Logging Effects
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HAS BIG TIMBER FINALLY BROUGHT USGBC TO HEEL?
Environmental groups, forward-thinking companies, and social interest groups concerned about the destruction of the world’s forests come together to form the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). FSC’s goal was and is to promote environmentally and socially responsible forest management practices globally. FSC’s governance system is organized into three chambers with equal power—an environmental chamber concerned with protecting forest ecosystems, an economic chamber concerned with making a profit from forest products, and a social chamber concerned with human and worker rights.
Beyond the Timber Wars
by Lisa Bramen 31/7/15 The Nature Conservancy
It's a rare mild February morning in southwestern Washington, a place so famous for winter squalls that beachfront hotels here offer storm-watching packages. A few miles inland, project manager Tom Kollasch is following faint elk trails through a stand of coastal rain-forest on The Nature Conservancy’s Ellsworth Creek Preserve.
Tree Keepers: Where Sustaining the Forest Is a Tribal Tradition
by FRED PEARCE 24/7/23 YaleEnvironment360
Mike Lohrengel looks up in awe at trees he has known for 30 years. “This is one of the most beautiful places I know. This forest has it all: the most species, the most diversity. Many trees I know individually. Look at this one behind us. It’s got a split way up there. I’ll never forget that tree till I die.”
Timber Wars
In the 1980s and ’90s, loggers and environmental activists faced off over the future of old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest. In this episode, Reveal partners with the podcast series Timber Wars from Oregon Public Broadcasting. Reporter Aaron Scott explores that definitive moment in the history of the land – and the consequences that reverberate today.
The ‘timber detectives’ on the front lines of illegal wood trade
by Peter Yeung 9/3/22 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
Hamburg, Germany — Under tungsten light on a bleak winter day, Gerald Koch gazes up from a black microscope, adjusts his rimless glasses, and gestures at a monitor displaying a slice, thinner than a hair, of suspected illegal timber.
Corruption, Forestry Workers, and Siberian Tigers: the Story of Illegal Logging in the Developing World
There’s a dark past behind the pieces of paper sitting right in your printer, right in your notebook— may be right beneath your pencil. Potentially dark, that is. According to the EIA (Environmental Investigation Agency), up to 90% of timber logged in some developing countries is done so illegally. Therefore—assuming you didn’t buy some specialty paper from a country without rainforests and a fragile government— there is a strong likelihood that the wood products you’ve purchased in America are more tainted with corruption than you’d like to believe.
Illegal Logging
Illegal logging is an immense, multi-billion dollar industry threatening forests worldwide.
Illegal logging is the catalyst to deforestation around the globe, threatening some of the world’s most important forests in terms of conservation value. Predatory logging brings roads deeper into the forest, which in turn fuels more logging, impacts Indigenous Peoples and traditional local communities, as well as harming wildlife. Illegal logging is a global-multi-country issue Greenpeace offices around the world have worked to investigate, document, and stop.
To Save the Redwoods, Scientists Debate Burning and Logging
by Becki Robins 16/12/19 UNDARK
Redwoods draw crowds, but they are also ecologically important. They act as natural water filters, processing trillions of gallons of clean, drinkable water every year. Redwood forests store at least three times as much carbon as any other kind of forest, and because the individual trees live for thousands of years, the carbon storage is long-term. That makes them important actors in the story of California’s changing climate.
Saving the Trees for the Forest
On a crisp, sunny morning in early March, Tonya Enger scampered through a clearing near Washington’s Yacolt Burn State Forest. The soil was so soft that it sank as she walked through the lush understory. Enger, the founder of a local civic engagement group called Vancouver Forestkeeper, frequently leads tours here. “It’s beautiful in the fall,” she said. “And in the summer, the huckleberry bushes are full and bright red.” She pointed out thriving mushrooms, moss, and lichen as she made her way. Tree snags, still charred black from one of the largest recorded wildfires in Washington history, tower over the landscape.
Why deforestation matters—and what we can do to stop it
by Christina Nunez 7/12/22 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
As the world seeks to slow the pace of climate change, preserve wildlife, and support more than eight billion people, trees inevitably hold a major part of the answer. Yet the mass destruction of trees—deforestation—continues, sacrificing the long-term benefits of standing trees for short-term gain of fuel, and materials for manufacturing and construction.
About Clearcutting
Clearcutting is an extreme logging method in which resilient natural forests are harvested and replaced with man-made tree plantations that do not replicate the ecosystem services of a healthy forest.
Inside the faltering fight against illegal Amazon logging
by Scott Wallace 28/8/19 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
On July 4th, along a dusty backroad in the southwest Brazilian state of Rondônia, near the logging hub of Espigão d’Oeste, unknown assailants stopped a tanker truck, yanked the driver from the cab, and set it ablaze. The truck was carrying aviation fuel to resupply government helicopters supporting an operation against illegal loggers. Fearing further attacks, government agents suspended the operation and withdrew from the area.
Burning questions raised over logging
Clearing the remaining trees after a forest fire can increase the chance of further flames.
Environmentalists Battle Loggers to Protect One Last Old-Growth Forest
For weeks, activists in the temperate rainforest on Vancouver Island, near the town of Port Renfrew, have been blockading a logging road. On one day, more than 40 logging trucks were turned back. If and when the police finally free the protesters and clear the blockade, it is likely another will take its place. This is the last card being played in an effort to protect one of the last large swaths of old-growth forest left in a Canadian province that, environmentalists contend, has lost its way.
Timber salvaged from New York City buildings reveals ancient climate
by Nathalie Alonso 22/10/21 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
Old-growth forests once covered the eastern United States, but they were almost entirely decimated by the early 1900s after centuries of commercial logging. Yet wood from those forests survives, much of it tucked behind the walls of New York City buildings. The tree rings on these timbers are sources of historical climate data, which is why researchers are working to recover them.
Gem of the North Woods
by The Nature Conservancy 22/11/19
The St. John River Forest is a very special place in Maine, supporting previously unknown populations of rare plants, the elusive Canada lynx, and important native fish that are increasingly under pressure in Maine from non-native species. Among natural discoveries made here are the largest population of the purple false-oats plant in the United States, stands of black spruce over 300 years old and a dozen rare dragonfly species.
How Sweden's Logging Practices Affect the Environment
by Rebecca Clarke 15/8/21 Treehugger
Sweden is known as one of the world’s most environmentally conscious countries. The International Energy Agency (IEA) called the country a global leader in building a low-carbon economy. Sweden's logging practices and policies, on the other hand, require a closer look.
Let’s Fight Fire with Fire
by The Nature Conservancy 15/7/22
Thanks to Smokey Bear, a century of fire exclusion and the forced removal of Indigenous forest stewards, California’s Sierra forests are dangerously overgrown. Now, trees are packed together at up to five times their natural density, and fires that should regenerate our forests explode into infernos that destroy them. These forests help provide 60% of our state’s developed water supply, and losing them would leave millions of people without clean drinking water.
Reducing Logging Impacts in the Congo Basin
by The Nature Conservancy 12/1/23
The tracks were fresh in the mud. A leopard had walked across the logging access road between dusk and dawn. And it wasn’t the first animal sighting of the week—forest elephants and western lowland gorillas carried out their daily routines in the forest just as the loggers carried out theirs. Stingless sweat bees made their presence known, too, congregating by the hundreds on any exposed skin perspiring in the midday sun.
Illegal logging in decline
Preventing illicit cutting is a cheap way to reduce carbon emissions.
Climate Clues from the Past Prompt a New Look at History
by Jacques Leslie 20/12/21 YaleEnvironment360
Relying on new geochemical techniques for analyzing ice core sediment to determine the dates of ancient volcanic activity down to the year or even season, the paper, published in Nature in 2015, showed that major eruptions worldwide caused precipitous, up-to-a-decade-long drops in global temperatures. Later research pegged those drops at as much as 13 degrees F.
Logging in disguise: How forest thinning is making wildfires worse
by Chad T. Hanson 24/8/21 Grist
Fire has always been a concern for communities like Greenville in the northern Sierra Nevada mountains. And, for decades, the U.S. Forest Service and the timber industry told the townspeople that logging tens of thousands of acres — under the guise of “thinning” — would create “fuel breaks” to slow or even stop wildfires and prevent flames from reaching Main Street.
How Widespread Logging in Canada Is Escaping Scrutiny
by Courtenay Lewis 18/3/19 NRDC
In recent years, Canada has had the third highest rate of intact forest landscape loss in the world, behind only Russia and Brazil. Yet widespread logging in Canada has managed to fly under the radar of international scrutiny.
CHIP MILLS INDUSTRIAL LOGGING RETURNS TO THE OZARKS
by Ken Midkiff 17/12/13 SIERRA CLUB
About one hundred years ago, the forests of the Ozarks Plateau were being leveled. Huge milling operations, established along the streams and rivers, took in logs floated down the rivers or hauled in by mule teams and converted them to railroad ties and lumber to meet the demands of the country’s westward march. Rail lines crisscrossed the area to haul away the milled lumber.
For the Love of California
by MIKE SWEENEY 16/12/19 The Nature Conservancy
When The Nature Conservancy first bought a nature preserve in California back in 1959, I can guarantee those supporters never imagined the innovations it would lead to. We started with the acquisition of the Angelo Coast Range Reserve, a beautiful stand of old-growth forest in Mendocino County. Since then, we’ve protected more than 1.2 million acres of land, 5,000 miles of streams, and 3.8 million acres of ocean habitat in California and off the coast. And we do a lot more than protect land, water and ocean.
Why are old-growth forests important?
Forests absorb and store carbon — in soils, organic matter, and living and dead trees — better than any other ecosystem. Generally, older trees absorb more carbon each year than their younger counterparts, making old forests one of our most valuable tools for taking on climate change. Forests also provide habitat for wildlife, support reliable drinking watersheds for nearly half of all Americans, preserve cultural legacies and traditional uses, and offer recreation opportunities.
From Roots to Timber
by The Nature Conservancy 5/2/24
"In understanding the past of enslaved Africans in the longleaf pine forests, we are able to better grasp the importance of conservation, especially in the role of minorities in conservation today. Even though the forests once expanded the use of slavery, The Nature Conservancy, in its restoration efforts, shifts the role of the forests from their troublesome past to a more positive role in protecting the climate." — Emmy Dasanaike.
=====HAS BIG TIMBER FINALLY BROUGHT USGBC TO HEEL?===== by USGBC
Galvanized by this new organization that gives environmentalists and social advocates
a say in how forests should be managed, major North American timber companies, under the umbrella of their trade association, the American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA), move quickly to form their own system, calling it the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI)
Fish in hot water: decades of logging tied to warmer temperatures in unprotected salmon-bearing streams
by Ainslie Cruickshank 7/3/23 The Narwhal
Globally, fish are feeling the heat from climate change, but in interior B.C. decades of logging in the headwaters of salmon streams has cranked those temperatures even higher, new research shows. As trees are cut down along waterways, small streams are exposed to more direct sunlight, while logging across watersheds can change the way water flows throughout the whole system. The combined effect can leave wild salmon swimming in waters that are warmer than they’d like.
Can Old-Growth Forest Survive a Timber Bias?
I retired in 2002 as deputy chief of the US Forest Service with 35 years of experience, and I was stunned, happily, when President Biden unveiled Executive Order 14072 during his second year in office. On this Earth Day, the future of mature and old-growth forests looked bright. Among the EO’s numerous measures, one stood out to me: “Conserve America’s mature and old-growth forests on federal lands.” I’ve worked with dozens of environmental groups to see how the Forest Service would address this opportunity.
Cutting Carbon With Greener Chainsaws
by The Nature Conservancy 24/2/19
Few environmental issues are more pressing than the protection of our tropical forests. These forests have the highest rates of biodiversity on earth and hold significant carbon stores that are released into the atmosphere when they are converted.
Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests
The rich history of the Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests revolves around abundant fish, natural beauty, clean drinking water, timber harvest, and outdoor recreation. Unfortunately, recent years have seen these lands managed with timber production valued over other social, environmental, and economic outcomes. These forests, which are still recovering from devastating logging and fires, need a balanced management approach that protects all their inherent benefits and provides Oregonians with the Greatest Permanent Value.
A journey through Virginia’s iconic forest habitat.
by The Nature Conservancy 31/8/23
These pinelands should be the characteristic ecosystem one thinks of when they imagine the Southeast. Yet, today, longleaf pine occupies less than 5% of its original 92-million-acre range.
Europe awash with wood from billion-dollar Russian illegal logging scandal
London, 16 December 2020 – More than 100,000 tonnes of lumber linked to one of Russia’s largest illegal logging scandals has entered Europe despite strict import laws and mounting evidence of wrongdoing, an Earthsight investigation can reveal.
Forests & Climate
The creation of a Forest Carbon Reserve would be an essential part of any future Green New Deal. It would result in a substantial reduction in, and avoidance of, carbon emissions from forest degradation and fossil fuel production, would be integral to a broader green jobs program.
Campaign Urges Agencies to Keep Big Trees Standing
by Juliet Grable 6/2/23 Sierra
When Chandra LeGue first toured the Flat Country project, a logging and forest management project planned for the Willamette National Forest in Oregon, US Forest Service reps showed her a stream they planned to restore and a “plantation”—a deliberately planted, uniform stand of trees—that they planned to thin.
News in brief
The national monument east of Porterville contains more than half of the world's sequoia trees. Their huge size, beauty and long life led to a drive to protect them, and President Clinton in 2000 gave them permanent protection by designating 328,000 acres, about one-third of Sequoia National Forest, a national monument under the Antiquities Act.
Sierra Club Founders
John Muir, one of the Sierra Club’s founders, sparked the movement to preserve millions of acres of land from logging and mining, and inspired generations of people to protect nature. The Sierra Club recognizes the importance of Muir’s conservation efforts with regard to designation of national parks, national forests, and rangelands, which prevented hundreds of millions of acres from being privatized and transferred into the hands of white logging, mining, and livestock grazing corporations enabled by 19th century colonization laws like the Timber and Stone Act, Homestead Acts, and Desert Lands Act.
Can barcodes enforce sustainable logging in Liberia?
Liberia, semi-miraculously, is still covered in rainforest, even though at one point in its history, warlord Charles Taylor was more or less giving arms traffickers logging tracts in exchange for weapons. The U.N. eventually noticed this problem and ended up saving the country's forests by putting an embargo on the country's "logs of war.”
President Biden Restores Logging Prohibitions in Tongass National Forest
by Lindsey Botts 29/1/23 Sierra
In one of its most important conservation decisions to date, the Biden administration last week announced that it would ban new logging and road construction across 9.3 million acres of the Tongass National Forest, the largest national forest in the United States. The move repeals a Trump administration rule that gutted protections for the forest and opened up Southeastern Alaska to more logging.
Indigenous people battle squatters and timber poachers in Peru's Amazon
by Lyndsie Bourgon 12/4/19 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
Puerto Maldonado, Peru — On March 14, 2018, an alarm sounded in the ears of Jose Vargas, who was sitting at his desk in this Peruvian Amazon city. Embedded in the amber wood of a cedar tree, a small tracking device developed to spring to life at the whir of a chainsaw or crunching of boots on earth sent an alert via satellite to the offices of the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law (SPDA), where Vargas works as a GIS specialist.
Rain Forest Threats
More than half of Earth’s rain forests have already been lost due to the human demand for wood and arable land. Rain forests that once grew over 14 percent of the land on Earth now cover only about 6 percent. And if current deforestation rates continue, these critical habitats could disappear from the planet completely within the next hundred years.
Congo Basin Forests
Stopping illegal logging and forest exploitation in Central Africa’s threatened tropical rainforest
The vast forest of the Congo Basin is the second-largest tropical rainforest on Earth and serves as the lungs of Africa. It’s an incredibly rich and diverse ecosystem that provides food, freshwater, shelter and medicine for tens of millions of local and Indigenous Peoples and is home to critically endangered wildlife species.
Thresholds for adding degraded tropical forest to the conservation estate
by Robert M. Ewers 17/7/24 nature
Habitat degradation has seemingly contradictory impacts on the biodiversity of tropical forests. Human disturbance of tropical forests has resulted in the same amount of biodiversity loss as outright deforestation6, leading to a widespread view that logged, degraded and regenerating tropical rainforests are depauperate environments relative to primary forest5.
Solutions to Deforestation
How to save forests and wildlife while stabilizing our climate
Ending deforestation is our best chance to conserve wildlife and defend the rights of forest communities. On top of that, it’s one of the quickest and most cost effective ways to curb global warming. That’s why we’re campaigning for a deforestation-free future.
Is clear-cutting U.S. forests good for wildlife?
by Christopher Ketcham 24/3/22 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
Coming upon a clear-cut in an old forest is a jolting experience. Trees large and small are collapsed one atop the other in tangled jackstraw piles, corpse-like amid ragged stumps, and the ground is rutted with the tracks of heavy machinery. Such was the scene on the August day last year when forest activist Zack Porter and I hiked a newly built logging road in the Pittenden Inventoried Roadless Area, part of Vermont’s 400,000-acre Green Mountain National Forest.
Can local sustainable development save the Amazon?
by NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC 11/5/11
Local sustainable development 2.0, that’s how we should call what is happening in 80 municipalities of the Brazilian giant state of Pará, in the Amazon region. Pará is 1.8 times the size of Texas. These 80 towns are basically dominated by cattle-ranching and some timber production. Beef, timber, and soybean have been the main culprits for a long history of illegal logging, that has claimed about 20% of the Amazon rainforest, and 27% of Pará’s forest cover.
The Cumberland Forest Project: Conservation at Scale
by The Nature Conservancy 19/5/25
At 253,000 acres, the Cumberland Forest Project is one of The Nature Conservancy’s largest-ever conservation efforts in the eastern United States—larger than Shenandoah and Acadia National Parks combined. This vast forest landscape spans two parcels: the Highlands in Southwest Virginia and Ataya along the Kentucky-Tennessee border.
Estimating survival probability using the terrestrial extinction history for the search for extraterrestrial life
by Kohji Tsumura 30/7/20 scientific reports
Several exoplanets have been discovered to date, and the next step is the search for extraterrestrial life. However, it is difficult to estimate the number of life-bearing exoplanets because our only template is based on life on Earth. In this paper, a new approach is introduced to estimate the probability that life on Earth has survived from birth to the present based on its terrestrial extinction history.
Logged tropical forests have amplified and diverse ecosystem energetics
by Yadvinder Malhi 14/12/22 nature
Old-growth tropical forests are widely recognized as being immensely important for their biodiversity and high biomass1. Conversely, logged tropical forests are usually characterized as degraded ecosystems2. However, whether logging results in a degradation in ecosystem functions is less clear: shifts in the strength and resilience of key ecosystem processes in large suites of species have rarely been assessed in an ecologically integrated and quantitative framework.
Logging Plays Bigger Climate Change Role Than U.S. Acknowledges, Report Says
by Georgina Gustin 5/5/17 Inside Climate News
The U.S. has consistently underestimated the impact that logging has on accelerating climate change and the role that preserving its forests can play in sucking carbon out of the atmosphere. That’s the conclusion of a new report that also seeks to rebut the notion that burning wood is a “carbon neutral” alternative to burning coal and oil for electricity.
Reviving The Lost Art Of Logrolling
Considered by many to be the sole purview of lumberjacks, the competitive sport of logrolling — in which participants pad about on a log in water and try to outlast one another — is hoping for new growth.
Leaving Timber Behind, An Alaska Town Turns To Tourism
Many people who used to earn their livelihoods through timber have now turned to jobs in tourism.
LOGGING BOOMS ON REFORESTED CONNECTICUT FARMS
by James Brooke 16/3/86 The New York Times
William Treadwell straightened up, shook sawdust from his flannel shirt, and then watched four tons of red oak crash to the ground.
With his steel-toed boots and Swedish chain saw, Mr. Treadwell represents a new breed in the woods here: the Connecticut lumberjack.
Despite What the Logging Industry Says, Cutting Down Trees Isn’t Stopping Catastrophic Wildfires
by Tony Schick 31/10/20 PROPUBLICA
This article was produced in partnership with Oregon Public Broadcasting and The Oregonian/OregonLive. You can sign up for The Oregonian/OregonLive special projects newsletter here and Oregon Public Broadcasting’s newsletter here. Oregon Public Broadcasting is a member of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network.
Deep in a forest in Nigeria's Ebute Ipare village, Egbontoluwa Marigi sized up a tall mahogany tree, methodically cut it down with his axe and machete, and as it fell with a crackling sound, he surveyed the forest for the next tree.
President Muhammadu Buhari told a COP15 meeting in Abidjan, Ivory Coast on May 9 that Nigeria had established a national forestry trust fund to help regenerate the country's forests. That may not be enough as the country loses forests at a faster pace.
Joe Biden plans to ban logging in US old-growth forests in 2025
by Lauren Aratani 19/12/23 The Guardian
Joe Biden’s administration on Tuesday announced a new proposal aimed at banning logging in old-growth forests, a move meant to protect millions of trees that play a key role in fighting the climate crisis.
Clinton Forest Chief Acts to Stop Logging Of the Oldest Trees
by Douglas Jehl 9/1/01 The New York Times
The policy statement by Mike Dombeck, the Forest Service chief, goes far beyond any other efforts to put the oldest and biggest trees in the nation's forests off limits from loggers and mills who prize them for their commercial value. If allowed to stand, the policy would reduce by 50 percent the amount of timber on federal lands that is due to come up for auction, Clinton administration officials said.
Canada's British Columbia to defer logging of at-risk ancient trees
Nov 2 (Reuters) - Canada's British Columbia province said on Tuesday it would work with indigenous groups to defer logging of rare and ancient trees as part of a strategy to modernize the timber industry and protect the province's shrinking old-growth forests.
Biden administration won’t ban logging in old-growth forests, but new plan still vexes industry
by Matthew Brown 20/6/24 PBS NEWS
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The Biden administration is advancing its plan to restrict logging within old-growth forests that are increasingly threatened by climate change, with exceptions that include cutting trees to make forests less susceptible to wildfires, according to a U.S. government analysis obtained by The Associated Press.
‘Legacy’ Forests. ‘Restoration’ Logging. The New Jargon of Conservation Is Awash in Ambiguity. And Politics
by Nathan Gilles 14/10/24 Inside Climate News
In 2019, conservation activist and longtime Washington state resident Stephen Kropp did something he’d never done before: he explored a forest managed as state trust land by the Washington State Department of Natural Resources.
For hundreds of millions of Africans who lack access to modern sources of power, wood, a form of biomass, is the sole source of energy.
by Akintunde Akinleye 24/12/14 REUTERS
For hundreds of millions of Africans who lack access to modern sources of power, wood, a form of biomass, is the sole source of energy.
How to stop illegal logging in Tanzania
by Kizito Makoye 14/1/15 WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM
Hundreds of tonnes of trees are being smuggled out of the district each month by timber traders to feed a lucrative construction market and furniture industries within the country and abroad, said district forest officials.
New Kenyan app is helping to track and halt illegal logging
by Kagondu Njagi 20/4/21 WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM
With about a dozen rangers, he has been using an app that through satellite feeds maps signs of forest fires, illegal logging and people encroaching on water sources, to stem worsening deforestation in Kwale County during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Logging of Old Trees In Alaska Is Found To Threaten Eagles
by Jon R. Luoma 7/11/89 The New York Times
LEAD: CITING projections in a Federal report, some environmentalists and wildlife biologists are expressing new concern that logging poses a long-term threat to eagles in the cool rain forests of the Alaskan panhandle.
Biden administration moves to protect forests with older trees from logging
NPR's Ayesha Rascoe speaks with Meg Krawchuk of Oregon State University about the Biden administration's proposal to protect old growth forests. Old trees contain more carbon than younger trees.
Lack of Loggers Is Hobbling Arizona Forest-Thinning Projects That Could Have Slowed This Year’s Devastating Wildfires
by Andrew Onodera 8/7/22 Inside Climate News
Some areas that would normally hold 60 to 80 trees per acre now hold as many as 2,000, creating an unprecedented amount of fuel for wildfires.
In Nigeria's disappearing forests, loggers outnumber trees
"We could cut down over 15 trees in one location, but now if we manage to see two trees, it will look like a blessing to us," the 61-year-old father of two said.
Reviving the Redwoods
by Jim Robbins 15/8/23 The New York Times
In what was once an old growth redwood forest that was heavily logged in 1968, a National Park Service forester points to an unruly tangle of spindly trees, 900 to the acre and so jam-packed it is difficult to walk through.
Defying E.U. Court, Poland Is Cutting Trees in an Ancient Forest
by Joanna Berendt 31/7/17 The New York Times
WARSAW — Defying an order from the European Union’s highest court, the Polish government said on Monday that it would continue logging in Bialowieza Forest, the last primeval forest in Europe and a habitat for hundreds of bison.
Deep In The Amazon, An Unseen Battle Over The Most Valuable Trees
by Lulu Garcia-Navarro 4/11/15 npr
The self-described "Guardians of the Forest" defending the land don't look like fighters, at least when we first meet them. But they are pitting themselves against criminal logging gangs that have infiltrated their protected reserves.
Trees older than America: a primeval Alaskan forest is at risk in the Trump era
by Brendan Jones 22/3/18 The Guardian
Viking Lumber Company employs 34 people and sustains itself primarily on old-growth trees harvested from the Tongass, the largest intact temperate rainforest in the world. Many of them have been around longer than the United States – some for 1,000 years.
Most Countries are Falling Short of Their Promises to Stop Cutting Down the World’s Trees
by Georgina Gustin 23/10/23 Inside Climate News
An annual report evaluating pledges to stop deforestation takes clear aim at financial institutions for supporting agricultural companies with ties to forest loss.
by The Associated Press 15/7/24 npr
MOMBASA, Kenya — Dressed in protective clothing and armed with a smoker, Peter Nyongesa walked through the mangroves to monitor his beehives along the Indian Ocean coastline.
Canada’s Logging Industry Devours Forests Crucial to Fighting Climate Change
by Ian Austen and Vjosa Isai 4/1/24 The New York Times
Canada has long promoted itself globally as a model for protecting one of the country’s most vital natural resources: the world’s largest swath of boreal forest, which is crucial to fighting climate change.
Can a DNA Database Save the Trees? These Scientists Hope So
by Sandra E. Garcia 4/1/24 The New York Times
Forests are disappearing. Maps show shrinking woodlands all over the world. Even trees coveted for their wood that are protected from logging are chopped down.
Treetop sensors help Indonesia eavesdrop on forests to curb illegal logging
by Harry Jacques 11/2/21 Reuters
SOLOK, Indonesia, Feb 11 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Clipped onto a rope, climbing high up in a tree swaying in gusts of wind, Topher White finally reaches the roof of the rainforest and opens a laptop to run checks on a machine he built to transmit 24-hour live sound from the surrounding forest.
Meet the jungle gardener of Borneo, who is logging sustainably
by Kate Whiting 25/9/19 WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM
Dermakot Forest Reserve, which spreads over 55,000 hectares, has been certified as a “well-managed forest” since September 1997. The certificate from the Forest Stewardship Council is due for renewal for a sixth time in October, making it the world’s longest-certified tropical rainforest.
Logging the South Plateau: Another Forest Service Con Job
by George Wuerthner 26/2/21 COUNTERPUNCH
The Custer Gallatin National Forest proposes to log and otherwise treat more than 16,000 acres across 40,000 acres as part of its South Plateau project near West Yellowstone, Montana.
Interview with a Tree-Sitter
by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume 19/6/20 COUNTERPUNCH
On June 9th and 12th, I interviewed Lupine, a tree-sitter who is currently participating in a Redwood Forest Defense campaign to stop logging at a site in Humboldt County, California. We spoke on the phone, and though we were disconnected several times by a weak signal, we were able to have a great conversation. Tree-sitters have always been heroes to me, and I really appreciated the chance to connect with someone from the newest generation to be out there fighting the good fight.
Kentucky Residents Angered by US Forest Service Logging Plan That Targets Mature Trees
by Marianne Lavelle 5/3/23 Inside Climate News
WILLIAMSBURG, Kentucky—Brandon Bowlin learned of the U.S. government’s plan for clear-cutting in the southernmost mountains of Daniel Boone National Forest only a few weeks after the hard summer rains of 2022, when the earth slid off a mountain beneath a slope he had once logged.
Log and Burn, or Leave Alone? Indiana Residents Fight US Forest Service Over the Future of Hoosier National Forest
by Marianne Lavelle 4/6/23 Inside Climate News
PAOLI, Indiana—When Jesse Laws rides her 7-year-old palomino, Roscoe, in Hoosier National Forest, she often steers his reins toward the tall pines. Needles carpet the trails, muting the clop of his shoes and shifting the feel of the air. PAOLI, Indiana—When Jesse Laws rides her 7-year-old palomino, Roscoe, in Hoosier National Forest, she often steers his reins toward the tall pines. Needles carpet the trails, muting the clop of his shoes and shifting the feel of the air.
Gabon junta allows regulated logging of rare kevazingo tree
LIBREVILLE, Sept 1 (Reuters) - Gabon's junta has relaxed rules covering the rare kevazingo tree, allowing logging under certain conditions of a hardwood species that can take 500 years to grow to its full height of 40 metres (130 feet).
Brazil targets illegal logging in major Amazon raids
The raids kicked off a year-long project called Operation Maravalha, named after a type of sawdust, in the states of Amazonas, Para and Rondonia. The government expects Maravalha to be the largest operation of its kind in over five years.
Impacts of tropical selective logging on carbon storage and tree species richness: A meta-analysis
by Philip A. Martin 15/11/15 ScienceDirect
Over 400 million hectares of tropical forest are currently designated as logging concessions. This practice is an important source of timber, but there are concerns about its long-term sustainability and impacts on biodiversity and carbon storage. However, logging impacts vary widely, making generalisation and, consequently, policy implementation, difficult. Recent syntheses of animal biodiversity have indicated that differences in logging intensity – the volume of wood removed ha−1 – might help to explain some of these disparities.
Three decades of post-logging tree community recovery in naturally regenerating and actively restored dipterocarp forest in Borneo
by Robin M. Hayward 15/11/15 ScienceDirect
Selective logging has affected large areas of tropical forests and there is increasing interest in how to manage selectively logged forests to enhance recovery. However, the impacts of logging and active restoration, by liberation cutting and enrichment planting, on tree community composition are poorly understood compared to trajectories of biomass recovery.
When big trees fall: Damage and carbon export by reduced impact logging in southern Amazonia
by Ted R. Feldpausch 25/11/05 ScienceDirect
We examined carbon export in whole logs and carbon accumulation as coarse woody debris (CWD) produced from forest damage during all phases of the first and second year of a certified reduced impact logging (RIL) timber harvest in southern Amazonia.
Surviving trees and deadwood moderate changes in soil fungal communities and associated functioning after natural forest disturbance and salvage logging
by Mathias Mayer 3/22 ScienceDirect
Here, we studied soil fungal communities, decomposition processes, and soil organic matter dynamics in 21 intact or disturbed, temperate Norway spruce stands about one decade after they were damaged by windthrow or bark-beetle attacks. Disturbed stands comprised different post-disturbance management, i.e. deadwood retention and salvage logged plots. We used high-throughput sequencing and ergosterol measurements to explore fungal communities and biomass, and enzyme assays to study decomposition processes.
Beyond reduced-impact logging: Silvicultural treatments to increase growth rates of tropical trees
by M. Peña-Claros 20/9/08 ScienceDirect
Use of reduced-impact logging (RIL) techniques has repeatedly been shown to reduce damage caused by logging. Unfortunately, these techniques do not necessarily ameliorate the low growth rates of many commercial species or otherwise assure recovery of the initial volume harvested during the next cutting cycle. In this study, we analyze the effect of logging and application of additional silvicultural treatments (liana cutting and girdling of competing trees) on the growth rates on trees in general and on of future crop trees (FCTs) of 24 commercial timber species.
Species grouping and diameter growth of trees in the Eastern Amazon: Influence of environmental factors after reduced-impact logging
by Jorge Luis Reategui-Betancourt 15/2/25 ScienceDirect
Tree growth predictions still present a challenge to forestry scientists. Species richness, ecological behavior variations, and different climate and soil interactions make it difficult to predict and understand tree growth in managed forests. This study examined the relationship between soil, climate, and forest management parameters and tree growth, using data from more than 30 years of monitoring in the Brazilian Amazon.
Effects of 50 years of selective logging on demography of trees in a Malaysian lowland forest
by Toshihiro Yamada 15/12/13 scienceDirect
Species specific tree performance (growth, mortality, and recruitment rates) and population growth rate in a logged forest that was selectively logged in 1958 were compared with those in a primary forest using 10-year forest demographic data (1998–2008) in the Pasoh Forest Reserve in Malaysia. The forests differed in forest structure and the logged forest had brighter understory light conditions than the primary forest.
Large trees as key elements of carbon storage and dynamics after selective logging in the Eastern Amazon
by Plinio Sist 15/4/14 ScienceDirect
The long term effect of Reduced-Impact Logging (RIL) on above-ground live biomass (AGB) dynamics was investigated in 18 1-ha logged over permanent sample plots set up in a terra firme rain forest in the Eastern Amazon (Brazil, Paragominas). Both tree survival and growth were investigated among three Diameter at Breath Height (DBH) classes (20–40, 40–60, ⩾60 cm) to assess the contribution of each DBH class to the post-logging AGB recovery. Before logging, mean tree density and AGB per plot (dbh ⩾ 20 cm) were 187 ± 14 trees ha−1 and 377.6 ± 62.8 Mg ha−1 respectively. Although big trees (dbh ⩾ 60 cm) only represented 9.3% of the total tree density, they gathered almost half of total AGB. During the post-logging period (8 years), the mortality of large trees was found to drive the annual net changes and largely overcame the AGB gain in the smaller DBH classes.
When big trees fall: Damage and carbon export by reduced impact logging in southern Amazonia
by Ted R. Feldpausch 25/11/05 ScienceDirect
Carbon flux as necromass is an important component of the regional carbon cycle for mature undisturbed (Chambers and Schimel, 2001) and selectively logged tropical forests (Keller et al., 2004). Selective logging contributes to necromass fluxes through forest damage as well as a net export of carbon as logs. Forest management provides opportunities both to reduce necromass fluxes and to retain carbon stocks in vegetation and soils (Pinard and Putz, 1996). Improved harvest methods such as reduced impact logging (RIL) can lessen damage to the forest (Johns et al.,
Resprouting trees drive understory vegetation dynamics following logging in a temperate forest
by Radim Matula 8/6/20 Scientific reports
Removal of canopy trees by logging causes shifts in herbaceous diversity and increases invasibility of the forest understory. However, disturbed (cut) trees of many species do not die but resprout from remaining parts.
Recruitment, growth and recovery of commercial tree species over 30 years following logging and thinning in a tropical rain forest
by Angela Luciana de Avila 1/2/17 ScienceDirect
The post-logging dynamics of a given species depends on its post-intervention regeneration and release of remaining trees (i.e., recruitment and growth; Brienen and Zuidema, 2006, Oliver and Larson, 1996, Sebbenn et al., 2008, Vinson et al., 2015).
Safeguarding villagers’ access to foods from timber trees: Insights for policy from an inhabited logging concession in Gabon
by Hermann Taedoumg 6/18 ScienceDirect
There has been increasing recognition of the potential impact of industrial logging on forests and tree resources that are of importance to the livelihoods of forest-dependent populations in the tropics (Ndoye and Tieguhong, 2004; Tieguhong and Ndoye, 2007; Guariguata et al., 2010; Rist et al., 2012). In the Congo Basin forest, the second largest remaining block of rainforest after the Amazonian forests, more than 44 million hectares have been allocated to commercial logging companies under various lease arrangements (Megevand, 2013).
Site factors are more important than salvage logging for tree regeneration after wind disturbance in Central European forests
by Kathrin Kramer 1/11/14 ScienceDirect
Wind disturbance is the main natural driver of forest dynamics in Central and Northern Europe, but little is known regarding the general patterns of tree regeneration following windthrow in this region. On the basis of 89 windthrow gaps, we quantified natural tree regeneration 10 and 20 years after wind disturbance, and identified the factors influencing tree regeneration dynamics, with a special emphasis on the post-storm management practices “salvage logging” and “no intervention”.
Applying ecological knowledge to decisions about seed tree retention in selective logging in tropical forests
by Joberto Veloso de Freitas 20/9/08 ScienceDirect
In production forests in the moist tropics, trees are selected for felling or retention primarily by species and size. Tree regeneration requirements and forest stand responses to harvesting are often ignored, and consequently, the regeneration of the residual forest is not ensured. We developed and tested an alternative approach to tree selection, where seed trees were retained as a proportion of harvestable trees, with the proportion defined as a function of species’ ecological attributes and local abundance (100 ha), in contrast to the conventional approach which retained 10% of harvestable trees, uniformly across commercial species at the compartmental scale (1000 ha).
Tree species richness and the logging of natural forests: A meta-analysis
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378112712001958 by Jason A. Clark
15/7/12 ScienceDirect] Forests cover much of the earth’s surface and are regularly logged. Well established ecological theory predicts, and the results of extensive silvicultural studies demonstrate the role of disturbance in maintaining species richness in forests;
Mortality of stocking commercial trees after reduced impact logging in eastern Amazonia
by Luiz Fernandes Silva Dionisio 1/10/17 ScienceDirect
Forest harvest causes disturbances in the forest and affects the mortality of residual trees. The effects of this activity on trees of the residual stocking for future felling cycles are poorly known in post-harvest situations.
Deforestation and Forest Loss
by Hannah Ritchie 2/21 Our World in Data
Before we look specifically at trends in deforestation across the world, it's useful to understand the net change in forest cover. The net change in forest cover measures any gains in forest cover — either through natural forest expansion or afforestation through tree planting — minus deforestation.
Shifts in community structure of tropical trees and avian frugivores in forests recovering from past logging
by Nandini Velho 9/12 ScienceDirect
Logging is one of the most pervasive threats to biodiversity in tropical forests. In this study, we concurrently examined the responses of the avian frugivore community and the community of fruiting trees to past logging in a tropical forest in northeastern India.
Do logging concessions decrease the availability to villagers of foods from timber trees? A quantitative analysis for Moabi (Baillonella toxisperma), Sapelli (Entandrophragma cylindricum) and Tali (Erythrophleum suaveolens) in Cameroon
by Ronald Noutcheu 1/12/16 ScienceDirect
The humid forests of Africa cover about 236 million ha, of which 203 million ha are located in the Congo Basin of Central Africa, a region important for its extent, natural resources, biodiversity and endemism (Mayaux et al., 2004). Cameroon has more than 18.6 million ha of lowland moist forest, of which 6.4 million ha were under concession in 2009.
How do logging residues of different tree species affect soil N cycling after final felling?
by Tiina Törmänen 1/11/18 ScienceDirect
The aim of this study was to compare how logging residues of Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.), Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) and silver birch (Betula pendula Roth.) affect the dynamics of N and C cycling processes in forest soil after final felling. The study site was located in southeastern Finland. After clear-cutting, piles consisting of 40 kg m−2 of fresh logging residues of each tree species were established, together with a control plot as an additional treatment.
Single-tree salvage logging as a response to Alaska yellow-cedar climate-induced mortality maintains ecological integrity with limited economic returns
by Sarah M. Bisbing 1/1/22 ScienceDirect
Tree mortality is an intrinsic driver of forest ecosystem dynamics. This process of constant change may be overlooked when occurring at a fine scale (e.g., single tree senescence) but viewed as catastrophic when apparent at the landscape scale (e.g., bark beetle epidemic). Landscape-scale tree mortality events can fall within the bounds of a forest’s natural disturbance regime; however, forests worldwide are increasingly impacted by novel disturbance types, frequencies, and severities that are amplifying the scale and extent of widespread tree mortality (Allen et al., 2015, Anderegg et al., 2019, Berner et al., 2017).
Fuel quality changes during seasonal storage of compacted logging residues and young trees
by M. Pettersson 12/07 ScienceDirect
Forest fuel procurement creates logistical problems, as large stocks are accumulated along the supply chain.
Tendency of wood fuels from whole trees, logging residues and roundwood to bridge over openings
by Peter Daugbjerg Jensen 2/14 ScienceDirect
Wood fuels produced from various softwood and hardwood species are a commonly used fuel in heating plants in several European countries as well as some regions in North America.
Monitoring selective logging intensities in central Africa with sentinel-1: A canopy disturbance experiment
by Chloé Dupuis 1/12/23 ScienceDirect
Forest degradation is a major threat to tropical forests, and effective monitoring using remotely sensed data is subject to significant challenges. In particular, consistent methods for detecting subtle changes in the forest canopy structure caused by selective logging are lacking.
Tree felling by beaver promotes regeneration in riparian woodlands whilst increasing resource availability for deer
by Kelsey A. Wilson 15/6/24 ScienceDirect
Species reintroductions can play an important role in the mitigation of biodiversity loss. Their main objective is to return extirpated species to their former range (IUCN/SSC, 2013).
Logging by selective extraction of best trees: Does it change patterns of genetic diversity? The case of Nothofagus pumilio
by Carolina Soliani 1/8/16 ScienceDirect
Extensive knowledge of the ecological and genetic consequences of implementing management practices (i.e. logging) in natural ecosystems is of fundamental importance to conservation action. Accordingly, characterization of forest genetic resources in managed vs non-managed stands may inform management decisions to ensure the long-term persistence of genetic diversity.
Tree growth and aboveground biomass in a tropical mountain forest thirty years after selective logging in Sarawak, Borneo
by Renee Sherna Laing 4/12 ScienceDirect
Tropical rainforests play an important role in the global carbon cycle, and the destruction of tropical rainforests has been reported to be a major source of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide (Kanninen et al., 2007; Nabuurs et al., 2007).
Acidifying effect of removal of tree stumps and logging residues as compared to atmospheric deposition
by Johan Iwald 15/2/13 ScienceDirect
Harvesting of stumps and logging residues for bioenergy can be expected to increase in the future. An increased biomass export from the forest will increase the biological acidification, measured as net cation (cations–anions) export.
by Flora van Eupen 15/6/25 ScienceDirect
Natural disturbance events, such as insect outbreaks, play a key role in shaping the dynamics of forest ecosystems (Foster et al., 1996, Shorohova et al., 2011).
Changes in tree functional composition and forest functioning ten years after logging and thinning interventions in Bornean tropical forests
by Ni Putu Diana Mahayani 15/2/22 ScienceDirect
Regenerating logged-over forests have become the predominant form of tropical forest cover (Asner et al., 2009, Gaveau et al., 2014).
Effects of sanitation logging in winter on the Eurasian spruce bark beetle and predatory long-legged flies
by Jan Weslien 15/2/22 ScienceDirect
The efficiency of sanitation logging also depends on how many bark beetles remain in the tree till the time of felling. In Central Europe, SBB overwinters to a high degree in the bark of the killed trees in lowland-areas with multivoltine populations, whereas a high proportion of the SBB adults leave the trees before winter in the mountains (Wild, 1953, von Biermann, 1977, Wermelinger et al., 2012, Dworschak et al., 2014, Kasumović et al., 2019).
by Flora van Eupen 15/6/25 ScienceDirect
Tree related microhabitats (TreMs) are key resources for forest biodiversity. Natural disturbances, such as bark beetle outbreaks, can influence forest structure and stand properties, potentially altering the composition of TreM communities.
Applying ecological knowledge to decisions about seed tree retention in selective logging in tropical forests
by Joberto Veloso de Freitas 20/9/08 ScienceDirect
For example, when MFD is used as the only criterion for selecting trees for harvest, the removal of larger stems from a population can impair subsequent regeneration due to loss of fruit and seed sources (Sheil and van Heist, 2000) and in cases where logging is highly selective for a rare species, and seed trees are not retained, that species can become extirpated over large forest areas (Johns, 1997).
The effect of logging on fission-fusion behaviour of tree-dwelling bats explored by an agent-based model
by Peter Kaňuch 12/22 ScienceDirect
Logging is one of the greatest threats to global biodiversity, while forests are one of the most important habitats for bats. Bats that roost in tree cavities require a large number of potential roosts due to their frequent roost switching.
Harpy Eagle (Harpia harpyja) nest tree selection: Selective logging in Amazon forest threatens Earth's largest eagle
by Everton B.P. Miranda 10/20 ScienceDirect
Pragmatic solutions to preclude or mitigate anthropogenic threats to wildlife present a raft of challenges for conservation scientists throughout the tropics. With burgeoning human populations, available habitat for wildlife has both declined severely and become increasingly degraded (Dobrovolski et al., 2013; Woodroffe, 2000).
Tree hollows and forest stand structure in Australian warm temperate Eucalyptus forests are adversely affected by logging more than wildfire
by Christopher M. McLean 1/4/15 ScienceDirect
We found that average stand tree diameter at breast height was negatively correlated to logging intensity. Logging intensity was negatively correlated with tree diameter at breast height (DBH), and the density of both hollow-bearing trees and hollows.
Erasing a European biodiversity hot-spot: Open woodlands, veteran trees and mature forests succumb to forestry intensification, succession, and logging in a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve
by Jan Miklín 1/4/15 ScienceDirect
Forestry and agricultural intensification have brought extensive changes to European landscapes, causing severe alteration and fragmentation of numerous habitats (Stoate et al. 2001). In woodlands, intensification resulted in removal of old trees, homogenisation of spatial and age structure, and ultimately in canopy closure.
Uneven-aged and even-aged logging alter foliar phenolics of oak trees remaining in forested habitat matrix
by Rebecca E. Forkner 27/9/04 ScienceDirect
Human disturbances, including timber management practices, can profoundly impact soil nutrient quantities (Dupouey et al., 2002), light levels, and plant growth rates (Greiser Johns, 1997, Barbosa and Wagner, 1989). Each of these factors may influence plant anti-herbivore defense levels, either through tradeoffs among nutrient availability,
Assessing spatial patterns of burn severity for guiding post-fire salvage logging in boreal forests of Eastern Canada
by Victor Danneyrolles 15/3/24 ScienceDirect
There is undeniably a lack of knowledge on the long-term ecological impacts of salvage logging since most existing studies focus on the first five years following the initial disturbance (Thorn et al., 2018). However, many short-term studies have shown that salvage logging can strongly affect initial natural post-fire regeneration (Boucher et al., 2014, Greene et al., 2006, Splawinski et al., 2016) and burn-associated biodiversity (Lindenmayer et al., 2018, Thorn et al., 2018, Thorn et al., 2020).
The effects of selective logging on forest structure and tree species composition in a Central African forest: implications for management of conservation areas
by Jefferson S Hall 15/9/03 ScienceDirect
A comparison between unlogged, 6-month and 18-year post-harvest forest stands indicates lasting effects of highly selective, high grade logging. While there was little difference in tree species composition and diversity between treatments, stem densities of both saplings and trees in unlogged forest were significantly higher than those in forest sampled 18 years after logging. Evidence suggests inadequate recruitment of Entandrophragma cylindricum and E. utile, the principal timber species, to justify continued timber extraction.
Reduced-impact logging for climate change mitigation (RIL-C) can halve selective logging emissions from tropical forests
by Peter W. Ellis 15/4/19 ScienceDirect
RIL-C practices are defined by their capacities to deliver measurable climate change mitigation outcomes without reductions in timber yields. Examples of RIL-C practices include improved felling and bucking for greater wood utilization (thus reducing waste), directional felling to avoid collateral damage, skid trail planning, long-line winching, and narrower haul road construction. Many of these practices can be implemented at low cost without dramatic changes to existing operational systems (Holmes et al., 2002, Indrajaya et al., 2016).
Beyond the Timber Wars
by Lisa Bramen 31/7/15 The Nature Conservancy
It's a rare mild February morning in southwestern Washington, a place so famous for winter squalls that beachfront hotels here offer storm-watching packages. A few miles inland, project manager Tom Kollasch is following faint elk trails through a stand of coastal rain-forest on The Nature Conservancy’s Ellsworth Creek Preserve.
Tree Keepers: Where Sustaining the Forest Is a Tribal Tradition
by Fred Pearce 24/7/23 YaleEnvironment360
Mike Lohrengel looks up in awe at trees he has known for 30 years. “This is one of the most beautiful places I know. This forest has it all: the most species, the most diversity. Many trees I know individually. Look at this one behind us. It’s got a split way up there. I’ll never forget that tree till I die.”
Timber Wars
In the 1980s and ’90s, loggers and environmental activists faced off over the future of old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest. In this episode, Reveal partners with the podcast series Timber Wars from Oregon Public Broadcasting. Reporter Aaron Scott explores that definitive moment in the history of the land – and the consequences that reverberate today.
The ‘timber detectives’ on the front lines of illegal wood trade
by Peter Yeung 9/3/22 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
“I only need to look at these two to know immediately it comes from South America,” he says, pointing at a pair of large white cells on a canvas of charcoal gray. “This is down to our years of experience.”
Corruption, Forestry Workers, and Siberian Tigers: the Story of Illegal Logging in the Developing World
There’s a dark past behind the pieces of paper sitting right in your printer, right in your notebook— may be right beneath your pencil. Potentially dark, that is. According to the EIA (Environmental Investigation Agency), up to 90% of timber logged in some developing countries is done so illegally. Therefore—assuming you didn’t buy some specialty paper from a country without rainforests and a fragile government— there is a strong likelihood that the wood products you’ve purchased in America are more tainted with corruption than you’d like to believe.
Illegal Logging
Illegal logging is an immense, multi-billion dollar industry threatening forests worldwide.
Illegal logging is the catalyst to deforestation around the globe, threatening some of the world’s most important forests in terms of conservation value. Predatory logging brings roads deeper into the forest, which in turn fuels more logging, impacts Indigenous Peoples and traditional local communities, as well as harming wildlife. Illegal logging is a global-multi-country issue Greenpeace offices around the world have worked to investigate, document, and stop.
To Save the Redwoods, Scientists Debate Burning and Logging
by Becki Robins 16/12/19 UNDARK
Redwoods draw crowds, but they are also ecologically important. They act as natural water filters, processing trillions of gallons of clean, drinkable water every year. Redwood forests store at least three times as much carbon as any other kind of forest, and because the individual trees live for thousands of years, the carbon storage is long-term. That makes them important actors in the story of California’s changing climate.
What is clearcutting?
Clearcutting is an extreme logging method in which resilient natural forests are harvested and replaced with man-made tree plantations that do not replicate the ecosystem services of a healthy forest.
Inside the faltering fight against illegal Amazon logging
by Scott Wallace 28/8/19 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
On July 4th, along a dusty backroad in the southwest Brazilian state of Rondônia, near the logging hub of Espigão d’Oeste, unknown assailants stopped a tanker truck, yanked the driver from the cab, and set it ablaze. The truck was carrying aviation fuel to resupply government helicopters supporting an operation against illegal loggers. Fearing further attacks, government agents suspended the operation and withdrew from the area.
Burning questions raised over logging
Clearing the remaining trees after a forest fire can increase the chance of further flames.
Timber salvaged from New York City buildings reveals ancient climate
by Nathalie Alonso 22/10/21 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIFC
Old-growth forests once covered the eastern United States, but they were almost entirely decimated by the early 1900s after centuries of commercial logging. Yet wood from those forests survives, much of it tucked behind the walls of New York City buildings. The tree rings on these timbers are sources of historical climate data, which is why researchers are working to recover them.
Saving the St. John
by The Nature Conservancy 22/11/19
The upper St. John River flows for 130 miles without passing a single settlement, growing from a small stream above Baker Lake to a major river before crossing into Canada. This has long been an important river for Native people, and early European settlers made a difficult living establishing now-vanished settlements and logging camps along the banks. For thousands of years, people have plied its remote waters and hunted, fished and camped along its shores.
How Sweden's Logging Practices Affect the Environment
[https://www.treehugger.com/how-swedens-logging-practices-affect-the-environment-5192350 by Rebecca Clarke 15/8/21 Treehugger]
Sweden is known as one of the world’s most environmentally conscious countries. The International Energy Agency (IEA) called the country a global leader in building a low-carbon economy. Sweden's logging practices and policies, on the other hand, require a closer look.
Let’s Fight Fire with Fire
by The Nature Conservancy 15/7/22
Thanks to Smokey Bear, a century of fire exclusion and the forced removal of Indigenous forest stewards, California’s Sierra forests are dangerously overgrown. Now, trees are packed together at up to five times their natural density, and fires that should regenerate our forests explode into infernos that destroy them. These forests help provide 60% of our state’s developed water supply, and losing them would leave millions of people without clean drinking water.
Reducing Logging Impacts in the Congo Basin
by The Nature Conservancy 12/1/23
The tracks were fresh in the mud. A leopard had walked across the logging access road between dusk and dawn. And it wasn’t the first animal sighting of the week—forest elephants and western lowland gorillas carried out their daily routines in the forest just as the loggers carried out theirs. Stingless sweat bees made their presence known, too, congregating by the hundreds on any exposed skin perspiring in the midday sun.
Illegal logging in decline
Preventing illicit cutting is a cheap way to reduce carbon emissions.
Climate Clues from the Past Prompt a New Look at History
by Jacques Leslie 20/12/21 YaleEnvironment360
Relying on new geochemical techniques for analyzing ice core sediment to determine the dates of ancient volcanic activity down to the year or even season, the paper, published in Nature in 2015, showed that major eruptions worldwide caused precipitous, up-to-a-decade-long drops in global temperatures. Later research pegged those drops at as much as 13 degrees F.
Logging in disguise: How forest thinning is making wildfires worse
Earlier this month, the Dixie Fire leveled most of the town of Greenville, California. I know the town well — I conducted fieldwork for my doctoral dissertation there. Thankfully, everyone survived. But the downtown is gone, along with 75 percent of the homes.
How Widespread Logging in Canada Is Escaping Scrutiny
by Courtenay Lewis 18/3/19 NRCD
Addressing the threat of climate change is a significant concern for Americans and Canadians, and climate scientists have stressed that protecting global forests is as urgent as stopping fossil fuel use. Wildlife loss is happening at an astonishing rate: species’ populations have declined by an average of 60 percent since 1970, with habitat loss as a key driver.
CHIP MILLS INDUSTRIAL LOGGING RETURNS TO THE OZARKS
by Ken Midkiff 17/12/13 SIERRA NEWS
About one hundred years ago, the forests of the Ozarks Plateau were being leveled. Huge milling operations, established along the streams and rivers, took in logs floated down the rivers or hauled in by mule teams and converted them to railroad ties and lumber to meet the demands of the country’s westward march. Rail lines crisscrossed the area to haul away the milled lumber.
For the Love of California
by MIKE SWEENEY 16/12/19 The Nature Conservancy
When The Nature Conservancy first bought a nature preserve in California back in 1959, I can guarantee those supporters never imagined the innovations it would lead to. We started with the acquisition of the Angelo Coast Range Reserve, a beautiful stand of old-growth forest in Mendocino County.
From Roots to Timber
by The Nature Conservancy 5/2/24
Emmy Dasanaike was an intern in 2023. She is an honors scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, studying public policy and data science.
Fish in hot water: decades of logging tied to warmer temperatures in unprotected salmon-bearing streams
by Ainslie Cruickshank 7/3/23 The Narwhal
Globally, fish are feeling the heat from climate change, but in interior B.C. decades of logging in the headwaters of salmon streams has cranked those temperatures even higher, new research shows. As trees are cut down along waterways, small streams are exposed to more direct sunlight, while logging across watersheds can change the way water flows throughout the whole system. The combined effect can leave wild salmon swimming in waters that are warmer than they’d like.
Can Old-Growth Forest Survive a Timber Bias?
After reading the EO, though, an immediate question arose: “Will the White House tell the Forest Service how to implement it or ask them?” My experience told me that unless the administration’s environmental overseers kept the Forest Service on a very tight leash, the agency would likely do as little as possible for as long as possible.
Cutting Carbon With Greener Chainsaws
by The Nature Conservancy 24/2/19
Few environmental issues are more pressing than the protection of our tropical forests. These forests have the highest rates of biodiversity on earth and hold significant carbon stores that are released into the atmosphere when they are converted.
Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests
The rich history of the Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests revolves around abundant fish, natural beauty, clean drinking water, timber harvest, and outdoor recreation. Unfortunately, recent years have seen these lands managed with timber production valued over other social, environmental, and economic outcomes. These forests, which are still recovering from devastating logging and fires, need a balanced management approach that protects all their inherent benefits and provides Oregonians with the Greatest Permanent Value.
A journey through Virginia’s iconic forest habitat.
by The Nature Conservancy 31/8/23
That pine could grow in the South simply wasn’t a thought that had crossed my mind. But it does. That fact should be obvious. The extensive longleaf pine ecosystem once covered the Atlantic and Gulf coastal plains, stretching from Virginia down to the Florida Panhandle and extending west to Texas.
Forests & Climate
In the fight against climate change, forests are key. Aside from transitioning from fossil fuels to clean energy, the conservation, restoration and stewardship of forests should be our highest priority.
News in brief
The national monument east of Porterville contains more than half of the world's sequoia trees. Their huge size, beauty and long life led to a drive to protect them, and President Clinton in 2000 gave them permanent protection by designating 328,000 acres, about one-third of Sequoia National Forest, a national monument under the Antiquities Act.
Sierra Club Founders
John Muir, one of the Sierra Club’s founders, sparked the movement to preserve millions of acres of land from logging and mining, and inspired generations of people to protect nature. The Sierra Club recognizes the importance of Muir’s conservation efforts with regard to designation of national parks, national forests, and rangelands, which prevented hundreds of millions of acres from being privatized and transferred into the hands of white logging, mining, and livestock grazing corporations enabled by 19th century colonization laws like the Timber and Stone Act, Homestead Acts, and Desert Lands Act.
Can barcodes enforce sustainable logging in Liberia?
Liberia, semi-miraculously, is still covered in rainforest, even though at one point in its history, warlord Charles Taylor was more or less giving arms traffickers logging tracts in exchange for weapons. The U.N. eventually noticed this problem and ended up saving the country's forests by putting an embargo on the country's "logs of war.”
President Biden Restores Logging Prohibitions in Tongass National Forest
by Lindsey Botts 29/1/23 Sierra
The new proposal reinstates the two-decade-old Roadless Rule, which prohibits new roads and logging across nearly two-thirds of the forest, including 168,000 acres of old-growth. Conservation groups, such as Earthjustice, which sued the Trump administration after their rule came out, and local Alaska Native tribes largely applauded the move. They say it is crucial to conserving biodiversity, old-growth forests, and Indigenous cultures.
Indigenous people battle squatters and timber poachers in Peru's Amazon
by Lyndsie Bourgon 12/4/19 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
Puerto Maldonado, Peru — On March 14, 2018, an alarm sounded in the ears of Jose Vargas, who was sitting at his desk in this Peruvian Amazon city. Embedded in the amber wood of a cedar tree, a small tracking device developed to spring to life at the whir of a chainsaw or crunching of boots on earth sent an alert via satellite to the offices of the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law (SPDA), where Vargas works as a GIS specialist.
Rain Forest Threats
More than half of Earth’s rain forests have already been lost due to the human demand for wood and arable land. Rain forests that once grew over 14 percent of the land on Earth now cover only about 6 percent. And if current deforestation rates continue, these critical habitats could disappear from the planet completely within the next hundred years.
Congo Basin Forests
Stopping illegal logging and forest exploitation in Central Africa’s threatened tropical rainforest
The vast forest of the Congo Basin is the second-largest tropical rainforest on Earth and serves as the lungs of Africa. It’s an incredibly rich and diverse ecosystem that provides food, freshwater, shelter and medicine for tens of millions of local and Indigenous Peoples and is home to critically endangered wildlife species.
Thresholds for adding degraded tropical forest to the conservation estate
by Robert M. Ewers 17/7/24 nature
Logged and disturbed forests are often viewed as degraded and depauperate environments compared with primary forest. However, they are dynamic ecosystems1 that provide refugia for large amounts of biodiversity2,3, so we cannot afford to underestimate their conservation value4.
Solutions to Deforestation
Working to end deforestation and forest degradation while helping to restore lost forests is our best chance to solve the climate emergency, protect wildlife, and defend the rights of Indigenous Peoples and traditional local communities. That’s why we are campaigning for more forests tomorrow than there are today. Greenpeace’s forest campaign historically has called for an end to deforestation but our current climate emergency requires a genuine and just restoration of all natural ecosystems, and reduced degradation of the world’s most critical landscapes.
Is clear-cutting U.S. forests good for wildlife?
by Christopher Ketcham 24/3/22 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
Coming upon a clear-cut in an old forest is a jolting experience. Trees large and small are collapsed one atop the other in tangled jackstraw piles, corpse-like amid ragged stumps, and the ground is rutted with the tracks of heavy machinery. Such was the scene on the August day last year when forest activist Zack Porter and I hiked a newly built logging road in the Pittenden Inventoried Roadless Area, part of Vermont’s 400,000-acre Green Mountain National Forest.
Can local sustainable development save the Amazon?
Local sustainable development 2.0, that’s how we should call what is happening in 80 municipalities of the Brazilian giant state of Pará, in the Amazon region. Pará is 1.8 times the size of Texas. These 80 towns are basically dominated by cattle-ranching and some timber production. Beef, timber, and soybean have been the main culprits for a long history of illegal logging, that has claimed about 20% of the Amazon rainforest, and 27% of Pará’s forest cover.
The Cumberland Forest Project: Conservation at Scale
by The Nature Conservancy 19/5/25
At 253,000 acres, the Cumberland Forest Project is one of The Nature Conservancy’s largest-ever conservation efforts in the eastern United States—larger than Shenandoah and Acadia National Parks combined. This vast forest landscape spans two parcels: the Highlands in Southwest Virginia and Ataya along the Kentucky-Tennessee border.
Logged tropical forests have amplified and diverse ecosystem energetics
by Yadvinder Malhi 14/12/22 nature
Old-growth tropical forests are widely recognized as being immensely important for their biodiversity and high biomass1. Conversely, logged tropical forests are usually characterized as degraded ecosystems2. However, whether logging results in a degradation in ecosystem functions is less clear: shifts in the strength and resilience of key ecosystem processes in large suites of species have rarely been assessed in an ecologically integrated and quantitative framework.
Logging Plays Bigger Climate Change Role Than U.S. Acknowledges, Report Says
by Georgina Gustin 5/5/17 Inside Climate News
The U.S. has consistently underestimated the impact that logging has on accelerating climate change and the role that preserving its forests can play in sucking carbon out of the atmosphere. That’s the conclusion of a new report that also seeks to rebut the notion that burning wood is a “carbon neutral” alternative to burning coal and oil for electricity.
Reviving The Lost Art Of Logrolling
A recent film, Queens of the Roleo by David Bryant Jones, won Best Documentary at the 2014 Central Oregon Film festival and will be featured at the Spokane International Film Festival this weekend. Logrolling is a main event — for women and men — at the Lumberjack World Championships in Hayward, Wis., every summer. Timber-twirling tournaments, according to the United States Log Rolling Association, are scheduled in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Montana and Washington in the coming months.
Logging in Canada’s Most Famous National Park to Save It From Wildfires
by Norimitsu Onishi 29/5/24 The New York Times
Flanked by dense forests, the mile-long, 81-acre expanse of land on the mountainside had been stripped nearly clean. Only scattered trees still stood, while some skinny felled trunks had been left behind. A path carved out by logging trucks was visible under a light blanket of snow.
Leaving Timber Behind, An Alaska Town Turns To Tourism
Many people who used to earn their livelihoods through timber have now turned to jobs in tourism.
LOGGING BOOMS ON REFORESTED CONNECTICUT FARMS
by James Brooke 16/3/86 The New York Times
With his steel-toed boots and Swedish chain saw, Mr. Treadwell represents a new breed in the woods here: the Connecticut lumberjack.
Despite What the Logging Industry Says, Cutting Down Trees Isn’t Stopping Catastrophic Wildfires
by Tony Schick 31/10/20 PROPUBLICA
Echoing a long-standing belief in the state that public forests are the problem, U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, a Republican who represents eastern Oregon, equated the federal government’s management to that of “a slum lord.” And Democratic Gov. Kate Brown on “Face the Nation” accused Republicans in the state’s Legislature of blocking measures, proposed by a wildfire council, that would have increased logging on public lands.
Deep in a forest in Nigeria's Ebute Ipare village, Egbontoluwa Marigi sized up a tall mahogany tree, methodically cut it down with his axe and machete, and as it fell with a crackling sound, he surveyed the forest for the next tree.
President Muhammadu Buhari told a COP15 meeting in Abidjan, Ivory Coast on May 9 that Nigeria had established a national forestry trust fund to help regenerate the country's forests. That may not be enough as the country loses forests at a faster pace.
Joe Biden plans to ban logging in US old-growth forests in 2025
by Lauren Aratani 19/12/23 The Guardian
Joe Biden’s administration on Tuesday announced a new proposal aimed at banning logging in old-growth forests, a move meant to protect millions of trees that play a key role in fighting the climate crisis.
Canada's British Columbia to defer logging of at-risk ancient trees
Nov 2 (Reuters) - Canada's British Columbia province said on Tuesday it would work with indigenous groups to defer logging of rare and ancient trees as part of a strategy to modernize the timber industry and protect the province's shrinking old-growth forests.
The deferral of harvesting of trees at B.C.'s most at-risk old-growth forests is designed to buy time while local leaders develop a longer-term plan for forest management.
Biden administration won’t ban logging in old-growth forests, but new plan still vexes industry
by Matthew Brown 20/6/24 PBS NEWS
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The Biden administration is advancing its plan to restrict logging within old-growth forests that are increasingly threatened by climate change, with exceptions that include cutting trees to make forests less susceptible to wildfires, according to a U.S. government analysis obtained by The Associated Press.
‘Legacy’ Forests. ‘Restoration’ Logging. The New Jargon of Conservation Is Awash in Ambiguity. And Politics
by Nathan Gilles 14/10/24 Inside Climate News
In 2019, conservation activist and longtime Washington state resident Stephen Kropp did something he’d never done before: he explored a forest managed as state trust land by the Washington State Department of Natural Resources.
For hundreds of millions of Africans who lack access to modern sources of power, wood, a form of biomass, is the sole source of energy.
by Akintunde Akinleye 24/12/14 REUTERS
Nigeria lost just over 2 million hectares of forest annually between 2005-10, driven by agricultural expansion, logging and infrastructure development, according to U.N. data.
How to stop illegal logging in Tanzania
by Kizito Makoye 14/1/15 WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM
A surge in illegal logging is devastating native forests in coastal Tanzania’s Rufiji district, despite efforts by authorities to curb forest losses, officials said.
New Kenyan app is helping to track and halt illegal logging
by Kagondu Njagi 20/4/21 WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM
With about a dozen rangers, he has been using an app that through satellite feeds maps signs of forest fires, illegal logging and people encroaching on water sources, to stem worsening deforestation in Kwale County during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Biden administration moves to protect forests with older trees from logging
NPR's Ayesha Rascoe speaks with Meg Krawchuk of Oregon State University about the Biden administration's proposal to protect old growth forests. Old trees contain more carbon than younger trees.
Lack of Loggers Is Hobbling Arizona Forest-Thinning Projects That Could Have Slowed This Year’s Devastating Wildfires
by Andrew Onodera 8/7/22 Inside Climate News
Smith is the forest restoration director for Coconino County, which includes the city of Flagstaff and was hit by a particularly brutal start to this year’s fire season. The Tunnel Fire burned nearly 20,000 acres here in April and claimed 30 homes. The Pipeline and Haywire fires, which are still burning, charred another 32,000 acres in June, including much of the forest surrounding Smith’s beloved Weatherford Trail.
Reviving the Redwoods
by Jim Robbins 15/8/23 The New York Times
In what was once an old growth redwood forest that was heavily logged in 1968, a National Park Service forester points to an unruly tangle of spindly trees, 900 to the acre and so jam-packed it is difficult to walk through.
Defying E.U. Court, Poland Is Cutting Trees in an Ancient Forest
by Joanna Berendt 31/7/17 The New York Times
The decision is the latest challenge by Poland to the legal authority of the European Union, which Poland joined in 2004, and could result in financial penalties. The arch-conservative and nationalist government that took power in Poland in 2015 has been chastised by the authorities in Brussels; last week, it was formally warned that its efforts to consolidate power over the judiciary in Poland threatened the rule of law.
Deep In The Amazon, An Unseen Battle Over The Most Valuable Trees
In their everyday life, they are rubber tappers. They take us on a trail that leads to their rubber trees, which grow wild on the reserves where they live. These trees are native to the Amazon region, one of the most dangerous places in the world to be an environmental defender.
Can a Nation Replace Its Oil Wealth With Trees?
by Dionne Searcey 3/11/22 The New York Times
LOANGO NATIONAL PARK, Gabon — Evening and the rainforest. A riverbank packed with elephants. Treetops so dense they obscure all but a chimpanzee’s hairy arm. And, as the sun sets, a twinkle on the horizon: an offshore oil platform.
Trees older than America: a primeval Alaskan forest is at risk in the Trump era
by Brendan Jones 22/3/18 The Guardian
At south-east Alaska’s last industrial-scale sawmill, wheel loaders stack debarked logs two storeys high on the frozen ground. A bumper sticker on a battered Ford in the parking lot reads “Cut Kill Dig Drill”, a mantra that many in the 49th state appreciate re
Most Countries are Falling Short of Their Promises to Stop Cutting Down the World’s Trees
by Georgina Gustin 23/10/23 Inside Climate News
Despite the urgency behind global pledges to stop cutting down trees and damaging forests, the world lost tens of millions of acres of woodlands in 2022, veering well off track from meeting targets to halt deforestation and reversing modest progress from the previous year.
Meet the jungle gardener of Borneo, who is logging sustainably
by Kate Whiting 25/9/19 WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM
“We have close to a thousand orangutans in Deramakot,” says the forest manager. “If you look at the orangutans, when they show a healthy population, it means the rest are taken care of.”
Logging the South Plateau: Another Forest Service Con Job
by George Wuerthner 25/9/19 WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM
Ostensibly, the Forest Service claims the logging will improve forest health and reduce fire risk. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is another example of the Forest Service’s con job of justifying logging to the detriment of other forest values.
Brazil targets illegal logging in major Amazon raids
by Ueslei Marcelino 17/2/25 Reuters
The raids kicked off a year-long project called Operation Maravalha, named after a type of sawdust, in the states of Amazonas, Para and Rondonia. The government expects Maravalha to be the largest operation of its kind in over five years.
Fates of trees damaged by logging in Amazonian Bolivia
by Alexander Shenkin 1/12/15 ScienceDirect
Estimation of carbon losses from trees felled and incidentally-killed during selective logging of tropical forests is relatively straightforward and well-documented, but less is known about the fates of collaterally-damaged trees that initially survive.
Surviving trees and deadwood moderate changes in soil fungal communities and associated functioning after natural forest disturbance and salvage logging
by Mathias Mayer 3/22 ScienceDirect
Fungi are a key group of the soil microbiome in temperate and boreal forests, and their community composition can strongly be affected by forest disturbance. Particularly ectomycorrhizal (EM) fungi have been shown to strongly decrease in abundance following windthrows, bark beetle attacks, forest fires, and harvesting operations, as they rely on the supply of recently fixed carbon (C) from their host trees (Holden et al., 2013;
Beyond reduced-impact logging: Silvicultural treatments to increase growth rates of tropical trees
by M. Peña-Claros 20/9/08 ScienceDirect
Use of reduced-impact logging (RIL) techniques has repeatedly been shown to reduce damage caused by logging. Unfortunately, these techniques do not necessarily ameliorate the low growth rates of many commercial species or otherwise assure recovery of the initial volume harvested during the next cutting cycle.
Species grouping and diameter growth of trees in the Eastern Amazon: Influence of environmental factors after reduced-impact logging
by Jorge Luis Reategui-Betancourt 15/2/25 ScienceDirect
Tree growth predictions still present a challenge to forestry scientists. Species richness, ecological behavior variations, and different climate and soil interactions make it difficult to predict and understand tree growth in managed forests.
Effects of 50 years of selective logging on demography of trees in a Malaysian lowland forest
by Toshihiro Yamada 15/12/13 ScienceDirect
Species specific tree performance (growth, mortality, and recruitment rates) and population growth rate in a logged forest that was selectively logged in 1958 were compared with those in a primary forest using 10-year forest demographic data (1998–2008) in the Pasoh Forest Reserve in Malaysia.
Large trees as key elements of carbon storage and dynamics after selective logging in the Eastern Amazon
by Plinio Sist 15/4/14 ScienceDirect
The long term effect of Reduced-Impact Logging (RIL) on above-ground live biomass (AGB) dynamics was investigated in 18 1-ha logged over permanent sample plots set up in a terra firme rain forest in the Eastern Amazon (Brazil, Paragominas).
Empirical relationships between tree fall and landscape-level amounts of logging and fire
by David B. Lindenmayer 23/2/18 PLOS one
Large old trees are critically important keystone structures in forest ecosystems globally. Populations of these trees are also in rapid decline in many forest ecosystems, making it important to quantify the factors that influence their dynamics at different spatial scales. Large old trees often occur in forest landscapes also subject to fire and logging.
When big trees fall: Damage and carbon export by reduced impact logging in southern Amazonia
by Ted R. Feldpausch 25/11/05 ScienceDirect
We examined carbon export in whole logs and carbon accumulation as coarse woody debris (CWD) produced from forest damage during all phases of the first and second year of a certified reduced impact logging (RIL) timber harvest in southern Amazonia.
Recruitment, growth and recovery of commercial tree species over 30 years following logging and thinning in a tropical rain forest
by Angela Luciana de Avila 1/2/17 ScienceDirect
Sustainable production of timber from commercial species across felling cycles is a core challenge for tropical silviculture. In this study, we analysed how the intensity and type (harvesting and thinning) of silvicultural interventions affect: (a) recruitment of small stems (5 cm ⩽ DBH < 15 cm), (b) increment of future crop trees (15 cm ⩽ DBH < 50 cm) and (c) recovery of harvestable growing stocks (DBH ⩾ 50 cm) of 52 commercial timber species in the Tapajós National Forest, Brazil.
Applying ecological knowledge to decisions about seed tree retention in selective logging in tropical forests
by Joberto Veloso de Freitas 20/9/08 ScienceDirect
In production forests in the moist tropics, trees are selected for felling or retention primarily by species and size. Tree regeneration requirements and forest stand responses to harvesting are often ignored, and consequently, the regeneration of the residual forest is not ensured.
Tree growth and aboveground biomass in a tropical mountain forest thirty years after selective logging in Sarawak, Borneo
by Renee Sherna Laing 20/9/08 ScienceDirect
Tropical mountain forests are vital components of global floristic diversity as well as the hydrological cycle but have been extensively exploited. However, the impacts of human disturbances on changes in biomass and regional forest variation are not well documented in tropical mountainous regions.
Acidifying effect of removal of tree stumps and logging residues as compared to atmospheric deposition
by Johan Iwald 15/2/13 ScienceDirect
Harvesting of stumps and logging residues for bioenergy can be expected to increase in the future. An increased biomass export from the forest will increase the biological acidification, measured as net cation (cations–anions) export. The aim of this study is to estimate the acidifying effect that various levels of harvesting of tree stumps and logging residues will have in Sweden, and compare this with the acidification currently caused by acid deposition. Estimations of yearly logging of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.), Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) and birch (Betula spp.) on county-level were made based on scenario data from forestry consequence analyses and data from the Swedish National Forest Inventory.
by Flora van Eupen 15/6/25 ScienceDirect
Tree related microhabitats (TreMs) are key resources for forest biodiversity. Natural disturbances, such as bark beetle outbreaks, can influence forest structure and stand properties, potentially altering the composition of TreM communities.
Changes in tree functional composition and forest functioning ten years after logging and thinning interventions in Bornean tropical forests
by Ni Putu Diana Mahayani 15/2/22 ScienceDirect
Regenerating logged-over forests have become the predominant form of tropical forest cover (Asner et al., 2009, Gaveau et al., 2014). Despite being altered, logged forests can continue to maintain high biological diversity and provide important ecological services (Cannon et al., 1998, Mazzei et al., 2010, Berry et al., 2010, Edwards et al., 2011, Chaudhary et al., 2016). Often, the conservation value of logged forests depends on the logging practices applied because it determines the forest structure after logging, which strongly impacts their regrowth capacity and trajectory (Sist and Nguyen-Thé, 2002, Slik et al., 2002, Piponiot et al., 2016).
by Flora van Eupen 15/6/25 ScienceDirect
Tree related microhabitats (TreMs) are key resources for forest biodiversity. Natural disturbances, such as bark beetle outbreaks, can influence forest structure and stand properties, potentially altering the composition of TreM communities.
=====Policy analysis Harpy Eagle (Harpia harpyja) nest tree selection: Selective logging in Amazon forest threatens Earth's largest eagle===== by Everton B.P. Miranda 10/20 ScienceDirect
Characterizing wildlife conservation problems is essential to properly inform conservation planning, and requires detailed knowledge on critical life stages, such as reproduction.
Tree hollows and forest stand structure in Australian warm temperate Eucalyptus forests are adversely affected by logging more than wildfire
by Christopher M. McLean 1/4/15 ScienceDirect
Ecologically sustainable forest management aims to maintain biodiversity values within managed forest ecosystems. A key habitat component within Australian forest ecosystems are hollow-bearing trees which are crucially important for fauna species requiring tree hollows for diurnal shelter and nesting. The effect of disturbance regimes, in particular logging and fire, on hollow dynamics is poorly understood. The aim of this study was to determine the relationships between logging intensity and fire frequency on hollow abundance and forest stand structural attributes in two different eastern Australian Eucalyptus forest types.
Erasing a European biodiversity hot-spot: Open woodlands, veteran trees and mature forests succumb to forestry intensification, succession, and logging in a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve
by Jan Miklín 2/14 ScienceDirect
Open woodlands are among the biologically richest habitats of the temperate zone.
Assessing spatial patterns of burn severity for guiding post-fire salvage logging in boreal forests of Eastern Canada
by Victor Danneyrolles 15/3/24 scienceDirect
Areas affected by forest fires are increasing worldwide, making salvage logging (i.e., harvesting fire-affected trees) an increasingly used practice to reduce the economic impacts of fire on forestry. However, salvage logging can have strong ecological impacts, notably on post-fire forest regeneration and biodiversity. Burn severity (i.e., the degree to which fires impact the vegetation and soil) is also a central element that interacts with pre-fire forest characteristics and salvages logging to control post-fire forest dynamics and biodiversity.
The effects of selective logging on forest structure and tree species composition in a Central African forest: implications for management of conservation areas
by Jefferson S Hall 15/9/03 ScienceDirect
The forests of Central Africa enjoy world-wide recognition for their spectacular wildlife and also harbor an abundance of high quality timber. With mismanagement and the conversion of large tracts of West African forest to agricultural production, Central African forests are experiencing increased harvesting pressures. This is particularly true for species of African mahogany (Entandrophragma spp.).
Reduced-impact logging for climate change mitigation (RIL-C) can halve selective logging emissions from tropical forests
by Peter W. Ellis 15/4/19 ScienceDirect
Improved natural forest management represents a potentially large natural climate solution to global climate change, but this mitigation opportunity is highly uncertain (Griscom et al., 2017). Reduced-impact logging (RIL)—a set of improved timber harvesting guidelines for selectively logged natural forests—is of particular interest because of its relative low costs and numerous co-benefits. The carbon benefits of RIL have been studied at numerous sites across the tropics (e.g., Feldpausch et al., 2005, Medjibe et al., 2011, Pearson et al., 2014) as are the benefits to biodiversity (Bicknell et al., 2014). However, to our knowledge only one study (Putz et al., 2008b) estimated the pantropical climate mitigation potential of RIL, but it was based on field data from only two sites (Keller et al., 2004, Pinard and Putz, 1996).
Vine management for reduced-impact logging in eastern Amazonia
by Edson Vidal 3/11/97 ScienceDirect
The presence of vines interconnecting the canopies of tropical forest trees has been thought to increase the damage to neighboring trees when a tree is felled during selective logging, resulting in larger canopy gaps and possibly prejudicting future timber harvests.
