Tropical rainforests are being destroyed at some of the fastest rates but it's difficult to measure how much is being destroyed every year (or every day) and estimates vary widely. Photo courtesy Naomi Woods.

Humans have cut down forests for thousands of years, but never as extensively as in the present. Still, even with primitive tools, ancient civilizations managed to destroy forests around the Mediterranean Sea. More recently, deforestation occurred in Britain and North America. Massive deforestation is now occurring in the Amazon Rainforest. People have cut down trees for fuel, for ships, to make way for agriculture, and to make wood products for sale.

When the soil is burned, essential fungi and micro-organisms die. Photo by Maya Walters.

Overcutting threatens forest health in many ways, and it also threatens human social and economic well-being. Widespread cutting, particularly clearcutting, creates forest fragmentation and leads to a loss of biodiversity. Soil degradation is also a result, but in some areas soils may recover after a number of centuries while a loss of genetic diversity is permanent.

You can see the beauty of a natural redwood forest by watching the video of a walk through Armstrong Redwoods State Reserve, a redwood forest near the Russian River in Guerneville, California. Filmed by Julia Schultz, July 26, 1998. (800K, RealPlayer required)

Forest fragmentation, due to timber cutting and access road construction, means an increased proportion of forest "edge" relative to forest interior. This less sheltered, less buffered "edge", is far from ideal habitat for most forest species. It is likely to suffer increased drying from solar radiation, and in temperate regions will likely have deeper snow cover in winter. The more fragmented the forest, the more difficulty some species find in moving from one area to another.

Where commercial logging operations rely on clearcutting, forest "management" plans mean there will be no old growth. Short rotations for timber harvests mean there will be no snags, no rotting, mossy "nurse logs" full of moisture, no natural succession of species following a disturbance. Instead trees will be cut relatively young, and there may be altered microclimates and a reduction of mycorrhizal fungi. In tropical rainforests, when old growth is removed, the soil may be too poor to support such forests again for thousands of years.

There are many alternatives to clearcut logging which do not damage the forests so severely. Selective logging, taking only certain trees from an area rather than completely clearing it, is much more ecologically sustainable, as long as it is done in a way that doesn't harm the surrounding trees. Horselogging is also an alternative which is less destructive. Photo courtesy Al Walters.

Clearcutting generally means that a forest must be replaced by a planted "monoculture"--a plantation of one species of tree, usually a currently valuable species. A loss of genetic diversity is likely. Plantations can also lead to a problem with dense brush and the temptation to apply pesticides. Planted trees may not develop roots properly, and insects and fungal diseases will likely be attracted to the uniform stands of a single species. The plantation has none of the protection offered by the diversity found in an untidy old growth forest.

A large tract of commercially deforested land in Guatemala. Photo courtesy of Dana Slaymaker.

While clearcuts are economically attractive--they can be done cheaply with few workers and lots of machinery--for our society they may be a case of short term gain for long term pain. Trading forests for plantations seems like a big gamble, with a possible loss of economic alternatives for the future. Old trees produce stronger wood with longer fibers than young plantation trees. Forests dedicated to clearcut logging also eliminate alternative sources of revenue, from tourism for example.