Can humans harvest forest resources in an environmentally friendly way or should national forests be left in their natural state in which resources are not used to benefit humans?

Answer 1

Although many of the methods used at present to harvest our forests are very un friendly, in ways of pollution from transportation and destroying natural habitat.

One way to offset the effects of deforestation and to make it more eco-friendly would be to plant the same amount of trees that were cut down. As a result new trees will be able to grow and provide new habitat. However this isn't always advantageous as there is still the problem with time of growth and man power to plant all of those trees. It must be remembered that a forest is not a monoculture (just one species of trees). The replanting should reestablish the mix of natural growth. One way of doing this is to harvest trees in strips allowing the harvested strip to be reclaimed by the abutting untouched areas. It is also necessary for preparatory work to be done to catalogue what the natural forest was like, identify areas of special ecological sensitivity, and ensure that these are not impacted.

Care must also be taken not to do forestry work during breeding or calving seasons for various forest animals or interupt migration routes or hunting territory.