Forestry

A Timberjack wheeled harvester stacking cut timber in Finland

Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, planting, using, conserving and repairing forests and woodlands for associated resources for human and environmental benefits.[1] Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands.[2] The science of forestry has elements that belong to the biological, physical, social, political and managerial sciences.[3] Forest management plays an essential role in the creation and modification of habitats and affects ecosystem services provisioning.[4]

Modern forestry generally embraces a broad range of concerns, in what is known as multiple-use management, including: the provision of timber, fuel wood, wildlife habitat, natural water quality management, recreation, landscape and community protection, employment, aesthetically appealing landscapes, biodiversity management, watershed management, erosion control, and preserving forests as "sinks" for atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Forest ecosystems have come to be seen as the most important component of the biosphere,[5] and forestry has emerged as a vital applied science, craft, and technology. A practitioner of forestry is known as a forester. Another common term is silviculturist. Silviculture is narrower than forestry, being concerned only with forest plants, but is often used synonymously with forestry.

All people depend upon forests and their biodiversity, some more than others.[6] Forestry is an important economic segment in various industrial countries,[7] as forests provide more than 86 million green jobs and support the livelihoods of many more people.[6] For example, in Germany, forests cover nearly a third of the land area,[8] wood is the most important renewable resource, and forestry supports more than a million jobs and about €181 billion of value to the German economy each year.[9]

Worldwide, an estimated 880 million people spend part of their time collecting fuelwood or producing charcoal, many of them women.[6][quantify] Human populations tend to be low in areas of low-income countries with high forest cover and high forest biodiversity, but poverty rates in these areas tend to be high.[6] Some 252 million people living in forests and savannahs have incomes of less than US$1.25 per day.[6]

  1. ^ "SAFnet Dictionary | Definition For [forestry]". Dictionaryofforestry.org. 2008-10-22. Archived from the original on 2013-10-19. Retrieved 2014-03-15.
  2. ^ "Seed Origin -pinga Forestry Focus". Forestry Focus. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  3. ^ Young, Raymond A. (1982). Introduction to Forest Science. John Wiley & Sons. p. ix. ISBN 978-0-471-06438-1.
  4. ^ Frouz, Jan; Frouzová, Jaroslava (2022). Applied Ecology. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-83225-4. ISBN 978-3-030-83224-7. S2CID 245009867.
  5. ^ "ecosystem part of biosphere". Tutorvista.com. Archived from the original on 2013-11-11. Retrieved 2014-03-15.
  6. ^ a b c d e The State of the World's Forests 2020. Forests, biodiversity and people – In brief. Rome: FAO & UNEP. 2020. doi:10.4060/ca8985en. ISBN 978-92-5-132707-4. S2CID 241416114.
  7. ^ "How does the forest industry contribute to the economy?". www.nrcan.gc.ca. 26 August 2014. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  8. ^ Bundeswaldinventur 2002 Archived 2014-10-06 at the Wayback Machine, Bundesministerium für Ernährung, Landwirtschaft und Verbraucherschutz (BMELV), retrieved, 17 January 2010
  9. ^ Unternehmen Wald, forests as an enterprise, German private forestry association website Archived 2016-09-18 at the Wayback Machine