Here is your essay on the Importance of Forestry !
About one-third of the world’s land surface (4,028 million hectares) is covered with forests, which are ecosystems that are dominated by trees. Forests are the vast natural resources for man for fuel, timber, paper, fodder, water yield and animal products.
Ecological studies have shown that forests help to maintain the level of rainfall necessary for their own existence and the indiscriminate deforestation by agricultural man for land, for cultivation or by modern industrial man for dam, mining, road, etc., results not only in an immediate lowering of ground water levels, but also in long-term lowering of rainfall. Forests recycle moisture back into their immediate atmosphere by transpiration where it again falls as rain.
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Due to deforestation, this natural reuse cycle is broken and water is lost through rapid runoff. Forests are also necessary to check the floods and soil erosion, and are important for wild-life, human recreation, air and water sheds, etc.
To maintain them certain forest conservation and management processes have to be employed to the forests. In India, at Forest Research Institute, Dehradun, a tear; of scientists is engaged with such a viewpoint. To get desired quality of timber or pulp of paper industry, monoculture forests of fast-growing trees such as poplars, certain conifers, teak and eucalyptus have been cultivated by man. Existing forests arc strongly manipulated in order to increase their yield of desired benefits.
It includes weeding (the elimination of species which might compete with the seedlings of desired species), thinning (eradication of individuals of the same species) and brashing (removal of leafless lower branches especially in conifers). Chemical technology may be applied to forestry to control insect parasites and damaging fungi. Forest management also includes the controlling of forest fires.
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Recently, the widely adopted practice of monoculture of forestry has posed certain new and serious problems. The monoculture drains the soil of specific nutrients required by the species in greater quantities. For example, teak plantation requires more calcium thereby leaving the soil impoverished.
Once the plantation has been cut, the land becomes generally unfit for any other vegetation and fertilizers have to be applied. Likewise, monoculture of Eucalyptus – a fast growing species, withdraws large quantities of underground water and also removes nutrients in large quantities. Its litter is negligible in quantity, does not decompose rapidly and trees do not support any animal life which may bring even small quantities of organic matter to the soil.
Silviculture, horticulture and arboriculture:
Silviculture is that branch of forestry which remains concerned with the establishment, development,-care and reproduction of monocultures of valuable timber trees such as teak.
Sal, Sheesham Kel etc. Arbor-culture and horticulture remain concerned with the cultivation of fruit trees and flower gardens and consequent beautification of a landscape. All these require ecologically oriented managements and conservations. Which may include plantation of mixed forests and recycling of forest products.