Forestry

Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, planting, using, conserving and repairing forests and woodlands for associated resources for human and environmental benefits.

[3] Forest management plays an essential role in the creation and modification of habitats and affects ecosystem services provisioning.

Forest ecosystems have come to be seen as the most important component of the biosphere,[5] and forestry has emerged as a vital applied science, craft, and technology.

[6] Forestry is an important economic segment in various industrial countries,[7] as forests provide more than 86 million green jobs and support the livelihoods of many more people.

[6] For example, in Germany, forests cover nearly a third of the land area,[8] wood is the most important renewable resource, and forestry supports more than a million jobs and about €181 billion of value to the German economy each year.

[9] Worldwide, an estimated 880 million people spend part of their time collecting fuelwood or producing charcoal, many of them women.

Dendrology, as a discipline of industrial forestry, tends to focus on identification of economically useful woody plants and their taxonomic interrelationships.

[16] More generally, all forest management practices, including in natural regeneration systems, may impact the genetic diversity of trees.

The term genetic diversity describes the differences in DNA sequence between individuals as distinct from variation caused by environmental influences.

Genetic diversity also ensures that forest trees can survive, adapt and evolve under changing environmental conditions.

Insects, diseases and severe weather events damaged about 40 million hectares of forests in 2015, mainly in the temperate and boreal domains.

Techniques include timber extraction, planting and replanting of different species, building and maintenance of roads and pathways through forests, and preventing fire.

Another early school was the New York State College of Forestry, established at Cornell University just a few weeks later, in September 1898.

In South America the first forestry school was established in Brazil, in Viçosa, Minas Gerais, in 1962, and moved the next year to become a faculty at the Federal University of Paraná, in Curitiba.

[34] Today, forestry education typically includes training in general biology, ecology, botany, genetics, soil science, climatology, hydrology, economics and forest management.

An increasingly popular tool are marteloscopes; one hectare large, rectangular forest sites where all trees are numbered, mapped and recorded.