Portal:Forestry
Introduction
Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, using, conserving, and repairing forests, woodlands, and associated resources for human and environmental benefits. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands. The science of forestry has elements that belong to the biological, physical, social, political and managerial sciences.
Modern forestry generally embraces a broad range of concerns, in what is known as multiple-use management, including the provision of timber, fuel wood, wildlife habitat, natural water quality management, recreation, landscape and community protection, employment, aesthetically appealing landscapes, biodiversity management, watershed management, erosion control, and preserving forests as "sinks" for atmospheric carbon dioxide. A practitioner of forestry is known as a forester. Other common terms are: a verderer, or a silviculturalist. Silviculture is narrower than forestry, being concerned only with forest plants, but is often used synonymously with forestry.
Forest ecosystems have come to be seen as the most important component of the biosphere, and forestry has emerged as a vital applied science, craft, and technology.
Forestry is an important economic segment in various industrial countries. For example, in Germany, forests cover nearly a third of the land area, wood is the most important renewable resource, and forestry supports more than a million jobs and about €181 billion of value to the German economy each year.
Selected article
| Shoshone National Forest is the first federally protected National Forest in the United States and covers nearly 2.5 million acres (10,000 km²) in the state of Wyoming. Originally a part of the Yellowstone Timberland Reserve, the forest was created by an act of Congress and signed into law by U.S. President Benjamin Harrison in 1891. There are four wilderness areas within the forest, protecting more than half of the managed land area from development. From sagebrush plains through dense spruce and fir forest to craggy mountain peaks, Shoshone National Forest has a rich biodiversity rarely matched in any protected area.
Three major mountain ranges are partially in the forest: the Absaroka, the Beartooth and the Wind River Range. Yellowstone National Park forms part of the boundary to the west; south of Yellowstone, the Continental Divide separates the forest from its neighbor, the Bridger-Teton National Forest, to the west. The eastern boundary includes privately owned property, lands managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the Wind River Indian Reservation, which belongs to the Shoshone and Arapahoe Indians. Custer National Forest along the Montana border is the boundary to the north. |
Selected biography
| Sakari Pinomäki (1933–2011) was a Finnish systems engineer, who pioneered the mechanized forestry industry. He was the founder of PIKA Forest Machines which produced the first purpose-built forest machine in 1964. Sakari Pinomäki's first company, PIKA Forest Machines, is credited with designing the first self-propelled tree length timber processor, the PIKA Model 60, in 1968, and the first fully mobile timber "harvester", the PIKA Model 75, in 1974. These machines differed significantly from other "retro-fitted" forestry machines in that they were designed from inception to be timber harvesting and processing equipment, and were not conventional farming or earth moving equipment with additional apparatus welded onto them to allow timber processing work to be possible. |
In the news
- November 14, 2013: "Forest change mapped by Google Earth". BBC News.
- May 31, 2013: "East Africa: EAC Moots Improvement of Regional Forestry, Trade". The New Times.* May 24, 2013: "Democratic polemic policies: the new Brazilian forestry code". The World Outline.
- May 14, 2013: "Rainforest plays critical role in hydropower generation". BBC News.
- May 9, 2013: "Creating Better Forestry Certification Programs through Competition". Forbes Magazine.
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Web resources
- Forestry: An International Journal of Forest Research (Oxford Journals). (All 2011-2012 articles are available for free viewing)
- U.K. Forestry Commissions – Forest Research
- U.S. Forest Service Research & Development