Logging

Introduction

Logging refers to the cutting down of trees. Although this includes the cutting down of an isolated tree, logging typically is associated with a forest.

Logging can be done by companies to obtain the timber for sale (usually to supply lumber for construction) and by individuals to supply construction material for their individual need or fuel for their personal use.

As well, logging is also done to help manage a forest. For example, trees that have died can be cut down to lessen the safety and fire hazards in the forest. Selective logging of diseased or dying trees is also done to try to slow down or halt the spread of a disease through forestland.

A 2008 example of the latter is occurring in the interior of the Canadian province of British Columbia, where trees that have been infected with the mountain pine beetle are being logged to try and slow down the spread of the pest. In this application, logging can be environmentally beneficial.

However, logging practices such as clear-cutting can increase erosion of the soil and reduce soil fertility. As well, when clear-cut logging is done on a massive scale such as is happening in the Brazilian rain forest, the loss of the trees can affect the global climate because more carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere.

Historical Background and Scientific Foundations

Logging began as humans started to use the land to raise crops and livestock. In North America, logging began in the 1820s and 1830s on the East Coast as settlers from Europe began to clear land for farms and communities. As settlement expanded westward, logging followed. By the 1880s, logging was active in the U.S. Northwest, for example.

Then, logging involved the manual labor of those who sawed down the trees and the animals used to haul the logs away to be processed. Then, as now, logs could also be floated downriver to mills where they were cut into lumber.

In the 1920s, the introduction of steam-powered winches aided the hauling of logs. In some versions, the felled logs were attached to a suspended guy wire and hauled through the air, instead of dragging along the ground.

Logging has since become even more sophisticated. For example, modern logging machines are similar in appearance to forklift trucks except that they are equipped with large pincers instead of front forks. The pincers can slice through the trunk of a tree and slide up the tree to break off limbs. The tree is then loaded onto a flat-bed logging truck for transport to a mill along logging roads built for this purpose.

Because of the heavy machinery involved, this type of logging is difficult to do in a selective manner—where trees are cut down or left standing based on individual inspection and determination of how the tree’s removal could affect the overall forest ecosystem. For example, removal of trees can let more sunlight reach the forest floor, which can increase the growth of smaller and healthier trees. Rather, machine-intensive logging tends to be complete, where virtually all the trees in a designated area are removed. This approach is called clear-cutting.

Clear-cutting can be less expensive and a faster way of logging. However, this type of logging can increase soil erosion; if near a watercourse, the runoff of sediment can adversely affect life in the stream or river. As well, complete loss of a forest affects the diversity of life that is possible. Loss of trees also increases the amount of carbon dioxide that is released to the atmosphere; the increased warming of the atmosphere since the mid-nineteenth century has been linked to increased atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.

Impacts and Issues

Logging practices, especially clear-cutting, are controversial. Logging is necessary to providing the lumber needed for construction of buildings. As well, many people and communities rely on logging for their economic prosperity. Yet, logging damages the local environment. Furthermore, with the increased realization of the effect of human activities on atmospheric warming, the importance of forests as a carbon sink has been recognized.

The loss of forests can increase the release of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. This is a concern globally and in particular in regions such as the Amazon, where over 5 million acres of forest are logged each year. Calculations have determined that if this rate is not slowed, Brazilian rain forests could be almost eliminated by the year 2050.

Advocates for a more sustainable approach to logging argue for what is known as ecosystem-based management of the forestry. In this approach, logging is viewed as being important to the overall stability of the ecosystem and with regard to human activities. In this view, some areas may be logged more intensively but

WORDS TO KNOW

CARBON SINK: A location like a forest where there is net storage of carbon as sequestration exceeds release.

EROSION: The wearing away of the soil or rock over time.

MONOCULTURE: Single species.

SILVICULTURE: Management of the development, composition, and long-term health of a forest ecosystem. The objective is often to allow logging of the forest over many years.

TRANSPIRATION: Loss of water taken in by roots from leaves through evaporation.

with attention paid to minimizing environmental degradation, while other regions are logged more selectively.

Those who support a more selective approach to logging argue that, aside from any environmental benefits and as a means of protecting the forest biodiversity, selective logging can help maintain the productivity of a forest as an economic resource longer than if the area is clear-cut, since clear-cutting generates a forest that is a monoculture (that is, all the trees that subsequently grow are the same age and, if the forest has been deliberately re-planted, usually the same species) rather than a forest where trees are maturing at different times.

See Also Agricultural Practice Impacts; Cultural Practices and Environmental Destruction; Human Impacts; Landslides; Reforestation; Runoff

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Ravenel, Ramsey, Ilmi Granoff, and Carrie Magee. Illegal Logging in the Tropics. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2005.

Tacconi, Luca. Illegal Logging: Law Enforcement, Livelihoods and the Timber Trade. London: Earthscan Publications, 2007.

Vaillant, John. The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005.

Periodicals

Asner, Gregory P. et al. “Condition and Fate of Logged Forests in the Brazilian Amazon.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103 (2006): 12947-12950.

Oliveira, Paulo et al. “Land Use Allocation Protects the Peruvian Amazon.” Science 317 (2007): 1233–1236.