Tag: forests

What is a working forest?

1 June 2017

Sustainable bioenergy

For centuries, civilizations have relied on forests and forest products. Forests provided fuel, food and construction materials, and there were plenty of them.

But when, in 18^th century Europe, the needs of growing industrialisation sent development into overdrive, a problem arose: forests were struggling to meet demand.

In Germany, the problem was acute. The growing steel industry had increased demand for wood to power its smelters and for wood used in mining operations. Large areas of forestland were stripped to meet industry’s needs and overall supply was quickly decreasing.

No one was more acutely aware of the challenge than Hans Carl von Carlowitz, who at the time was the head of the Saxon mining administration.

So, in 1713 he published ‘Silvicultura Oeconomica’, a book which advocated the conservation and management of German forests so they could provide for industries in the long term. Although he drew on existing knowledge from around Europe, it was the first time an important term was used: Nachhaltigkeit, the German word for sustainability.

Carlowitz explained this new term: “Conservation and growing of wood is to be undertaken in order to have a continuing, stable and sustained use, as this is an indispensable cause, without which the country in its essence cannot remain.”

It was arguably the start of the scientific approach to forestry, and although our needs of forests have changed (as have the words we use to describe them – working forest, plantation forest and managed forest all refer to largely the same thing), that same principle is at the heart of how a modern working forest functions: to ensure what exists and is useful today will still be there tomorrow.

This approach relies on responsible forest management, which sets out a few key principles on how a forest should be managed to sustain its life.

Providing room to breathe

Working forests are commonly managed to produced sawlogs – high value wood that can be sawn to make timber for construction or furniture. For a forester to optimise the quality and quantity of sawlogs, regular thinning is required. Thinning is the process of periodically felling a proportion of the forest to aid its overall health and vigour. This means there are fewer trees fighting for the same resources (water, sunshine, soil). More than that, thinning can promote diversity by providing more light and space for other flora.

Thinning can occur several times in a forest’s cycle. It can be used to increase the size and quality of the remaining trees and also to encourage new seedlings to establish in place of the harvested trees when managing for continuous forest cover.

Nothing should be wasted

The roundwood produced by thinning is often too small to be sold as sawlogs, but that doesn’t mean it’s worthless. It can be sold to the pulp industry to make paper, or for particleboard or to the biomass industry to make compressed wood pellets, which can be used to fuel power generation – as is done at Drax Power Station. These industries also provide a market for the lower grade roundwood removed when the more mature trees are finally harvested.

In areas where there was no robust market for this low grade wood, it would often be left on site and become a fire risk or a haven for pest and disease attack. Too much low grade material left on site can also inhibit the regrowth of the next tree crop. So markets for this material are important for the health of the forest and the value of the land to the forest owner. Also in the Baltic countries markets for pulpwood are limited and the energy sector provides a valuable opportunity to clear the site for replanting and provide additional revenue to the forest owner.

This process of utilising all parts of the forest is essential for a healthy working forest. On the one hand, the revenue can cover the cost of thinning. This husbandry enhances the quality of the final tree crop and ensures that money is available to invest in future planting and regeneration, ensuring the forest area is consistently maintained and improved.

Red Pine, Pinus resinosa - thinned plantation with natural seedlings

Young regeneration in a shelterwood system, demonstrating the continuous forest lifecycle

The carbon benefits of a working forest

Rather than diminishing it, actively managing a forest helps its ability to sequester – or absorb and store – more carbon.

Carbon sequestration is directly related to the growth rate of a tree – a young, growing tree absorbs more carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere than an older one. Older trees will have more carbon stored (after a ‘childhood’ spent absorbing it), but if these are not harvested they are more susceptible to fire damage, pests and diseases and their carbon absorption plateaus.

In an actively managed forest, older trees ready for sawlog production can be harvested and replaced with vigorously growing young trees and in the process maximise the CO₂ absorption potential of the forest.

The by-products of this process – the low grade wood and thinnings – can be used for the pulp and biomass industry, which both aids the health of the remaining forest, and provides revenue for the forester to invest in the long term life of his or her forest.

Three centuries of sustainability

In the 300 years since Carlowitz published his book on sustainability a lot has changed. And while it’s unlikely he foresaw forests providing fuel for renewable electricity and renewable heat, the approach remains as relevant.

What is a working forest? It is one that is as productive and healthy tomorrow as it is today. That we’re using the same resource today as we were 300 years ago is evidence to suggest it’s a practice that works.

How space tech helps forests

20 April 2017

Sustainable bioenergy

Can you count the number of trees in the world? Accurately, no – there are just too many, spread out over too vast an area. But if we could, what would we gain? For one, we would get a clearer picture of what’s happening in our planet’s forests.

They’re a hugely important part of our lives – not only for the resource they provide, but for their role in absorbing carbon dioxide (CO₂). So properly understanding their scale and what is happening to them – whether increasing or decreasing – and designing strategies to manage this change is hugely important.

The trouble is, they exist on such a vast scale that we traditionally haven’t been able to accurately monitor them en masse. Thanks to space technologies, that’s changing.

The view from up there

As far back as World War II, aerial imaging was being used to monitor the environment. In addition to using regular film cameras mounted to aeroplanes to follow troops on the ground, infrared film was used to identify green vegetation and distinguish it from camouflage nets.

As satellite and remote sensing technology developed through the 20^th century, so too did our understanding of our planet. Satellites were used to map the weather, monitor the sea, and to create topological maps of the earth, but they weren’t used to track the Earth’s forests in any real detail.

But in 2021 the European Space Agency (ESA) will launch Biomass, a satellite that will map the world’s forests in unprecedented detail using the first ever P-band radar to be placed in Earth orbit. This synthetic aperture radar penetrates the forest canopy to capture data on the density of tree trunks and branches. It won’t just be able to track how much land a forest covers, but how much wood exists in it. In short, the Biomass will be able to ‘weigh’ the world’s forests.

Over the course of its five-year mission, it will produce 3D maps every six months, giving scientists data on forest density across eight growth cycles.

The satellite is part of ESA’s Earth Explorers programme, which operates a number of satellites using innovative sensor technology to answer environmental questions. And it’s not the only entity carrying out research of this sort.

California-based firm Planet has 149 micro-satellites measuring just 10cm x 30cm in orbit around the Earth, each of which beams back around three terabytes of data every day. To put it another way, each satellite photographs about 2.5 million square kilometres of the Earth’s surface on a daily basis.

The aim of capturing this information is to provide organisations with data to help them answer the question: what is changing on Earth? When it comes to forests, this includes identifying things like illegal logging and forest fires, but the overall aim is to create a searchable, expansive view of the world that enables people to generate useful insights.

Keeping the world green

All this data is not only vital for developing our understanding of how the world is changing, it is vital for the development of responsible, sustainable forestry practices.

From 2005 to 2015, the UN rolled out the REDD programme (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation), which, among other functions, allows countries to earn the right to offset CO₂ emissions – for example through forestry management practices. Sophisticated satellite measurement techniques not only let governments know the rate of deforestation or afforestation in their respective countries, it can also help them monitor, highlight and encourage responsible forestry.

Satellite technology is increasingly growing the level of visibility we have of our planet. But more than just a clearer view on what is happening, it allows us the opportunity to see why and how it is happening. And it’s with this information that real differences in our future can be made.

Forests are more powerful than you think – here’s why

21 March 2017

Sustainable bioenergy

Almost one third of the earth’s land mass is covered by forests. That’s an area of around 4 billion hectares, or roughly four times the size of the US.

In addition to being a prominent feature across the global landscape, forests also play a significant role in how we live. They make the air cleaner in cities and absorb carbon from the atmosphere. They provide bio-diversity and habits for wildlife. They also provide essential forest products such as paper, building materials and wood pellets for energy.

To celebrate the UN’s International Day of Forests, we’re looking at some of the reasons why forests and wood fuel are more powerful than you might think.

They’re a major source of renewable energy

Nearly half of the world’s renewable energy comes from forests in the form of wood fuel. Roughly 2.4 billion people around the world use it for things like cooking, heating and generating electricity. In fact, about 50% of the total global wood production is currently used for these purposes.

However, it is critical that this resource is managed sustainably and responsibly. One of the key aims of the International Day of Forests is to encourage people to utilise their local forest resources sustainably to ensure it endures for future generations.

They can revitalise economies

Because wood fuel is such a widely used energy source, it also supports a healthy, vibrant industry. Roughly 900 million people work in the wood energy sector globally.

More than that, rural economies built on wood energy can be revitalised by modernisation, which can then stimulate local business. Investment can help finance better forest management, which in turn leads to forest growth, improvements in sustainability standards and in some cases, increased employment.

They can help mitigate climate change

The world’s forests have an energy content about 10 times that of the global annual primary energy consumption, which makes it a hugely useful resource in helping meet energy demand in a sustainable and renewable way.

When wood is used as fuel it releases carbon dioxide (CO₂). However, if this fuel is drawn from a responsibly managed forest or sustainable system of growing forests this carbon is offset by new tree plantings. The only emissions produced therefore are the ones involved in transporting the wood itself. The US Food and Agriculture Organization predict that by 2030 forestry mitigation with the help of carbon pricing could contribute to reductions of 0.2 to 13.8 Gigatonnes (Gt) CO₂ a year.

5 things you never knew about forests

6 October 2016

Sustainable bioenergy

Background. Fir tree branch with dew drops on a blurred background of sunlight

Forests and the products we derive from them are one of the most ubiquitous aspects of human civilisation. Despite the rapid pace of modern life, that isn’t changing.

Forest still covers 30% of the world’s land and in the UK more than an estimated 55 million m³ of wood was used in 2015 – either directly through furniture, books or hygiene paper, or indirectly, in infrastructure like fences, railways or through biomass electricity generation.

Behind all this lies the forest and the industry surrounding it. But how much do you really know about forests?

In some regions forests are increasing

Mention forestry, and there are plenty of people who make the jump to the activities of unscrupulous developers and deforestation. But while forest land is declining worldwide (in fact, we’ve lost 129 million hectares since 1990), the good news is the rate of decline is dropping sharply, down 50% across the same period.

A lot of this is thanks to growing environmental awareness, responsible forestry management and reforestation around the world. 10,000 hectares of new woodland was created in the UK in 2014 and in the USA, where a third of all land is forested, forestland has been consistently increasing over the last 25 years. There’s been an increase of roughly 7.6 million hectares between 1990 and 2015.

Vigorously growing forests absorb CO2 faster

It’s well known that trees are “the lungs of the earth”, but not all trees or ages are equally effective at absorbing the greenhouse gas CO₂. A growing, younger forest is a better sink for carbon dioxide than a forest that is mature and stable. This has implications for the way these resources are used – notably when it comes to the sourcing of material for compressed wood pellets.

Whereas coal releases carbon that has been trapped underground for millions of years, wood releases carbon captured within its lifetime, making it a very low carbon fuel once manufacturing and transportation are factored in. The technique is to harvest trees when they have stopped growing at a fast rate, use the wood for forest products such as timber, pulpwood or compressed wood pellets for energy and replant the area with new, high growth potential trees. The result is a forest with a steady stream of CO₂-hungry young trees and a steady stream of renewable raw material.

Forests can stop floods

A study led by the Universities of Birmingham and Southampton and funded by the Environment Agency, found that forests in Europe play an important role in mitigating the effects of heavy rain.

Thanks to the buffering abilities of the forest canopy and the enormous water absorption capacity of woods and forests, they can slow the flow of a sudden downpour of rain overfilling nearby streams or rivers. This water will eventually be released but slowing its movement mitigates flash flooding.

Different parts of the forest have different uses

The primary commercial product from forests is not a hard one to guess: wood. But there’s more to it than that. For construction timber, the lower, thicker parts of a tree’s trunk are used. Smaller parts of the trunk are used as pulpwood which can be used to make paper, panels or for energy. Residues from the wood processing industry such as sawdust can also be used for compressed wood pellets.

With the rise of the internet, smartphones and e-readers the paper market has been shrinking. Manufacture of high-density wood pellets helps replace demand for wood once used by the paper market, as pellets can be made using low-grade wood, thinnings and residues not used in construction or furniture.

Trees talk to each other

Until recently it was thought that trees perform most of their biological functions in isolation from each other. But biologists have learned in recent years that in fact they communicate and help each other.

Under the forest floor, trees’ roots are linked by bright white and yellow fungal threads, called mycelium. In a forest, these threads act as a kind of network, linking trees to one another.

These links enable trees to share nutrients, carbon and water. Some species of tree also increase nitrogen uptake in the soil and help to improve the conditions in which other species grow. In fact, research by the University of British Columbia, indicates that certain large, older trees that rise above the forest act as ‘mother trees’ which actively help to ‘manage’ the resources for the other trees in the forest.

Based on their findings, it seems trees not only talk to each other, but help each other grow too.

Tag: forests