Forestry Systems and Multiple-Use Forestry.
In the beginning there were forests stretching as far as the horizon- deep, dark forests were no man had ever set foot. Silence reigned over the treetops; there were no growling bulldozers, caterpillars or trucks spewing black smoke into the air, no saws and chippers chewing through the trees- but times have changed and as the world population explodes and the demand for wood products increases, new ways of managing our forests must be put into practice. The forests of the United States originally compromised about 822 million acres. Now this figure has shrunk to less than half its initial amount (Robinson 12). The key to saving our forests, here in the U.S. as well as internationally, lies in the practice of multiple-use forestry, a technique that was developed by the Forest Service many years ago but which is still unpopular with the lumber industry- mostly because of misconceptions regarding its profitability (www.fs.fed.us/). In this paper I will touch on concepts surrounding multiple-use forestry, namely: its history; an analysis of the process by which it is employed, its relationship with the notion of sustained-yield practices; and its effects on the industry and the environment.
The lumber industry in America started out in part as a way to use material that would have otherwise been wasted in the clearing of land for agriculture (Robinson 12). As the industry grew it logged off great tracts of land using clear cutting as the main method of harvesting (Sedjo, Goetzl and Moffat 36). At the close of the 19th century, concerns about the future availability of American forests were starting to be raised. This led to Congress passing the Organic Act of 1897, which permitted the sale of dead, mature and large-growth trees but required that trees to be sold must be marked and designated before being removed (Robinson 13). Here were the beginnings of sustained-yield practices which, as we shall see, are an integral part of multiple-use forestry (Robinson 13).
