Biodiversity on a 15-year-old reforested plot of land. Reforestation is the process of restoring and recreating areas of woodlands or forest that once existed but were deforested or otherwise removed or destroyed at some point in the past. The resulting forest can provide both ecosystem and resource benefits and has the potential to become a major carbon sink. File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ...
File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ...
Limber Pine woodland, Toiyabe Range, central Nevada Biologically, a woodland is a treed area differentiated from a forest. ...
FOREST, which describes itself as the voice and friend of the smoker, is a United Kingdom political pressure group that campaigns for the right of people to smoke tobacco and opposes attempts to ban or reduce tobacco consumption, as well as casting doubt on medical claims of the health risks...
Deforestation is the conversion of forested areas to non-forest land use such as arable land, pasture, urban use, logged area or wasteland. ...
An ecosystem, a contraction of ecological and system, refers to the collection of biotic and abiotic components and processes that comprise and govern the behavior of some defined subset of the biosphere. ...
Loggers on break, c. ...
A carbon dioxide sink or CO2 sink is the opposite of a carbon source. ...
Natural reforestation
Reforestation can occur naturally if the area is left largely undisturbed. Native forests are often resilient and can re-establish themselves quickly.
Artificial reforestation In various arid, tropical, or sensitive areas, forests cannot re-establish themselves without assistance due to a variety of environmental factors. One of these factors is that, once forest cover is destroyed in arid zones, the land quickly dries out and becomes inhospitable to new tree growth. Other critical factors include overgrazing by livestock, especially animals such as goats, and over-harvesting of forest resources. Together these may lead to desertification and the loss of topsoil; without soil, forests cannot grow until the very long process of soil creation has been completed - if erosion allows this. In some tropical areas, the removal of forest cover may result in a duricrust or duripan that effectively seal off the soil to water penetration and root growth. In many areas, reforestation is impossible above all because the land is in use by people. In these areas, reforestation requires the planting of tree seedlings, treeplanting. In other areas, mechanical breaking up of duripans or duricrusts is necessary, careful and continued watering may be essential, and special protection, such as fencing, may be required. An arid environment has a high precipitation deficit, receiving much less precipitation annually than would satisfy the climatological demand for evaporation and transpiration. ...
The tropics are the geographic region of the Earth centered on the equator and limited in latitude by the two tropics: the Tropic of Cancer in the north and the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere. ...
This article does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...
In ecology and agriculture, overgrazing occurs when plants are exposed to grazing for too long, or without sufficient recovery periods. ...
Sheep are commonly bred as livestock. ...
Species See Species and subspecies The goat is a mammal in the genus Capra, which consists of nine species: the Ibex, the West Caucasian Tur, the East Caucasian Tur, the Markhor, and the Wild Goat. ...
Ship stranded by the retreat of the Aral Sea Desertification is the degradation of land in arid, semi arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors including climatic variations, but primarily human activities. ...
Topsoil is the uppermost layer of soil, usually the top six to eight inches. ...
Severe soil erosion in a wheat field near Washington State University, USA. For erosion as understood by materials science, see Erosion (materials science) For erosion as an English analogy, see Erosion (figurative) For erosion as an operation of Mathematical morphology, see Erosion (morphology) Erosion is the displacement of solids (soil...
Duricrust refers to a thin hard layer on or near the surface of soil, Usually a few millimeters to a few centimeters thick. ...
Treeplanting is an activity that belongs to a sector of the silviculture industry known as reforestation. ...
One debatable issue in artificial reforestation is whether or not the succeeding forest will have the same biodiversity as the original forest. If the forest is replaced with only one species of tree and all other vegetation is prevented from growing back, a monoculture forest similar to agricultural crops would be the result. However, most reforestation involves the planting of different seedlots of seedlings taken from the area. More frequently multiple species are planted as well. Another important factor is the natural regeneration of a wide variety of plant and animal species that can occur on a clearcut. In some areas the suppression of forest fires for hundreds of years has resulted in large single aged and single specied forest stands. The logging of small clearcuts and or prescribed burning, actually increases the biodiversity in these areas by creating a greater variety of treestand ages and species. Rainforests are among the most biodiverse ecosystems on earth Biodiversity is the variation of taxonomic life forms within a given ecosystem, biome or for the entire Earth. ...
Monoculture describes systems that have very low diversity. ...
Clearfelling or clearcutting is the process where every tree is taken in a logging operation. ...
Reforestation need not be only used for recovery of accidentally destroyed forests. In some countries, such as Finland, the forests are managed by the wood products and pulp and paper industry. In such an arrangement, like other crops, trees are replanted wherever they are cut. In such circumstances, the cutting of trees can be carefully done to allow easier reforestation. In Canada, the wood product and pulp and paper industry systematically replaces many of the trees it cuts, employing large numbers of summer workers for treeplanting work. An International Paper mill in South Carolina The global pulp and paper industry is dominated by North American (United States, Canada), northern European (Sweden, Finland) and East Asian countries (such as Japan). ...
Treeplanting is an activity that belongs to a sector of the silviculture industry known as reforestation. ...
Contrasted with tree farming Reforestation in a strict sense means re-creating natural forests for the sake of the environment, as opposed to tree farming on plantations, which is the practice of regrowing monocultural trees for logging, the manufacture of paper, paper products, and other goods. However, in tropical American nations such as Costa Rica and Panama, the terms "reforestation" and "tree farming" tend to be used interchangeably by many people. It is in these countries that many thousands of acres of ex-cattle pasture are being planted with precious tropical timber species, often with the help of generous local government incentives. Unlike in the US and Canada, where trees are planted on a massive scale mainly for wood pulp and paper, in Costa Rica and Panama, among other nations in Central America, reforestation/tree farming is mostly being done in order to one day reap the benefits of the use of the timber. // This article is about crop plantations. ...
Loggers on break, c. ...
A blank sheet of paper Paper is a commodity of thin material produced by the amalgamation of fibers, typically vegetable fibers composed of cellulose, which are subsequently held together by hydrogen bonding. ...
Pastureland Pasture is land with lush herbaceous vegetation cover used for grazing of ungulates as part of a farm or ranch. ...
Timber in storage for later processing at a sawmill Timber is a term used to describe wood, either standing or that has been processed for useâfrom the time trees are felled, to its end product as a material suitable for industrial useâas structural material for construction or wood...
For example, in just 20 years, a teak plantation in Costa Rica can produce up to about 20 m³ of wood per hectare [1]. As the natural teak forests of Asia disappear, the prices commanded by plantation-grown teak grow higher every year. Other species such as mahogany grow slower than teak in Tropical America but are also extremely valuable. Faster growers include pine, eucalyptus, and gmelina. Species Tectona grandis Tectona hamiltoniana Tectona philippinensis Teak (Tectona), also called jati is a genus of tropical hardwood trees in the family Verbenaceae, native to the south and southeast of Asia, and is commonly found as a component of monsoon forest vegetation. ...
Mahogany The name mahogany is used for numerous varieties of dark-colored wood. ...
Subgenera Subgenus Strobus Subgenus Ducampopinus Subgenus Pinus See Pinus classification for complete taxonomy to species level. ...
Species About 700; see the List of Eucalyptus species Eucalyptus (From Greek, eu + καλÏÏÏÏ = True Cap) is a diverse genus of trees (and a few shrubs), the members of which dominate the tree flora of Australia. ...
Often, trees are planted with several species intermixed, thus blurring the traditional distinction between reforestation (using a mix of all native species) and tree farming (using one species as a controlled monoculture). Further blurring the distinction is the fact that reforestation, if done properly (ecologically), also provides other benefits in addition to the financial returns, including restoration of the soil, rejuvenation of local flora and fauna, and the capturing and sequestering of 38 tonnes of carbon dioxide per hectare per year. A tonne or metric ton (symbol t), sometimes referred to as a metric tonne, is a measurement of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms. ...
Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound composed of one carbon and two oxygen atoms. ...
A hectare (symbol ha) is a unit of area, equal to 10 000 square metres, commonly used for measuring land area. ...
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