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ENHANCED: IMPORTING TIMBER, EXPORTING ECOLOGICAL IMPACT
Citation:
MAYER, A. L., P. E. KAUPPI, P. ANGELSTAM, Y. ZHANG, AND P. M. TIKKA. ENHANCED: IMPORTING TIMBER, EXPORTING ECOLOGICAL IMPACT. D. Kennedy (ed.), SCIENCE. American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Washington, DC, 308(5720):359-360, (2005).
Description:
Covering 32% of the planet, boreal forests are one of the last relatively intact terrestrial biomes, and are a critical carbon sink in global climate dynamics. Mature and old growth boreal forests provide a large number of products that are culturally and economically important, from wood-based lumber, pulp and fuelwood, to non-wood products such as animal meat and fur, mushrooms, nuts and berries, resins, and medicinal extracts. Intensive wood harvest and conservation of naturally dynamic intact forests tend to be mutually exclusive; where biodiversity is highly valued, wood harvests are limited or banned outright through forest protection and special management policies. Increasing domestic forest protection without simultaneously decreasing demand for wood necessitates an increase in foreign imports, introducing a negative impact on forest biodiversity elsewhere. At an international scale, a net gain in forest protection is questionable if local protection shifts logging pressure to less privileged areas of the world. This is especially problematic if the functionality of conservation area networks is better in landscapes with a shorter land use history. Increasing demand for both wood products and forest conservation in Asian and European countries, such as China and Finland, has placed increasing pressure on neighboring Russian forests.