Forest protection

Ancient forests around the world are in peril, but we can still save them. Governments and the timber industry need to understand what a crucial role they play in maintaining global biodiversity, not to mention how vital they are in regulating the climate, so they need to act now. And as consumers, we can all help to save the forests. Making sure that the wood and paper we buy has come from well-managed sources (or, even better, is 100 per cent recycled) is something we can all easily do. We have many reasons to value our forests. They are a source of timber and other forest products, such as honey, essential oils, bark for tanneries, traditional medicines and wild fruits. Forests also provide habitat for native animals and plants, protection for water catchments, climate modification and opportunities foreducationand scientific research, as well as being pleasant places to visit and relax.

Many of us enjoy spending time in the woods camping, hiking, fishing or hunting. Others make a living from the forests through tourism or from the responsible harvest of trees for the pulp and paper and the saw milling industries, building homes or for firewood. A healthy forest ecosystem contributes to healthy forest wildlife, ponds , streams, air and soil. Every tree adds vibrancy, colour, magnitude, and they are vessels ofhealthand vigour. Please, for the sake of man’s future, do contribute. A healthy forest benefits us all.

FOREST PROTECTION/CONSERVATION

Forest protection is a general term describing methods supported to preserve or improve a forest threatened or affected by abuse. The Values of Wildlife Plants and animals that have not been domesticated are called wildlife.

Parts of Wildlife Conservation
1. Education
2. RESEARCH
3. LAW ENFORCEMENT
4. WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT

Wildlife traditionally refers to non-domesticatedanimal species, but has come to include all plants, fungi and other organisms which grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans.[1]Domesticating wild plant and animal species for human benefit has occurred many times all over the planet, and has a major impact on theenvironment, both positive and negative. Wildlife can be found in all ecosystems. Deserts, forests, rain forests, plains, grasslands, and other areas including the most developed urban sites, all have distinct forms of wildlife. While the term in popularcultureusually refers to animals that are untouched by human factors,[2] most scientists agree that wildlife around is affected by human activities. Humans have historically tended to separate civilization from wildlife in a number of ways including the legal, social, and moral sense. Some animals, however, have adapted to suburban environments. This includes such animals as domesticated cats, dogs, mice, and gerbils. Religions have often declared certain animals to be sacred, and in modern times concern for the natural environment has provoked activists to protest the exploitation of wildlife for human benefit or entertainment. T he EPA tries to balance protecting business interests with protecting

DEFORESTATION:

The removal of trees without sufficient reforestation has resulted in damage to habitat, biodiversity loss and aridity. Deforestation, clearance or clearing is the removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is thereafter converted to a non-forest use.[1] Examples of deforestation include conversion of forestland to farms, ranches, or urban use. More than half of the animal and plant species in the world live in tropical forests.

Leave No Trace (LNT) refers to a set oftrail ethics and also to a nonprofit organization that teaches those principles. LNT principles are designed to promote conservation in the outdoors. The organization Leave No Trace exists to educate people on their impact on nature as well as the principles of LNT to prevent and minimize such impacts Leave No Trace is built on seven principles: Plan Ahead and Prepare, Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces, Dispose of Waste Properly, Leave What You Find, Minimize Campfire Impacts, RespectWildlife, and Be Considerate of Other Visitors

ADVANTAGES OF FOREST CONSRVATION :

The following are the advantages and necessities of forest conservation. 1. Forest conservation support life on earth.

2. It maintains quality of water and air, the basic essentials of existence of life.

3. Stability in soil is possible by trees, enables the land based plants and animals to live.

4. From their biodiversity grows wealth in the form offood, medicines, essential for human health.

5. It acts as Carbon sinks absorbing Carbon dioxide and keeps global warning at body.

6. Forests influence climate and educe extremes of temperature. They conserve soil and regulate moisture and stream flow. It prevents soil erosion and floods.

7. Forests also supply raw materials to so many industries like pulp-paper, news print, saw milling, matches, medicinal herbs..

8. It is the source of wood for use in houses construction and fuel wood.

9. Forests help in main export items like teak, paper, paper boards, natural resins, seeds obtained from forests.

10. Forests also source of revenue to the Government in the form of royalty, from leases of forest products.

11. It also provides employment to a large many people.

The types of abuse that forest protection seeks to prevent include:

Aggressive or unsustainable farming and logging

Expanding city development caused by population explosion and the resulting urban sprawl

There is considerable debate over the effectiveness of forest protection methods. Enforcement of laws regarding purchased forest land is weak or non-existent in most parts of the world. In the increasingly dangerous South America, home of major rainforests, officials of the Brazilian National Agency for the Environment (IBAMA) have recently been shot during their routine duties.

Land purchase

One simple type of forest protection is the purchasing of land in order to secure it, or in order to plant trees (afforestation). It can also mean forest management or the designation of areas such as natural reservoirs which are intended to be left to themselves. However, merely purchasing a piece of land does not prevent it from being used by others for poaching and illegal logging.

On site monitoring

A better way to protect a forest, particularly old growth forests in remote areas, is to obtain a part of it and to live on and monitor the purchased land. Even in the USA, these measures sometimes don’t suffice because arson can burn a forest to the ground, leaving burnt areas free for different use.

Another issue about living on purchased forest-land is that there may not be a suitable site for a standard home without clearing land, which defies the purpose of protection. Alternatives include building a treehouse or an earthhouse. This is being done currently by indigenous people in South America to protect large reservoirs. In former times, North American Native Americans used to live in tipies or mandan earthhouses, which also require less land. An undertaking to develop modern treehouses is being taken by a company from Germany called ” TrueSchool treehouses”.

Other methods of protection

A number of less successful methods of forest protection have been tried, such as the trade in certified wood. Protecting a small section of land in a larger forest may also have limited value. For example, tropical rainforests can die if they decrease in size, since they are dependent on the moist microclimate which they create. There is an excellent article in National Geographic October issue concerning redwood forest in California and their effort to maintain forest and rainforest.

A compromise is to conduct agriculture and stock farming, or sustainable wood management. This ascribes different values to forest land and farmland, for which many areas are clear felled.

‘Neighborhood leakage’

Two conflicting studies on the idea that protecting forests only relocates deforestation. This is called neighborhood leakage. According to the paradox of forest protection protected areas such as rural settlements near
protected zones grew at twice the rate of those elsewhere. The IUCN implements such protocols that protect over 670 eco-regions. 46% of the eco-regions had less than 10% forest protection. Which means that these areas are not being monitored as they should and the protection is not working. Considering forest protection within global priority areas was unsatisfactory. An example given was that the average protection of 8. 4% in biodiversity hotspots. Results have policy relevance in terms of the target of the Convention on Biological Diversity, reconfirmed in 2008, to conserve in an effective manner that ” at least 10% of each of the world’s forest types”.

Urban forests

A recent discovery in Europe relating to forest protection is that urban areas have forests of their own. Many cities have tens of thousands of trees which constitute forests. In addition the air in the cities is lately becoming better, providing conditions favorable for small associated species such as mosses and lichens.

EFFECTS DUE TO DEPLETION OF FORESTS :

Climate Change-
Forest conservation can play a critical role in efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and alleviatepoverty. I helps in protecting the disappearing rainforests. Soil Erosion –
Three fourths of the state is farmed, mostly in row-crops. With so much of the land under cultivation, erosion is a significant ecological and economic factor. Erosion results in the loss of valuable topsoil, degradation of surface water quality and the siltation of waterways.

METHODS OF CONSERVATION :

1) Afforestation
-Afforestation is the establishment of a forest or stand of trees in an area where there was no forest.[1] Reforestation is the reestablishment of forest cover, either naturally (by natural seeding, coppice, or root suckers) or artificially (by direct seeding or planting).

2) Conservation of resource forests
-The conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental and a social movement that seeks to protect natural resources including animal, fungus and plant species as well as their habitat for the future.

3) Commercial forestry
-The planting of forests that can be commercially exploited such as the planting of trees for the production of pulp and paper.

Forestry with an eye tostresson sales rather than any other worth.

4) Social forestry and environmental forestry
The term social forestry was used by the National Commission on Agriculture in 1976, to denote tree raising programmes to supply fire wood, small timber and minor forest products to rural population. Rural income generation through massive plantation work ; revenue earning from wood stock value, selling the medicinal plants and energy crops generated by inter crop management are the important task to improve socio-economic condition of rural masses. Carbon credit earning through Clean Development Mechanism (C D M ) will be an additional INCOME benefit by SOCIAL FORESTRY for Afforestation/Re forestation and Waste land development. It’s a community based work on massive plantation through PANCHAYAT/VILLAGE ASSEMBLY involving farmers, village workers, Govt & private bodies etc etc under JOINT VENTURE programme.

SOCIAL FORESTRY is a management and protection of forest and afforestation on the degraded land with the purpose of helping in the Environment, Social & Rural development.

5) Captive plantation or agro forestry
Agroforestry is an integrated approach of using the interactive benefits from combining trees and shrubs with crops and/or livestock. It combines agricultural and forestrytechnologies to create more diverse, productive, profitable, healthy, and sustainable land-use systems.[1] A narrow definition of agroforestry is ” trees on farms.

6) Plantation of trees of aesthetic/ ornamental value

Forestry is defined as the theory and practice of all that constitutes the creation, conservation and scientific management of forests and the utilization of their resources (Anon, 1966). It includes all thinking and all actions pertaining to creation and management of forests, including harvesting, marketing and utilization of all forest products and services. It includes not only management of existing forests but also the creation of new forests. Read the answer What did large southern plantations depend upon for a successful economy