The forest spaces They are geographic areas occupied by forests, natural forests or forest plantations, from which the human being obtains resources and services. Although in the strict sense a forest space is any area occupied by trees, it is used more widely for those areas in which human beings obtain natural resources.
These resources are called forest resources and are of two general types: timber and non-timber resources. Where the timber are the different types of wood that are obtained from these spaces.
While non-timber forest resources include fibers, fruits, forages, medicinal plants, resins, latex and others. In this sense, the concept of forest space ranges from the taiga or boreal forest to the Amazon rainforest, as well as plantations of timber trees..
Each of these spaces is very different and therefore deserve a particular management, which guarantees its sustainable use. Worldwide, forest spaces represent 3,952 million hectares of forests and natural forests as well as about 170 million hectares in forest plantations.
The Latin American countries with the largest area in forest areas are Brazil (477.7 million hectares), Peru (68.7 million) and Mexico (64.2 million). They are followed by Colombia (60.7 million), Bolivia (58.7 million) and Venezuela (46.6 million).
Let's see the characteristics of forest spaces:
Forest spaces are vegetative formations where trees predominate, that is, plants with a woody trunk greater than 4 m in height and with a crown of leaves. These trees form a more or less continuous and dense cover in space.
Forest spaces are very diverse in their form, although they can be basically grouped into two categories, artificial and natural. Artificial ones are those created by humans by planting trees in a territory where they previously did not exist..
Natural forest spaces arise by the processes of nature and are divided into forests and jungles. Forests develop in regions with a temperate or subtropical climate. While the jungles are forest spaces typical of the tropics, with greater complexity in their form and biodiversity.
Forest spaces have a variable biological diversity, although in general greater than many other natural spaces. At the least diverse extreme are artificial forest spaces or forest plantations. While the most diverse are the tropical forest areas or jungles, such as the Amazon jungle..
Forest spaces have a delicate ecological balance, which makes them particularly sensitive to disturbances. This is because they form their own internal microclimate thanks to the community of trees, which, among other things, protects the soil. Therefore, when deforestation occurs (drastic removal of tree cover), the ecosystem takes time to recover or does not recover..
If deforestation is very high, the forest area ceases to exist and becomes a desert. Between 1990 and 2005 the loss of forest areas worldwide has occurred at a rate of 130,000 kmtwo, which is equivalent to a surface like Greece.
Forest spaces are useful for humans because they allow obtaining various raw materials or natural resources. The main one is the wood that is used in construction, cabinetmaking, paper making and other uses.
Additionally, raw materials for industrial and artisanal use such as gums, resins, rubber, fibers and others are extracted. Similarly, forest spaces are a source of plants for medicinal use, as well as food..
On the other hand, they provide forest services by capturing COtwo atmospheric, play a role in the water cycle and regulate the ambient temperature. They also conserve biological diversity and serve as a place of recreation..
To guarantee the sustainable use of forest areas over time, they must be subjected to a rational management plan. In other words, its resources should not be extracted without taking into account the capacity of the forest space to recover..
In this sense, if a certain number of trees or other plants are removed from the forest, an equal or greater number must be replaced. This is achieved either by planting new individuals or by giving time and conditions for natural recovery to occur..
The world's forest areas occupy around 30% of the emerged land area. The largest are the boreal forests of the northern hemisphere, both in North America and Eurasia, as well as the equatorial rainforests..
Russia has 815 million hectares of forest space in the form of forests, representing 22% of the world's forest area. Most are boreal forests or taiga, which are cold forests dominated mainly by coniferous trees.
Brazil has 493 million hectares of forest areas, both jungles and forests. For its part, the Brazilian Amazon occupies 250 million hectares, covering 9 states: Amazonas, Pará, Amapá, Roraima, Rondônia, Mato Grosso, Acre, Tocantins and Maranhão. It is the largest continuous tropical forest area in the world and the main carbon sink.
An important part of the forest areas corresponding to the boreal forest and temperate forests is in Canada. Canada's total forest area is 347 million hectares, more than 23 times the forest area in Europe. In Canada there are eight major forest regions, each with its own mix of species, including conifers and temperate flowering trees..
The USA has a forest area of 310 million hectares covered with forests. Of these, 60% are forest areas dedicated to commercial exploitation, especially to extract wood.
In southeast Alaska is the largest forest area in the US, the Tongass Forest, which spans 69,000 km². Until the 1940s, most of the logging in the Tongass was done by hand. After World War II, the United States has pushed logging on an industrial scale.
The Uverito forest located in eastern Venezuela, in northern South America, is a forest plantation. It became the largest artificial forest area or forest cloth in the world.
In its beginnings, it covered an area of 600,000 hectares, although in 2019 there were only 100,000 hectares left. The dominant tree is the Caribbean pine (Pinus caribaea), a species introduced in that country for the production of paper pulp.
The Mexican forest space includes forests that cover about 17% of the national territory and jungles that occupy slightly more than 15% of the territory. Of the 7 million hectares that are managed forestry, only half is done with modern techniques that can guarantee some sustainability.
The state of Durango is one of the most important in forest production, from forest areas located along the Sierra Madre Oriental. The forest area of this state corresponds mainly to pine forests (Pinus spp.) and mixed pine and oak forests (Quercus spp.).
An outstanding example of forest management in these areas is the Union of Ejidos and Forest Communities General Emiliano Zapata (Unecofaez), which benefits 10,500 families. Thanks to its sustainable management, it is possible to conserve one million hectares of forest in the northwest of Durango.
This Mexican state is the largest and the one with the largest forest areas in the country. Pine forests predominate there, although there is a moderate proportion of mixed pine-oak forests. In total it reaches an area of about 5.1 million hectares of forests.
The forest areas of this state extend mainly through the Sierra de Juárez, including pine-oak, pine-fir (Abies spp.) and pine. As well as tropical rainforests in the lower parts, including deciduous forest and evergreen forest. Throughout the state, forest areas reach 9,000,000 hectares.
An important part of the Yucatan peninsula forms a forest area of low to medium tropical forests. This space has determined a forest activity for the use of forest resources since pre-Columbian times. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the main economic source of the region was the export of the palo de tinte tree (Haematoxylum campechianum).
While for the 19th and 20th centuries they were the latex of the chicozapote (Manilkara zapota) and the fine woods of mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) and cedar (Cedrela odorata). Today the forest areas of Yucatan are threatened by excessive deforestation.
In Mexico, the artificial forest or plantation space reaches about 1 million hectares. These forest spaces are distributed in the states of Campeche, Chiapas, Chihuahua, Jalisco, Mexico, Puebla, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, Nayarit and Veracruz.
An example of this is the Proteak company that operates in the states of Nayarit and Tabasco. In Tabasco, more than 20 thousand hectares of commercial forest plantations were established, in places where previously there were no forests.
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