Chapter 6: Conclusion and Recommendations
2.2 Electronic Technology
2.3.1 Paper Consumption and Forestry Management
The method that forests are used and managed is extremely controversial and deforestation in tropical regions and the decline in 'old growth' forests are now acknowledged to be global problems (Internet 10).
Some of the major concerns and indecisiveness surrounding the forestry sphere are cited hereunder (Grieg-Gran, 1996).
. Definitions of sustainable forest management and forest stewardship: This involves the integration of performance standards - the need to achieve certain environmental, social and economic targets in the forest - with process standards.
Quantity of natural forest to set aside for conservation: Deciding on the quantity of forest land to set aside is of lesser importance than making a decision on which are the critical levels of biodiversity and the critical types of biodiversity at each level.
• Appropriateness of clear-cuts: Research suggests that universal prescriptions against clear-cutting are inconsistent with ecologically-based management. From an ecological viewpoint, the decision on whether or not to clear-cut should be determined by factors such as the natural forest disturbance regime, the characteristics of key forest species and the nature of the land.
Where plantations are appropriate: Objections to plantations are based largely on their perceived "monoculture" characteristics. The challenge is to introduce more diversity and resilience into plantation systems.
The loss of forests isn't the only concern. Deforestation has released an estimated 120 billion tons of carbon dioxide, the foremost global warming gas, into the atmosphere.
The pulp and paper industry is the third-largest industrial polluter in both Canada and the United States, releasing more than 220 million pounds of toxic pollution into the air, ground and water annually (Internet 12).
The focus of worldwide attention on tropical forests has arisen because of the sheer diversity of purpose which they serve, the uniqueness of primary forest in evolutionary and ecological terms, and the accelerating threat to their existence.
Tropical forests are the homeland of several indigenous people; they provide the habitat for widespread fauna and flora (biodiversity), which are valued in themselves, and are valued for educational, crop-breeding and medicinal purposes; they supply hardwood timber, and other forest products such as fruit, nuts, latex, rattans, meat, honey, resins, oil, etc.; they make available a recreational facility (e.g. "eco- tourism"); they protect watersheds in terms of water retention, flow regulation water pollution, and organic nutrient cleansing. They also act as a store of carbon dioxide so that, while no net gains in the flow of carbon dioxide accrue to forests, carbon dioxide is released, and a cost ensues, if deforestation occurs. Forests also put right carbon levels in secondary forests and in reforested areas. Finally, they also provide a possible regional microclimatic function (Adamowicz and Boxall, et al, 1996).
Deforestation is at present proceeding at an unprecedented rate. In 1998, the World Resources Institute reported that 185 million hectares of tropical forests, an area approximately the size of Mexico, were destroyed from 1980 to 1995, as trees were cut for timber and to clear land for agriculture and development (Tietenberg, 2004).
Deforestation poses a significant threat to biodiversity as it destroys forest habitat.
Pressures on forest habitat arise from logging activities and from the conversion of forested land to other uses. Logging activities not only remove trees that serve as habitat, but the associated activities (such as road building) can degrade the surrounding territory as well (Tietenberg, 2004).
Prevalence of widespread deforestation as emission-induced forest decline has also taken place in past centuries in regionally limited areas after the development of industry or near refineries. Growing industrialisation, associated with the construction of tall chimneys that enabled pollutants to be more broadly distributed, the deforestation has spread out in large areas since about the start of the 1970's (Schwedt, 2001).
Generally from a political viewpoint, this phenomenon is also termed 'new-type forest decline', and represents a disturbance of the entire relationship between soil, tree and air, or an illness which has befallen the entire ecosystem. One of the most severe consequences of this deforestation is the loss of the forest as a groundwater storage place. A damaged forest also binds less carbon dioxide, with a consequential impact on the greenhouse effect (Schwedt, 2001).
In Indonesia, the pulp and paper industry is destroying rainforest at such a swift pace that it will run out of timber by the year 2007. An area, the size of Belgium is depleted annually. No more than 10% of the trees harvested, are subsequently farmed (Internet 12).
Internationally, pulp for paper and other uses is taking an increasing share of all wood production, from 40% in 1998 to nearly 60% over the next 50 years. For the duration of this period, easily accessible and inexpensive sources of wood are disappearing.
Due to the rising consumption of virgin forests in places as far apart as Canada and South East Asia, forest restoration has not been able to keep pace with the demand for wood products (Internet 12).
2.3.1.1 The potential of non-wood fibre
Non wood fibres are used to manufacture a range of grades of paper and paperboard and account for greater than half of the virgin pulp production in developing countries. Under existing agricultural practices and current processing technologies, non-wood fibres are by and large more polluting than wood, although less energy is required to pulp the fibre. The production of paper from non-wood fibres is typically more expensive than using wood. The development of cost-effective systems of improving effluent quality from non-wood mills is urgent and would reduce the pollution burden (Grieg-Gran, 1996).