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Sustainable
Forestry Quiz Study the information on this webpage and
answer the questions.
http://www.vannet.k12.wa.us/alkweb/Curriculum/Trees/sustain_quiz.html
Sustaining healthy, productive, diverse, and resilient forest ecosystems is the vision for sustainable forestry. Sustainable forestry is an extremely important subset of a broader concept known as sustainable development. By practicing sustainable forestry, we help to make sustainable development a reality. Sustainable development is "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." This commitment to future generations facilitates excellent stewardship of resources which are temporarily in our care. Foresters, forests, trees, wood, and the forest products industry have a critical role to play in making sustainable development a reality.
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The earth and its resources represent the principal we have in the bank. We must learn to conserve the principal while living off the interest. This will be increasingly important and difficult as the earth's population doubles from 5.8 billion to 11.6 billion people, which is estimated to occur within the next 70 years. We need to meet as many needs as possible with renewable resources while minimizing our unsustainable consumption of non-renewable resources.
The paradox of life is that we must take from life to live. However we must also put something back, be it seed in a field or a seedling in a forest. Nature is the garden and we are the gardeners living together in a symbiotic (mutually-beneficial) relationship.
Living sustainably doesn't start in the forest, it starts with consumers. We consumers create the demands for resources, which are then met by the producing industries. These industries nurture us with products and services to meet our needs. As consumers we must evaluate our options and make choices.
Our needs for food, clothing, shelter, transportation, and energy are met by transforming raw materials into useful products. We are constantly choosing between renewable and non-renewable resources. By definition, non-renewable resources are finite and can't be replaced. Whenever possible we should choose renewable resources. We should also do everything possible to slow down the depletion of non-renewable resources, while we make the transition to a sustainable society.
As a society, our next choice is where we obtain raw materials such as wood. Living sustainably suggests that we should obtain as many resources as possible in our own back yard, wherever that may be. Closing our own forests to wood production would not be a good idea if that meant obtaining wood from other places where the economic costs and environmental impacts would be much higher. We would fail to "think globally and act locally."
There is no point in talking about sustainable forestry, or forest stewardship, unless we understand our options as consumers, and the interdependent relationship we have with the producers who meet our needs. Population and per capita consumption are the two factors which create demand. There is no indication that either will slow down in the foreseeable future. Therefore, which resources we choose, where we get them, how we use them, and how we dispose of them are all critical issues for sustainable development.
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Many great civilizations have fallen by failing to live sustainably, within their economic and ecological means.
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is considered the cradle of civilization. The "Fertile Crescent," of present day Iraq, is where Western Civilization first emerged. At times of rapid growth in Mesopotamia, the value of wood was equal to precious gems, stones, and metals. Neighboring states were conquered for wood, gold and silver. By 2000 B.C. the last Mesopotamian empire had collapsed. The connection between their decline and deforestation is well supported. Excessive amounts of timber were felled around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and their tributaries. This caused increased siltation and salinity which compromised the water quality and soil productivity. Irrigation canals filled with sediment and the water ways required constant dredging. Barley was the staple food of the Mesopotamians, and as crops diminished the great cities fell. They realized too late what had happened.
Greece
The late Bronze Age saw a great surge in the population and economic strength of Mycenaean Greece. In the thirteenth century B.C. large tracts of forests were cleared to accommodate the needs of the rapidly growing population. The wood was used for construction and to feed the great bronze furnaces. The harvested land was heavily grazed, hampering natural regeneration of the forest. The decline of ancient Greek civilization was directly linked to deforestation and soil depletion.
Rome
In the 1st century A.D. Rome already devoured its own forests for fuel, shelter and transportation. The fuel wood was used to heat, cook, smelt metals and fire the public baths.
Rome's monetary system was based on silver which required huge quantities of wood, a renewable resource, to convert ore into metal, a non-renewable resource. As wood became scarce the silver content of the metal was drastically reduced. This created a monetary crisis and a shift back to the bartering system. The public baths were used to appease the masses and also used huge quantities of wood.
The deforestation of their own lands caused decreased soil stability, which resulted in decreased agricultural production. The gap between wood and agricultural needs and domestic supply was an impetus for Rome's conquests throughout the Mediterranean region. These conquests employed Rome's fleet of 60 wooden ships. The decline of the Romans was directly linked to their failure to manage their resources sustainably. The same pattern repeated itself throughout history all over the world. Growing populations, excessive consumption, the use of wood for energy to process non-renewable resources, deforestation, soil depletion, watershed destruction, and the resulting problems of famine, led to economic and social collapse. When societies fail to live sustainably they come crashing down, even the greatest ones.
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It is an undeniable law of nature that we must keep our production in balance with our production capacity. Just like the goose that laid the golden eggs in Aesop's fable, the land represents our production capacity, and the bounty we get from the land represents the production...the golden eggs. In Aesop's fable a farmer got greedy and killed the goose looking for more golden eggs, and in the process destroyed his production capacity. Great civilizations have risen based on their wealth of natural resources and then have fallen by failing to maintain the productivity, health and resiliency of the ecosystems which produce those resources. At some point, they destroy their production capacity and run out of options.
Following the death of living trees in a forest, regardless of whether this is caused by fire, wind, insects, disease, or harvesting, the natural processes of ecosystem recovery and forest renewal begin to operate. However, these natural processes were continually thwarted by ancient civilizations who knew little about stewardship of forest ecosystems. Over-consumption, poor stewardship, and failure to live sustainably led to their demise.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana
Forests play the leading role in sustaining human populations and providing a good quality of life. We can take a lesson from ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome. We must live in a symbiotic relationship with the earth. Stewardship is treating earth as the garden with humans as the gardeners. Forestry, and agriculture are the foundations on which a sustainable society is built.
"The reciprocal interplay between human kind and the earth can result in true symbiosis." - Rene Dubos
A mature society lives within its social, economic and ecological means. Such a society keeps its population and consumption at a sustainable level. It uses renewable resources to meet its needs. It uses durable goods, and extends the life of those goods already in use. It produces more from less: less raw material input, less waste, and less pollution. It reduces, reuses, and recycles. And, a mature society delays gratification, leaving all options open for future generations.
"Life Cycle Analysis" studies a product from "cradle to grave," and determines what environmental impact that product will have over its useful life. Now, a new concept is emerging called "cradle to cradle" analysis. Before a product is born, we start thinking about its subsequent uses. This comes with a new understanding of what it means to live in a closed system with finite resources. Everything we have was present on earth before we arrived, albeit in a different state. Matter just keeps getting rearranged for better or worse. Once we understand this, we understand much more about living sustainably.
During European settlement of the United States 310,000,000 acres of forest land were converted for agricultural use. Adjustments in our present society are needed to achieve sustainability. A total commitment to the vision of sustainable development and sustainable forestry are essential. Most options are still open to us, however we must learn from history and apply our scientific, financial and human resources to achieve a sustainable society. If we fail, in this task then like so many ancient civilizations, our options will begin to vanish. Our children and their children will judge us by what we pass on to them.
There are 4 stages of forest stewardship culminating with sustainable forestry. In his book Balancing Act, Dr. Hamish Kimmins, a forest ecologist at the University of British Columbia, outlines these stages.
Stage 1. Unregulated Forest Exploitation
Unregulated exploitation of local forests leads to ecosystem degradation, and results in loss of forest productivity and resiliency. The next step is often exploitation of other nations resources through colonization, forced acquisition, or commerce.
Stage 2. Regulated Forest Exploitation
In this stage the rate and pattern of exploitation are regulated in an attempt to maintain various values. However, these regulations generally fail to respect the ecological principles. This stage of forestry has generally been unsuccessful. The Greeks and Romans made it into this stage, but no real conservation was achieved because forest management was driven by politics, law or religion rather than science.
Stage 3. Ecology Based Forestry
Ecology begins to drive forest management policies. This stage takes the ecological processes of the forest into consideration to ensure these processes are maintained. However, because this stage has frequently focused on timber production it has not always sustained all of the values desired by society. The ancient Greek and Roman empires collapsed before they were able to apply the ecological knowledge they had acquired.
Stage 4. Sustainable Forestry
Under sustainable forestry social wants and needs are fully considered, and forests are managed to produce a variety of values and benefits. Values that go beyond the direct sustainability of the forest ecosystem include: aesthetics, wilderness, recreation, biodiversity, and non-traditional forest products. For this reason this stage is sometimes referred to as 'social forestry.' A strong economy and strong local communities are essential for this stage to exist.
Dr. Robert Lee, a professor specializing in forest sociology at the University of Washington teaches that for any forest policy to be truly sustainable it must be:
Beyond this, Dr. Lee says that without some predictability in the future there can be no conservation. This is because conserving forest resources means waiting for a future reward, perhaps a reward to be reaped by ones descendants. If there is no predictability in the future, then it is rational to reap all the gains possible in the present moment. Forests grow on long rotations (25-200 years) and the forest owner needs to believe that his or her property rights are secure so that a long term management plan can be executed. Reaching stage four in forest stewardship demands the incentive to manage for both current and future generations.
Worldwide over half of the 3.5 billion cubic meters of wood harvested annually is fuel wood for cooking, heating, and energy production. This is also the fastest growing category of wood consumption.
Approximately 90% of the world's population growth is occurring in developing nations where sustainability is taking a back seat to meeting the urgent needs of current generations. Environmental degradation due to industrialization is matched by degradation due to population and poverty problems. Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Human Needs shows that people don't aspire to higher needs such as 'sustainable forestry' or 'social forestry' until basic needs have been met.
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries A.D., central European monks laid the foundation for modern forestry with experiments in silviculture and agriculture. What they learned about soils, plants and forest regeneration became the building blocks for today's practices. Their new-found knowledge didn't prevent exploitation of European forests until the 19th century. During the 19th century a new science-based forest ethic emerged. Gifford Pinchot, the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service, studied forestry in Europe and was credited with bringing science-based forestry to the United States in the late 1800's.
We are attempting to make the transition to sustainable forestry as we move into the 21st Century. We have science, information and technology which were beyond comprehension just a generation ago. We have satellite and computer technology which allow us to construct powerful monitoring and modeling programs. These programs facilitate collection of data across broad landscapes and project changes over long time horizons. Now we need an educated public and the political will to move to the next level.
Sustainable forestry is different than sustained-yield forestry. Sustained-yield means that we only harvest what we can grow. It doesn't mean that the harvest can be sustained at a particular level in perpetuity. It is possible to practice sustained-yield forestry and have the productivity of the forest declining. Both sustained-yield and multiple-use are good concepts. However, they are being superseded by sustainable forestry and ecosystem management. These new strategies consider longer time frames, larger landscapes, more values, complex interrelationships, and constant-change. Sustainable forestry is determining a harvest level which can be maintained for the long run, without jeopardizing the natural diversity, resiliency, health, and productivity of forest ecosystems.
"There are two ways to spread light. One is to be the candle and the other is to be the mirror that reflects it."
By understanding forest dynamics we can manage forest ecosystems for the continuous reoccurrence of desired conditions. Two landmark books, Discordant Harmonies by Daniel Botkin and Forest Stand Dynamics by Chadwick Oliver and Bruce Larson help us understand how forest ecosystems work in space and time.
In 1993, a Society of American Foresters Task Force published a book titled " Sustaining Long-Term Forest Health and Productivity." The Task Force says that "foresters have a responsibility as professionals to sustain the long-term health and productivity of all forest-related resources, to ensure we meet the long-term goals of society." Their report also says that achieving this goal will require strategies which meet three criteria:
In the past few years a number of organizations have issued principles of sustainable forestry. These range from the Forest Stewardship Council of Oaxaca, Mexico, (an environmental advocacy group) to the American Forest & Paper Association of Washington D.C. (one of the forest industry's largest associations). It is interesting to note how much commonality there is in the principles they have articulated.
The Forest Stewardship Council
The Forest Stewardship Council describes itself as "an independent, nonprofit, nongovernmental organization founded in 1993 by a diverse group of representatives including forest product certification organizations from 25 countries." Their mission statement, reads: "The FSC supports environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial, and economically viable management of the world's forests, by evaluating and accrediting certifiers of forest products, and by strengthening certification and forest management capacity worldwide."
American Forest and Paper Association
The National Forest Products Association and the American Paper Institute recently merged to form the American Forest and Paper Association. The AF&PA represents 84% of the U.S. domestic and recycled paper industry, and 50% of the solid wood industry. In October of 1994 their board approved a set of Sustainable Forestry Principles and Implementation Guidelines. This document constitutes the members commitment to sustainable forestry and the measures by which the public can benchmark this commitment. Their stated objective is to "achieve a much broader practice of sustainable forestry throughout the United States." In this way AF&PA plans to "perceptibly improve the performance of member companies, and to set new standards for the entire industry as well as for other forest landowners."
The AF&PA states: "sustainable forestry is a dynamic concept that will evolve with experience and new knowledge provided through research. AF&PA views these Principles and Guidelines as the latest in many steps in a progressive evolution of United States industrial forest practices. Through this step AF&PA members seek to meet the needs of humanity for essential wood and paper products while protecting and enhancing other forest values."
Note that the first principle incorporates the definition of sustainable development as articulated by the World Commission on Environment and Development in its report to the UN titled Our Common Future. The definition is "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
Certification is a stamp of approval that says a given piece of wood comes from a "sustainable or well managed forest." One of the key features of certification is that it implies a harvest. Certification can also be a way to recognize companies that are doing a good job of stewardship.
There are some problems with certification. One is the cost of maintaining separate inventories of certified products. The other is something called "chain-of-custody." This means that any certified product must be traceable as it moves from a forest to the ultimate end-user. This becomes increasingly difficult as the size of forest ownership diminishes. In spite of the obstacles, the concept of independent third party certification continues to gain acceptance. According to the Forest Stewardship Council, certification has emerged as a key issue in the international forest policy arena.
The International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), the International Standardization Organization (ISO), the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, and the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development see independent third party certification as a means to ensure sustainable management of the worlds' forests.
Although we're still defining them, "sustainable forestry," and "ecosystem management" are excellent goals. They focus on achieving desired future forest conditions. As the Society of American Foresters Task Force points out, they "do not advocate preservation, or the return to some ideal 'natural state,' but rather maintenance of the integrity of the forest ecosystem and the production of goods and services within those constraints." Intensive forest management can be included within this framework if it contributes to the goals for ecosystem management at the landscape and higher levels.
The final key to sustainability is education. People can only make informed choices when they understand the issues and options. All of our consumption and production options have strengths, weaknesses, risks and trade-offs. It is imperative that the public is informed and educated on the issues and options of natural resource management. An uniformed public may be the greatest threat of all to implementing sustainable forest policies. There are no simple solutions, only intelligent choices.
A Forest Journey (the role of wood in the development of civilization): John Perlin, Harvard University Press, 1989, ISBN 0-674-30892-1.
Balancing Act (environmental issues in forestry): Hamish Kimmins, UBC Press, Copyright 1992, ISBN 0-7748-0426-2.
Discordant Harmonies (a new ecology for the twenty-first century): Daniel B. Botkin, Oxford University Press, 1990, ISBN 0-19-505491-1.
Forest Stand Dynamics: Chadwick Oliver & Bruce Larson, McGraw Hill, 1990, ISBN 0-07-047829-5.
FSC Notes, The Forest Stewardship Council, Summer 1995, Volume 1, Issue 1.
Living in the Environment, G. Tyler Miller, Jr., Wadsworth, 1994, ISBN 0-534-19950-X.
Our Common Future: World Commission on Environment and Development, Oxford University Press, 1987.
Principles of Sustainable Forestry: Forest Alliance of British Columbia.
Sustainable Forestry Principles and Implementation Guidelines, American Forest and Paper Association, 1994.
Sustaining Long-Term Forest Health and Productivity: Society of American Foresters 1993, ISBN 0-939970-55-4.
Symbiosis between the Earth and Human Kind, Rene« Dubos, Science, Volume 193, 1976.
The Earth as Transformed by Human Action: Chapter 40 The Realm of Meaning, Robert D. Sack, Cambridge University Press with Clark University.
Adaptive Management: Driving forest management with scientific research. This requires excellent monitoring, and feed back loops to quickly put new knowledge into practice on the ground.
Biomass: The weight of living organisms. Forests are biomass factories, producing plant, animal, and microbial biomass.
Conservation: The sustainable use of forest resources in a manner that does not degrade the collective resource values of a region over the long term.
Eco: This prefix come from the Greek "Oikos" which means house. In the original context, ecology refers to the house we live in and economy refers to how we manage that house.
Ecology: The study of ecosystems. As a science ecology makes no value judgements.
Ecosystem: A natural system which functions as a unit. It can be anything from a rotting log to the entire planet. It is assemblage of living organisms together with their non-living environment in a particular area.
Forest: An ecosystem dominated by trees, with a unique combination of plants, animals, microbes, soil, and climate.
Foresters: Foresters manage forests for the maintenance and reoccurrence of desirable conditions. What is desirable is determined by social, biological, and economic considerations.
Forestry: The art, science, and practice of managing forest landscapes to provide a sustained production of a variety of goods and services for society.
Silviculture: The art and science of managing stands of trees to achieve desired outcomes relative to species composition and stand structure.
http://www.forestinfo.org/Products/products-eco.htm