F.A.Q.

Forest Basics
• What is a forest?
  - “A forest is far more than a collection of trees. A forest is a totality of interdependent organisms and their interrelationships, along with the places where they exist, the physical structures that support them, and the chemical compounds they use and exchange.”¹
• How much of the world is currently forested?
  - According to the Earth Policy Institute, nearly 4 billion hectares of forest cover the earth’s surface (roughly 30 percent of its total land area).² The World Resources Institute has found that almost half of Earth’s original forest cover is gone, much of it destroyed within the past three decades. Today, just one fifth of the world’s original forest cover remains³

The Importance of Forests
• What kinds of products do we get from forests?
  - “Thanks to their complexity, natural forests are the source not just of wood but of an immense array of finished and raw products. These include lumber for construction materials, veneer, and furniture, paper, adhesives, waxes, turpentine, polymers, gunpowder, medicinal herbs, perfumes, sachets, charcoal, mulch, fertilizer, musical instruments, and medicines, such as taxol (from the Pacific yew) to treat cancer, quinine (from the Cinchona tree species) to treat malaria, and digitalis (from foxglove) for heart disease. Of course, forests also provide raw logs, firewood, burls, ferns, mosses, lichens, flowers, wreaths, fruits, nuts, cones, incense, wild mushrooms, fish, and game.”⁴
  - “Compounds once synthesized exclusively by forest plants, animals, and microorganisms are today incorporated in a large number of commonly used medicines and have provided the chemical models and insights for countless pharmaceuticals worth tens of billions of dollars. Medicines originally derived from forests account for forty percent of all commercially sold pharmaceutical preparations.”⁵
• Why are forests important for biodiversity?
  - Forests contain the oldest, tallest, and most massive living things on Earth. “Forests are reservoirs of genetic diversity. They contain more species than any other ecosystem on Earth and are like a library of genetic information that can be used by species through time to adapt to changing environmental conditions. Maintenance of genetic diversity enables a species to improve its fitness and hence its chances of survival in response to altered environmental conditions. Depriving an ecosystem of its diversity, therefore, robs it of its ability to modify itself by outfitting itself with better-adapted parts.”⁶
  - “The value of forests as storehouses of genetic information is not limited to being a species repository-either for warehousing living curiosities or for assuring a reserve of variability that enables natural ecosystems also of incalculable economic value for improving the resistance of domestic crops to pests and disease, potentially saving billions of dollars in crop losses or diminished productivity.”⁷
• What life-support services do we obtain from forests?
  - To start with the most obvious service first, “through photosynthesis, forests both contribute oxygen to the atmosphere and remove carbon dioxide from it by storing carbon in the form of plant tissue. Forests thus tend to counterbalance global warming, which is intensified by increases in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Forests can also affect climate locally and regionally through releases of moisture which increase atmospheric humidity, sometimes reducing or preventing droughts. Trees can also extract moisture from the air through contact with low fog and moderate local temperature extremes and wind velocities.”⁸
  - “In addition to their influence on climate, forests purify water by filtering it through litter and soil. Much of the water we drink, either from surface or underground sources, comes from forested watersheds. Forests increase the amount of water reaching groundwater reservoirs by slowing the rate of colation of runoff into the soil. This helps recharge deep groundwater, raises the water table, and makes for more persistent streamflow during dry seasons, benefiting vegetation and wildlife. More than half of the water supplies in the western United States flow from national forests.”⁹
  - “Forests build and protect the soil. Trees shelter soil and soil-building organisms from the effects of direct sun, wind, and precipitation.” Forests also help stabilize soils by pulling water out of wet or waterlogged soils and releasing water vapor into the air.¹⁰
  - “Forests are important contributors to the health of aquatic ecosystems, providing food for insects by contributing leaves and other detritus to the water. This material serves as food for microorganisms, insects, and other life-forms in the aquatic food web. In addition to providing food, temperate forests also shade streams and rivers, keeping temperatures low enough for cold-water species, which require the increased oxygen concentration of cooler waters for survival, growth, and reproduction.”¹¹
  - “Apart from the ecological services forests offer, they provide an abundance of opportunities for hiking, backpacking, camping, boating, fishing, skiing, nature observation, hunting, solitude, healing, and contemplation. They are sources of inspiration for art, design, literature, and music, as well as for spiritual guidance and self-discovery. Throughout the world, forests are also home to many indigenous peoples. Over thousands of years, these local stewards have often acquired sophisticated ecological knowledge of their forests and have developed countless uses for the forest plant and animal products they harvest. To destroy or gravely damage forests may not only physically or culturally annihilate native peoples, but can lead to the loss of traditional ecological lore invaluable for forest management.”¹²

What Can I Do To Help Save Forests?
• To begin, educate yourself and others about forest ecology, conservation, and management. Information on all these topics can be found in Forests Forever.
• Conserve wood whenever possible and buy wood products that are sourced from sustainably managed forests or those made from recycled materials.
• Support all organizations working to save forests
• Contact your elected representatives. You can start here

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Further Reading

• The International Tropical Timber Organization’s annual timber trade, consumption, sawing, and logging statistics
• Joint Report on Timber Committee Forest Products Statistics from the U.N. Economic Commission for Europe and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization
• World Wildlife Fund on Illegal and Unreported Logging
• The BBC’s Simplified Take on the Report Above
• Forest Trends Review of Logging in Papua New Guinea

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References
1.John J. Berger, Forests Forever: Their Ecology, Restoration, and Protection (San Francisco, CA and Chicago, IL, Forests Forever Foundation and Center for American Places at Columbia College, Chicago, 2008), pp. 11. Distributed by University of Chicago Press.
2.Earth Policy Institute
3. World Resources Institute, Last Frontier Forests: Ecosystems and Economics on the Edge (Washington, DC: http://www.wri.org/publication/last-frontier-forests, 1997)
4-12. John J. Berger, Forests Forever: Their Ecology, Restoration, and Protection (San Francisco, CA and Chicago, IL, Forests Forever Foundation and Center for American Places at Columbia College, Chicago, 2008), pp. 12-16. Distributed by University of Chicago Press.