Topic 3.1b Forestry Products

Topic Aims

The aims of this topic are to:

• understand the ecosystem services provided by forests
• assess what is happening to the world’s forests and ways in which we could improve forest management
• assess the state of tropical deforestation, and propose solutions to reduce their degradation.

Forests and Ecosystem services

Forests cover approximately 32% of the earth's surface, and provide many ecological services. In northern Australia, we are lucky to live in a relatively undisturbed region of tropical savanna woodland.

Activity 3.13

Read Miller & Spoolman (2012) pages 218 – 223 and complete the following:

1. List
   1. seven important ecological services provided by forests
   2. seven important economic benefits of forests
2. Distinguish between old-growth forests, secondary (second-growth forests) and tree plantations.

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The State of the World's Forests?

The world's forests have suffered massive impact as a result of the activities of the human population. Our impact has been, and continues to be, profound.

Activity 3.14

Read Miller & Spoolman (2012) pages 223 - 229

1. Summarise the state of forest growth and loss in the world's temperate and tropical forests.
2. What is deforestation?
3. Describe the effect of deforestation on 5 ecosystem services.
   e.g.

Ecosystem Service	Effect of Deforestation
Carbon storage	Carbon is released during burning and tree decay. The potential for storage in reduced in degraded sites.

 

The State of Australia's forests

The Australian Government's National Forest Inventory states that Australia's current forest distribution "represents about 60% of the cover before the arrival of Europeans in 1778. Broad national-level data suggest Australia has lost about 25% of rainforests, 45% of open forests, 32% of woodland forests and 30% of mallee forests during the past 200 years.

Initially, much of the clearing took place in the coastal areas to provide the early European settlers with timber and to convert the highly productive areas to agricultural production. In the late 1800s, sheep grazing in Australia began to spread and, as a result, Australia's inland woodland forests started to disappear. Since the 1930s, after all States had created forest services to manage the public forest estate, there has been little decline in the area of publicly managed native forest.

What is the situation in the NT?

To date, vegetation clearing in the NT has been low-estimated at less than 2% of woody vegetation cleared. Most of this has been for agricultural developments. The NT Government currently has a major initiative underway to develop an Integrated Regional Land Use Plan for the Daly Region (see http://www.nt.gov.au/nreta/water/drmac/index.html ). Many groups and individuals are concerned that this development plan will lead to large-scale clearing in the Daly Region (see http://www.ecnt.org/html/cur_land_daly_overview.html ). Major agricultural ventures are also proposed for the Katherine, the Ord River Irrigation Scheme Stage 2, and the Sturt Plateau. Clearing of native vegetation for forestry is also being undertaken on the Tiwi Islands.

Activity 3.15

With reference to the Web sites above, “Land clearing” on the World Wildlife Funds website, and additional resources answer the following:

1. Where has most clearing occurred in the NT, and what are some of the main motivators for clearing? What is the cleared land used for?
2. What areas are currently under pressure for vegetation clearing, and for what purpose?

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Improving management?

There is a global focus on ways to improve the management of forests. This will happen if we include an economic valuation of their ecological services, harvesting trees no faster than they are replenished and protecting old-growth and vulnerable areas.

Activity 3.16

1. Read Miller & Spoolman 229 - 230, and list twelve ways of using forests more sustainably.
2. Describe how industrial forestry based on tree plantations could lead to more sustainable use of forests, refer to pages 229 - 230.
3. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the different approaches to tree harvesting discussed on pages 222 – 223 of Miller & Spoolman (2012).

Reducing pressure

One important step towards reducing deforestation is to reduce the pressure on forest resources by using wood more efficiently and using alternative sources of fibre.

For example up to 60% of the wood consumed in the US is wasted unnecessarily due to inefficient use of construction materials, excess packaging, overuse of junk mail, inadequate recycling, and failure to reuse shipping containers (Miller, 2005).

Tree-free fibres for making paper come from two sources; agricultural residues left from crops (such as wheat, rice and sugar) and fast growing crops (such as kenaf and industrial hemp).China sources almost two thirds of it’s paper from agricultural residues (Miller, 2005).

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Tropical deforestation

Tropical forests cover 47% of the world's forest cover, and are highly valued for the biodiversity values, cultural values and economic services.

Activity 3.17

Read Miller & Spoolman pages 227 – 229, and answer the following

1. What are the important values of tropical forests?
2. How rapidly are tropical forests being cleared and degraded?
3. List the five basic (or primary) causes and seven secondary causes of tropical deforestation and degradation (refer to Figure 10.15 Miller & Spoolman (2009)).

Solutions

Many analysts and forestry advisors have suggested a range of ideas to improve the management and use of tropical forests, and reduce deforestation and degradation.

Activity 3.18

Read Miller & Spoolman (2012) pages 232- 233.

1. List (a) seven ways to prevent or reduce tropical deforestation and degradation, and (b) three ways to restore degraded tropical forests
2. Describe the debt-for-nature swap.

Review questions

1. List the ecological and economic services provided by forests.
2. Distinguish between old-growth and second-growth forests.
3. List five reasons why forests are ecologically important and five reasons why they are commercially important.
4. Summarise the range of estimates of tropical deforestation rates and explain why there is so much variation between estimates.
5. What is the extent of land clearing in the NT, and what has been the main social and economic motivators for clearing?
6. List three factors underlying causes of tropical deforestation. List six human activities that destroy tropical forests.
7. Evaluate the "debt-for-nature" experiment in Bolivia.

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