By Vinay Grover
Sustainable forestry could be touted as a complicated term, which purports dissimilar things to different people. Being a newer concept, it also means managing renewable forest resources with the sole aim of promoting and maintaining healthy and productive forest land base in an endeavor to improvise the environmental, economic, and societal welfare of one and all. Sustainable forestry also focuses on logging equipment, identifies the demand of timber products and employs people to prevent economic problems. It also focuses on the fact that social responsibility is also crucial as environmental sustainability.
In the past foresters used to depend solely on using and cutting trees, but over time, by the middle ages, they started recognizing the environmental problems due to chopping of trees and started conserving and replenishing the timber resources. Today forests can be described as a source of oxygen. They perform an all-important part in their battle against global warming. Broadly indicating the role of forestry is to exploit timber resources carefully and efficiently, because timber products are used everywhere for producing a great range of products, everything from parchment paper for baking to houses. No doubt wood products have a big demand and they are available in large quantities, but it does not indicate harming rivers as a result from establishing roads for logging, erosion due to clear cutting and commotion to wildlife due to helicopter logging. In this scenario a sustainable forester thinks of ways and means through which forests could be saved from the damage.
In sustainable forestry logging companies have also an crucial role to play; like use of state-of-the-art timber harvesting practices and technologies, complying with applicable laws and regulations, make use of best practice forestry techniques which preserve soil, apart from wildlife and scenic values, employ various techniques for following wood from forests to processing centers etc. In sustainability forestry, a timber company also ensures that workers’ health and safety policies and practices are carefully abided by. It should also execute operations in harmony with a reliable business plan. The logging company employed should also venture for implementing improved harvesting practices.
Sustainability forestry improves forests by encouraging cost-effective and environmental responsible practices in all woodlands. It also improves forest health on a long-term basis and production by way of protecting forests against pests, wildfires and diseases. Thus logging companies should also attempt to achieve the common goal of attaining sustainable forestry by way of achieving “responsible” forestry. By responsible forestry it means reducing the impact of logging, setting a part elevated conservation value forests, ensuring the conservation of ecosystem services along with biodiversity whilst defending the rights of local and native people to administer and utilize forest lands and resources. In order to maintain transparency in their transaction, responsible forestry should also entail verification by 3rd party auditors like FSC. A logging company, however, while implementing sustainable forestry should take measures in condemning the flow of illegal and recklessly harvested timber into consumer markets. If taken it seriously sustainable forestry would definitely improve the forests by embracing responsible and certified logging while squeezing out illegal operations.
