Sustainable Forest Management: Balancing Use and Preservation
Sustainable use of forests
The sustainable use of forests is:
Increase the efficiency of industries, improving transport networks and eliminate the waste of wood.
Reduce paper usage and increase recycling.
Reduce fuel consumption by replacing traditional stoves, which have a yield of 10%, with more efficient ones made of materials available locally and cheaper.
Increase forest plantation high performance, designed to produce for human consumption on marginal lands or over-exploited.
Seek alternative use of forests. Instead of logging, promote
Forests provide many direct benefits to humanity: the wood used as raw material for building furniture and many of our homes, the l ena and charcoal used as fuel, paper pulp to manufacture paper; cork, resin, pine nuts, herbs, medicinal plants … Without forests would be very limited activities such as hunting, fishing, beekeeping, mushroom picking, hiking and leisure activities in nature. Furthermore, forests are beneficial to us in an indirect way, because they influence the environment around us. Thus, we must thank the establishment of forest soil and protection from erosion, flood control and water storage, production of atmospheric oxygen and carbon dioxide reduction, moderation of climate change maintenance of biodiversity, etc.
Impacts
– Despite all these benefits, woodlands continue to shrink, usually by human action felling trees and causing fires or favors. Once deforestation occurs, if not remedied quickly, leading to soil erosion and it is very difficult and slow recovery of the forest. A deforestation adds another problem, the replacement of native trees by fast-growing alien trees, the most striking case is that of Eucalyptus, a native of Australia, which now occupies large areas of our country.
Management
– The problem of deforestation must be faced with austerity, reducing the consumption of wood, wood and paper. We all agree that there are still felling trees in the Amazon basin but are selected tropical timber to Europe and the First World where they are sued, so we should consider our responsibility in this problem. On the role we have a simple choice: use recycled paper for no more trees to cut down are those that provide the cellulose.
In any case, trees must be cut but you have to compensate with well-planned reforestation campaigns, so that the forest is maintained. We have to exploit the forests, but rape them. A good example of sustainable development is the management of cork oak forests: every 8-10 years there is the Uncorking the cork leaving time to recover, so the forest is maintained while you get a very valuable resource.
✤ energy resources of the biosphere (page 320)
Biomass can help alleviate the current energy deficit, since it is renewable, cheap, clean and requires little complex technologies. Is provided by a wide range of products, which includeforest (wood, wood or wood waste), agricultural wastes (straw), animal wastes (manure from farms) and waste (paper, cardboard, food scraps). Firewood remains the basic fuel in many parts of the world. Their abuse threatens forests, so when we speak of “biomass energy” usually refer to new applications of this energy. One of them is to use the gas from the anaerobic decomposition of organic waste in landfills and sludge in WWTP, in both cases generates biogas with 60% methane. Biogas can be obtained in thermal electricity. One of the main problems of alternative energy sources (hydro, wind, solar) is that they aim to transform into electricity and can not replace, today, to liquid fuels that drive our vehicles. It is true that there are electric vehicles but their performance and autonomy is
limited. So we need new fuels and, apparently, the best candidates are biofuels, ie those generated from biomass.
Ethanol, for example, can be obtained from the fermentation and distillation of grain, sugar beet and sugar cane has been successfully tested in engines
explosion of a mixture of ethanol with gasoline. Similarly methanol is obtained from agricultural waste. Another interesting alternative is to use vegetable oils in diesel engines because it requires changes in these engines, in Brazil, for example, is widespread use of biodiesel. Biofuels are the great hope for the oil depletion, but can also be a source of conflict when a food product is diverted, as has happened with corn to fuel generation. This has caused the price of corn has skyrocketed and they can not access it million people in Latin America who use it as a staple.