Planted Eucalyptus Forests: A Sustainable Pathway for Global Timber Supply & Forest Preservation
Gustavo Iglesias Trabado 
GIT Forestry Consulting SL - Consultoría y Servicios de Ingeniería Agroforestal - www.git-forestry.com - EUCALYPTOLOGICS
GIT Forestry Consulting SL - Consultoría y Servicios de Ingeniería Agroforestal - www.git-forestry.com - EUCALYPTOLOGICS
Planted forests have significantly expanded around the World in the last five decades. This trend has meant, among many other effects, a huge shift of supply sources for raw industrial roundwood, from previously existing forests of many types to purpose made timber crops. That trend has especially been intense for those industrial uses requiring vast amounts of raw timber as base resource.
Among the favoured tree species for the establishment of planted forests in the five continents, the very efficient eucalypts, fast growing, adaptable to many environments from arid lands to tropical forests, able to supply wood of great quality for several current and future industrial lines, and increasingly domesticated, have been paramount. And they will keep being, year by year as they become a high yield and reasonable investment option for many in many places.
However, if you have never been into a planted Eucalyptus forest, and even if you have been, you may yet have a different perception on these trees and their cultivation. Not surprising, considering the continued spread of myths and fables about their negative effects on different pieces of the environment.
One thing is absolutely certain about this all. Without yet considering the amount, type, permanence and reversibility of such hypothetical impacts... these cannot happen wherever those trees are not cultivated. So, the significance of their cultivated area compared to other forest types around the world is a good starting point to understand why many of the statements you may read or hear against these trees and those who benefit from their wonderful properties... coming from varied sources are simply... incoherent, illogical, exaggerated, biased... or intentionally misleading.
Eucalyptus Planted Forests: Key Data on Current Cultivation Area, contribution to Sustainable Wood Production & Sustainable Forest Management Certification Status. (Click image to enlarge)
So, today we bring you some good quality data depicting the significance of Eucalyptus planted forests on the total World Forest Resource, from the points of view of a) Cultivated area versus other Forest areas; b) Industrial Roundwood Output versus that from other Forest areas; and c) Status of Forest Certification as Sustainable according to the two predominant schemes currently common around the world: the dominant PEFC and the also noticeable FSC.
It is by the understanding of these basic figures and what they mean from a spatial and temporal point of view that you will be able to sort out grain from straw, and you will be able to classify any author claiming against these trees into any of the previously mentioned categories. Maybe also this way, you are also able to provide others with a sound knowledge on the cost/benefit ratio of these and other planted trees being the current and future source of most of the organic, renewable and recyclable materials made from wood that you use today and will keep using tomorrow, while you help and contribute, as these planted trees already do, to the preservation of our ecosystems and their functions at a global scale. There is very little doubt that these and other planted forests are some of the best Vital Allies of the Planet available today, and tomorrow.
Did you know that...
- Planted forests, meaning some 2% of global land area, provide, among other goods and services, +70% of the yearly global harvests of industrial raw timber?
- Planted Eucalyptus forests mean considerably less than 1% of global land area, but produce organic materials for over 130 different products you and several other million beings may use everyday without noticing?
- From the whole amount of planted Eucalyptus forests and the industrial timber sustainably harvested from them every year, only a fraction is bio-refined by the global pulp and paper industry?
- Many planted Eucalyptus forests do not even exist for a Productive Function, but are part of Protective Planted Forests helping to quickly improve endangered or restore degraded soils, to prevent erosion and loss of agricultural productivity, or as beneficial complements for other farming activities?
- Both the PEFC and the FSC, plus other organizations, have already certified millions of hectares of timber productive Planted Eucalyptus Forests as Sustainably Managed?
Interesting eh? No doubt, these trees are one of the most diverse and useful plants we human beings have domesticated in the last 200 years since their discovery in Australia. And they will keep being, you like them, or not.
Also at Eucalyptologics...
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© 2007-2010 Gustavo Iglesias Trabado. Please contact us if you want to use all or part of this text and photography elsewhere. We like to share, but we do not like rudeness.
