Forestry, logging and forestry services for
The use and management of many forest resources has a long history in China, dating from the Han Dynasty and taking place under the landowning gentry. It was also later written of by the Ming Dynasty Chinese scholar Xu Guangqi (1562–1633). In the Western world, formal forestry practices developed during the Middle Ages, when land was largely under the control of kings. Control of the land included hunting rights, and though peasants in many places were permitted to gather firewood and building timber and to graze animals, hunting rights were retained by the members of the nobility. Systematic management of forests for a sustainable yield of timber is said to have begun in the 16th century in both the German states and Japan. Typically, a forest was divided into specific sections and mapped; the harvest of timber was planned with an eye to regeneration.
The practice of establishing tree plantations was promoted by
John Evelyn; it had already acquired some popularity in the British Isles. Louis XIVs minister
Jean-Baptiste Colberts oak forest at Tronçais, planted for the future use of the
French Navy, matured as expected in the mid-19th century: "Colbert had thought of everything except the steamship,"
Fernand Braudel observed. Schools of forestry were established after 1825; most of these schools were in Germany and France. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, forest preservation programs were established in the United States, Europe, and British India. Many foresters were either from continental Europe (like
Sir Dietrich Brandis), or educated there (like
Gifford Pinchot).
The enactment and evolution of forestry laws and binding regulations occurred in most Western nations in the 20th century in response to growing conservation concerns and the increasing technological capacity of
logging companies.
Tropical forestry is a separate branch of forestry which deals mainly with equatorial forests that yield woods such as
teak and
mahogany.
Sir Dietrich Brandis is considered the father of tropical forestry
Logging is the process in which certain trees are cut down by a lumberjack or machine, such as the feller buncher,
for forest management and timber.
In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard. However, in common usage, the term may be used to indicate a range of forestry or silviculture activities. For example the practice of the removal of valuable trees from the forest has been called selective logging, sometimes confused with selection cut.
Illegal logging refers to what in forestry might be called timber theft.
In common usage what is sometimes called clearcut logging is not is necessarily considered a type of logging but a harvest or silviculture method and is simply called clearcutting or block cutting. In the forest products industry logging companies may be referred to as logging contractors.
Logging usually refers to above-ground forestry logging. Submerged forests exist on land that has been flooded by damming to create reservoirs. Such trees are logged using underwater logging or by the lowering of the reservoirs in question. Ootsa Lake and Williston Lake in British Columbia, Canada, are notable examples where timber recovery has been needed to remove inundated forests.
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Forestry, logging and forestry services for
