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Forestry in India is more than just about wood and fuel. India has a thriving non-wood forest products industry, which produces latex, gums, resins, essential oils, flavours, fragrances and aroma chemicals, incense sticks, handicrafts, thatching materials and medicinal plants. About 60% of non-wood forest products production is consumed locally.
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- The ancient world
- Medieval Europe
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Forestry is the management of forested land together with associated waters and wasteland, primarily for harvesting timber.
What is urban forestry?
Urban forestry is the management of publicly and privately owned trees in and adjacent to urban areas. Urban forests include environments such as city greenbelts, street and utility rights-of-way, forested watersheds of municipal reservoirs, and residential, commercial, and industrial property.
Is forestry the same as silviculture?
Silviculture is a branch of forestry, concerned with the theory and practice of controlling forest establishment, composition, and growth.
forestry, the management of forested land, together with associated waters and wasteland, primarily for harvesting timber. To a large degree, modern forestry has evolved in parallel with natural resource management. As a consequence, professional foresters have increasingly become involved in activities related to the conservation of soil, water, and wildlife resources and to recreation.
It is believed that Homo erectus used wood for fire at least 750,000 years ago. The oldest evidence of the use of wood for construction, found at the Kalambo Falls site in Tanzania, dates from some 60,000 years ago. Early organized communities were located along waterways that flowed through the arid regions of India, Pakistan, Egypt, and Mesopotamia, where scattered trees along riverbanks were used much as they are today—for fuel, construction, and handles for tools. Writers of the Hebrew Bible make frequent reference to the use of wood. Pictures in Egyptian tombs show the use of the wooden plow and other wooden tools to prepare the land for sowing. Carpenters and shipwrights fabricated wooden boats as early as 2700 bce. Theophrastus, Varro, Pliny, Cato, and Virgil wrote extensively on the subject of trees, their classification, manner of growth, and the environmental characteristics that affect them.
The Romans took a keen interest in trees and imported tree seedlings throughout the Mediterranean region and Germany, establishing groves comparable to those in Carthage, Lebanon, and elsewhere. The fall of the Roman Empire signaled an end to conservation works throughout the Mediterranean and a renewal of unregulated cutting, fire, and grazing of sheep and goats, which resulted in the destruction of the forests. This, in turn, caused serious soil loss, silting of streams and harbours, and the conversion of forest to a scrubby brush cover known as maquis.
In medieval Europe, forest laws were aimed initially at protecting game and defining rights and responsibilities. Hunting rights were vested in the feudal lord who owned the property and who had the sole right to cut trees and export timber. Peasants were permitted to gather fuel, timber, and litter for use on their own properties and to pasture defined numbers of animals. By 1165, however, land clearing for agriculture had gone so far that Germany forbade further forest removal. The systematic management of forests had its true beginnings, however, in the German states during the 16th century. Each forest property was divided into sections for timber harvesting and regeneration to ensure a sustainable yield of timber for the entire property. This working plan called for accurate maps and assessments of timber volume and expected growth rates.
Trees have been raised from seed or cuttings since biblical times, but the earliest record of a planned forest nursery is that of William Blair, cellarer to the Abbey of Coupar Angus in Scotland, who raised trees to grow in the Highland Forest of Ferter as early as 1460. After the dissolution of the monasteries, many newly rich landowners in Scotland and England found a profitable long-term investment in artificial plantations established on poor land. John Evelyn, a courtier in the reign of Charles II, published his classic textbook Sylva in 1664, exhorting them to do so, and today virtually all of Britain’s 3.9 million hectares (9.6 million acres) of woodland consists of artificial plantations. Other countries had managed their natural forests better and had little need, until recently, to afforest bare land. The 20th century, however, has seen a tremendous expansion of artificial plantations in all the continents, planned to meet the ever-growing needs for wood and paper as essential materials in modern civilization.
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Formal education in forestry began about 1825 when private forestry schools were established. These were the outgrowth of the old master schools such as Cotta Master School, which developed into the forestry college at Tharandt—one of the leading forestry schools in Germany. The National School of Forestry was established in Nancy, France, in 1825.
During the 19th century the reputation of German foresters stood so high that they were employed in most continental European countries. Early American foresters, including the great conservation pioneer Gifford Pinchot, gained their training at European centres. But the doctrine of responsible control had to fight a hard battle against timber merchants who sought quick profits.
The 20th century saw the steady growth of national forest laws and policies designed to protect woodlands as enduring assets. Beginning in the 1940s, vast land reclamation was undertaken by Greece, Israel, Italy, Spain, and the Maghrib countries of North Africa to restore forests to the slopes laid bare by past abuse. The main objective of the tree planting is to save what remains of the soil and to protect the watersheds. In China, where forests once extended over 30 percent of the land, centuries of overcutting, overgrazing, and fires reduced this proportion to a low of approximately 7 percent. China has taken major steps to improve land use, including construction of reservoirs and a huge forest planting program, which increased forested area to 20 percent by 2015.
The character of forest policies around the world reflects national political philosophies. In communist countries all forests are owned by the state. In the United States both the federal and the state governments have deemed it prudent to hold substantial areas of natural forest, while allowing commercial companies and private individuals to own other areas outright. Similar patterns of ownership are found throughout most of Asia, western Europe, and the Commonwealth countries. In Japan the extensive forests are largely state-owned. Tribal ownership is found in many African countries and in many places in the Amazon. International cooperation is effected by the Forestry Department of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, with headquarters in Rome.
Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, planting, using, conserving and repairing forests and woodlands for associated resources for human and environmental benefits. [1] Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands. [2]
Jun 1, 2024 · What Is a Forest? A forest is an ecosystem dominated by trees. According to the parameters established by the FAO, an area must cover at least half a hectare, or about one and a quarter...
Forests are the largest terrestrial ecosystems of Earth by area, and are found around the globe. [8] 45 percent of forest land is in the tropical latitudes. The next largest share of forests are found in subarctic climates, followed by temperate, and subtropical zones. [9]
Nov 21, 2023 · Forestry is defined as the act of planting and managing trees and forests. The practice goes back thousands of years. In the 7th century, the Visigoths of northern Europe faced a...
All land that is not classified as “Forest” or “Other wooded land”. Explanatory notes 1. For the purpose of reporting to FRA, the “Other land” is calculated by subtracting the area of forest and other wooded land from the total land area (as maintained by FAOSTAT). 2.
