1. Environmental Science PowerPoint Lecture
Principles of Environmental
Science - Inquiry and Applications,
2nd Edition, 2004
by William and Mary Ann Cunningham

2. Chapter 6 - Topics World Forests Rangelands Parks and Nature Preserves
World Parks and Preserves
Wilderness Areas and Wildlife Refuges
Part of Chapter 6 will be covered here but the remaining sections will be covered in the following lectures. It is important to put forests in perspective of how much do we have globally and what uses do we have for forests. The uses by the US and many other parts of the world are really quite different. The conflicts in the use of the forests that have occurred in the Pacific Northwest have not played out as dramatically in the developing world where people are really dependent on the use of wood for cooking and heating, and not as much for producing forest products.

3. Where collect forest products? Where forests located globally?
Note the disjunction with the areas of the world that are heavily dominated by humans and those areas with the highest areas of predominantly natural ecosystems. Canada, Alaska, the Amazon and Siberia are all regions that show up as natural but are the regions most contentious in the world because they are rich sources of wood.
One has to consider what the sources of wood around the world, what are wood sources used for by regional populations (for firewood or for wood products for housing etc.) – such an assessment explains a lot of the conflicts that we are having in deforestation rates and where these deforestation projects are occurring.
Human Disturbance Map

4. Forests, woodlands = 33% land area
FAO 1999, WRI
GLOBE
Forests, woodlands = 33% land area
Ice, rock, desert etc. = 32%
Range, Pastures = 23%
~ 66% area in RESOURCE EXTRACTION
Ag = 10%
Built land = 2%

5. 14 25 15 24 16 % of Total Area in Forests Globally
Who imports wood, who cuts trees?
Oceania
Europe 3 4
Asia
South America 14 25 15
Africa 24
2000 census – FAO. Oceania includes Papau New Guinea, Australia
This data really shows you the importance of South America and the former USSR as sites of forest area. Siberia is being eyed as a significant source of timber. You don’t hear about a lot of conflicts in extracting trees in Africa because they have a smaller portion of global forests. The low dominance by Europe in providing forest products and in being an important importer of wood is related to the low area (only ~ 4%) of the global forest area found in Europe. 16
Former USSR
North/ Central America
% of Total Area in Forests Globally

6. Main vegetation zones of the world’s forests under natural conditions

7. Part 1: World Forests 70-80% of original ~ 30% of original
Much of industrial logging in North America and Europe occur in managed forests where trees grown like a crop. In contrast, tropical hardwoods in southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America are being cut as an unsustainable rate in natural forests.
Note in Table 6.1 that is in your text book of why particular parts of the world are being actively logged. If you look at the current forest cover you will see that North America, South america and Russia are the locations with the highest amount of original forest left (70-80%). Parts of Africa, Europe and Asia have only a third of their original forest cover left. Therefore these latter countries especially Europe and Asia are looking for wood from other parts of the world because they do not have enough trees to satisfy all their demands for wood products from internal sources.

8. Global Wood Use , % 86 51
You will note that most of the wood harvested from forests around the world are for fuelwood uses (for cooking and heating). This contrasts what we typically lthink about for the US where a large portion of the wood is used for making paper, toilet paper, cloth rags, paper bags etc. When wood is being collected mainly for fuelwood, much of this is occurring at a subsistence level. If you look at Nepal, over 80% of the wood that is collected in the forests is for firewood purposes. 49 14

9. World Consumption, 1994 (% of total)
Fuelwood
Fiber – paper products
Non-fiber roundwood
Asia 93 1 6
Africa 81 13
South Am 50 31 19
former USSR 44 17 39
N/Cen Am 21 37 41
Europe 15 33 52
Oceania 7 14 79
TOTAL 56 18 25
You don’t need to know the data in this figure but it just shows you how much of the world consumption of wood is for fuelwood by region.

10. DEFORESTATION: Charcoal production – Northern Brazil
Since just burning wood by itself does not give you much energy over a longer time period. Wood has been converted to charcoal all over the world. This is an example from northern Brazil. Other structures are not as permanent as this one in Brazil and consists of wood pieces being buried under a blanket of organic material which is allowed to slowly burn without having an open fire present. Charcoal is the carbon skeleton of what is left after the process. In Puerto Rico, they even made charcoal out of vegetables to be sold in the market place.
DEFORESTATION: Charcoal production – Northern Brazil

11. Outside New Delhi, India – houses made of cow piles
The need for fire wood goes to some extremes in some countries where the wood sources are present in low levels. Here cow dungs have been collected and are being stored as layers on top of one another for later use in cooking. There is not enough firewood present in many of these systems so they are resorting to using dung. Dung from cows is high in undigested grass material since cows are herbivores and do not have an efficient system for eating the plant materials that they eat.
Outside New Delhi, India – houses made of cow piles

12. Himalayas - India Collecting leaves for fodder Harvesting resin
The collection of leaves for animal fodder (the food source of domesticated animals in many parts of the world) is illegal and the picture of the woman at the right shows her scurrying rapidly out of the forest before anyone sees her. So there are a lot of other uses for forests in many countries that in fact start to cause degradation of these forests and decreases forest cover. The resin of a pine tree (which is the sap of the tree and its carbohydrates) is being harvested for use in lanterns.
Collecting leaves for fodder
Harvesting resin

13. Forest Products
People are having to go further to collect firewood because of the degradation of forests around where they live. This is especially relevant for the drier tropical forests around the world.

14. India Himalayas – cutting trees for fire wood
This is in India and shows how overharvesting of forests has resulted in little forest cover and a very changed forest condition. This reflects the overharvesting of wood for fire wood, and an inadequate supply of wood for local communities.

15. Manikara zapota (chicle), Belize
There have been cycles of extraction that have not really worked out since the inherent capacity of the site is limited to provide resources. The rubber is a classic example while chicle survived the longest as an extractive resource. International communities are attempting to provide additional sources of livelihood for many communities dependent on extracting resources from forests by having them harvest what are called non-timber forest products.

16. Wood Consumption
Total annual world wood consumption is about 3.7 billion metric tons, more then steel and plastic consumption together.
Firewood accounts for slightly more than 50% of all wood harvested worldwide.
Developed countries produce less than half of all wood used for industrial purposes, but account for about 80% of its consumption.
By 2025, demand for fuelwood may be twice the available supply.

17. About 25% of the world’s forests are managed for wood production.
Monoculture forestry - single species
Ideal: scientific planning for sustainable harvests
Today, about 25% of the worlds forests are managed for wood production of forest products (e.g. toilet paper, newspaper etc.). It has been suggested that all the wood supply of the world could occur from 5% of the forest base if intensive forest management were to occur. Most areas where intensive forestry is occurring is based on the growth of single species because of the quality differences between species for conversion into wood products. Since less forest area is becoming available for growing trees in places like the US, much of the demand is being pushed to other regions of the world who are willing to supply this accelerating demand.

18. Some Causes of Tropical Deforestation
Logging for valuable hardwoods such as mahogany
Clearing of land for cattle ranches and export crop production (bananas, pineapples, palm oil plantations etc.)
Slash and burn agriculture – this is listed by the text but is such a different level that it should not be included in this list
Mining - gold
Activities such as slash and burn agriculture have been occurring for hundreds of years and is based on a system where a small forest area is cleared, crops are grown for 3-10 years and then the plot is abandoned to regrow back into a forest. The small scale and historical use of this approach really means that it should not be grouped with all the other causes that are listed above.

20. Tropical Forest Issues
Estimated rate of tropical forest losses
We talk about tropical deforestation rates but we really do not have good figures for these. The ability of using GIS and satellite imagery is helping to see what is happening in many countries where illegal forest cutting is not uncommon.

21. This is the scale of a typical slash and burn agriculture plot that is used by indigenous communities to survive in the tropics. In the Amazon they have discovered that the highest species diversity is found in these landscapes and that people have had a lot to do with selecting which plants will survive. This activity cannot be compared to the others that are listed as causes of deforestation and are in many cases having a severe degrading impact on the environment.

22. Export markets for products that were not native to the region
Export markets for products that were not native to the region. Cattle first introduced by the Spaniards to the New World. This is a land conversion that is having a major impact on tropical forests and converts the land to uses other than forestland.
North Brazil

23. In Indonesia and Malaysia, many tropical forests are being cut down in order to plant palm oil plants. Indonesia several years back wanted to be the major world supplier of palm oil to the markets. This is used as a cooking oil. If you look at the tub on the left, the red liquid is what hardens and is used as a cooking oil. The picture on the top right shows how palm oil plants are planted using a terracing system – this also eliminates the tropical forest that used to exist here.
Malaysia, palm oil

24. DEFORESTATION: Valued timber species - Indonesia
This is always given as the major culprit of tropical deforestation but in fact is just one of the major reasons tropical forests are cut down.
DEFORESTATION: Valued timber species - Indonesia

25. Cutting and burning of tropical rainforest results in:
Wildlife loss, over hunting
Habitat loss, species changes
Rapid water runoff
Soil erosion
Waste forest resources
Climate change other parts of world (Amazon)
In the text, this is described as slash and burn agriculture but in fact when practiced in the traditional way, it does not look anything like what is being portrayed. The points made above are when you convert tropical forests to high tech agriculture or into pasture for cattle. It is important that this distinction is clear. When there is major areas of land conversion from forests, climate change is a very likely scenario. The Amazon has been noted for having an impact on global climates. When the forests are removed, less water is captured by the forests which starts changing climates in areas other than where the forests were removed.

26. Logging roads open up forest access to landless settlers
This has been a significant problem in tropical areas where Brazil has used the southern part of Venezuela as a safety valve for their own inability of dealing with providing a livelihood for their own people. People migrate up into these areas and begin commonly to look for gold or if you are a wealthy rancher you bring in the cattle. The gold mining is bad because they use mercury to separate gold from the other rock materials and individual miners are getting mercury poisoning. Do you remember the story about the ‘mad hatters’ or dentists – mercury was used to help form and make hats in the past, while mercury was used as a filler in people’s mouth and dentists used to breath in mercury vapors.
Logging roads open up forest access to
landless settlers

27. Slide on left demonstrates how logging roads open the forest areas to landless settlers, miners and hunters who drive away native species and indigenous communities.

28. Forest acres in USA between 1600 – 1992 (decrease 46% to 32%)
The amount of forest in the United States has not changed much since the early 1900 and in fact has increased slightly due to the regrowth of forests in the eastern part of the US.

29. Temperate Forest Issues
Logging of old-growth
Endangered species vs. jobs
Northern spotted owl
Salmon
Natural resource extractive economies – rural environments

30. Driving negative reactions to forest management
Clear-cutting
Use of single species in monocultures
Road construction to harvest forests
The main reasons for dislike of logging has been peoples dislikes of particular management activities and their impacts on the rest of the landscape.

31. Clear-cutting and Road Building

32. Fire Management and Forest Health
This is currently a very controversial issue – should be allow cutting to make forests less susceptible to larger fires?

33. Solutions to Decrease Forest Loss Rates
Forest Certification
Forest Protection (12% of forests protected globally)
Integrated Conservation and Sustainable Development projects
Debt-for-Nature Swaps (1st in Bolivia)

34. Rationales for Certification
Social movement in tropics
Dislike of past land practices
Mistrust of landowners
Disjunction between production and consumers
Sustainability of forested landscapes is a significant issue today and has resulted in the development of Forest Certification as a means of third party organizations to audit whether forests are being sustainably managed.

35. Why Consider Forest Certification?
Public concern over globalization
Public want more values/land
Supply chain increasingly scrutinized
Retailers prefer credible suppliers
Consolidation strengthens buyers
Non-Tariff trade barriers will increase
Global markets impact US markets
Gain market share and efficiency
Improve market prices and stability
Increase industry profitability
Global certification talk