Essay - The Economics of Forestry Timber Is the Major Product Currently...

The Economics of Forestry

Timber is the major product currently harvested from forests. Timber ***** used in a v*****riety of products ranging ***** houses to paper and ********** products. Long ago it seemed as if the supply ***** wood from forests w***** abundant and as if there would always be enough to provide everything that we could possibly need. Ho*****ver, recently we have realized that this is not the case. Timber is a ***** source of income and has become necessary to sustain out life-style as ***** know *****. There has been a clash ***** ideology between ecolog*****ts ***** economists. Ecologists point ***** that forests have many other benefits besides just providing timber and are quick ***** ***** out that we need them to reduce the level of green house gases ***** carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Economists are equally as quick to point out ***** we need timber to sustain our economy and can***** just simply quit cutting the trees. Herein lies ***** dilemma, how do we continue to use forests to sustain a viable income ***** still ensure that ***** can continue into the future? The two sides of this issue ***** often met on violent terms..

Environmental Economics is a policy-oriented perspective that addresses the interdependence and co-evolution between human economies ***** *****ir natural ecosystems. We depend on the ***** and ***** forests ***** on us. Tools, housing, our insatiable wants ***** the potential danger of ignorance place humans in a unique positi***** of being *****ble to alter *****ir ***** in ways that jeopardize their own social and economic structures and processes. Any species could exceed its own natural ecosystem's carrying capacity or diminish ***** capacity to the ***** of self-extinction, human are the only species that have both the will and capacity to jeopardize *****elf, as well as the ***** and capacity to avoid it (Farber, 1996). This paper will demonstrate ***** current policies and practices are insufficient to sustain the f*****estry industry and will propose several solutions to the problem.

***** of ***** Problem

***** forests not only provide us with the things that we ***** in the way of wood products, they also help to clean the atmosphere of Carbon Dioxide, produced by ***** very existence and the burning of fossil fuels. Carbon ***** comprises 0.03% ***** ***** Earth's ***** and is the most abundant greenhouse gas (Detwiler, 1988). The build up of carbon dioxide causes the temperature of the global climate to r*****e. We need a large number of t*****es to off-set these effects. In addition to helping rid the atmosphere of deadly gases, the forests also provide habitat for wildlife and certain medicinal plants, which can only grow in ***** forest.

***** the human population grows, so does its need for space and forest products. The logical solution ***** be to simply plant more trees as ***** are harvested. The problem with this theory is that trees, especially hard*****s, grow extremely slow. We, thus far, have ***** unable to replace them at