agroforestry is a useful way to plant high quality tree species, which will provide with high quality timber. Nowadays, many stakeholders are showing their enthusiasm towards the planted forest in collaboration with different companies. In addition, what company do is, they create job sectors for locals and make them financially stable. Sustainable forest management is a lot easier with agroforestry and it also can conserve biodiversity in a large scale.
Biodiversity Conservation
Nearly 75% of biodiversity found in the forest ecosystem. Mostly in the tropical rain forest. Forests that are enriched in biodiversity can provide ecological benefits such as tree growth, carbon sequestration, resilience, resistance, nutrient cycle depends on biodiversity, etc. in spite of all these positive aspects of biodiversity, It is decreasing day by day due to land fragmentation and degradation. Sustainable methods should be implied in terms of conserving biodiversity in every forest, no matter what technique is used to manage forest should take into account its impact on biodiversity.
Conclusion
Sustainable forest management can provide a lot of beneficial aspects such as, economic development, social development, conservation of biodiversity, global warming, etc. Sustainability of a forest can be achieved by the modern techniques and social contribution. Ideas that have been used in the past to gain sustainability should be revised after a certain period of time therefore, FAO and FRA should perform key role to publish updated methods to balance forest ecosystem with the natural disturbances and newly formed ecosystem. In addition, Silviculture would be the most suitable way to gain sustainability in the forest ecosystem since it has many methodological strategies for management: Planting, harvesting, thinning, pruning. Moreover, Forest management strategies need to be classified in a way that it gives benefits in the present without hampering future needs.
Bibliography
- Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (n.d.). Sustainable forest management. Retrieved from http://www.fao.org/forestry/sfm/en/
- Chethan, K., Srinivasan, J., Kriti, K., & Sivaji, K. (2012). Sustainable Forest Management Techniques. Deforestation Around the World. doi:10.5772/35823
- Duncker, P. S., Barreiro, S. M., Hengeveld, G. M., Lind, T., Mason, W. L., Ambrozy, S., & Spiecker, H. (2012). Classification of Forest Management Approaches: A New Conceptual Framework and Its Applicability to European Forestry. Ecology and Society, 17(4). doi:10.5751/es-05262-170451
- Hemery, G. E. (2008). Forest management and silvicultural responses to projected climate change impacts on European broadleaved trees and forests. International Forestry Review, 10(4), 591-607. doi:10.1505/ifor.10.4.591
- F.E. Putz (1995). Approaches to sustainable forest management. Approaches to Sustainable Forest Management, 1-9. doi:10.17528/cifor/000064
- Jenkins, M. (2011). An Overview of Payments for Ecosystem Services. Integrating Ecology and Poverty Reduction,129-136. doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-0186-5_10
- Lestari, S., Kotani, K., & Kakinaka, M. (2015). Enhancing voluntary participation in community collaborative forest management: A case of Central Java, Indonesia. Journal of Environmental Management, 150, 299-309. doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2014.10.009
- Martn-Garca, J., & Javier, J. (2012). Sustainable Forest Management: An Introduction and Overview. Sustainable Forest Management – Current Research. doi:10.5772/45839
- Sloan, S., & Sayer, J. A. (2015). Forest Resources Assessment of 2015 shows positive global trends but forest loss and degradation persist in poor tropical countries. Forest Ecology and Management, 352, 134-145. doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2015.06.013
- Wilson, Edward R. and Leslie, Andrew (2009) Sustainable … (n.d.). Retrieved from https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/145637520.pdf
