Overlogging

For the South Park episode, see Over Logging (South Park episode).

Overlogging is a form of overexploitation caused by legal or illegal logging activities that lead to unsustainable or irrecoverable deforestation and permanent habitat destruction for forest wildlife.

Local villagers float past a pile of illegally logged trees in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia

Causes

The use of poor logging practices and heavy machinery leads to overlogged forests.^[1] Norman Myers argued that forms of environmental degradation like overlogging are a consequence of "perverse subsidies."^[2] The production of disposable tissues significantly contributes to the effects of overlogging.^[3]

In rural China, overlogging is related to the need for firewood as fuel.^[4] Overlogging is often associated with attempts at reducing the "Third world debt," although it is not restricted to developing countries.^[5]

In central Japan, forests located closer to power plants were found to be more vulnerable to overlogging.^[6]

Effects

With the developed world's growing demand for pulp and paper, overlogging is an imminent threat to Earth's forests.^[3]

Overlogging has caused significant damage to dipterocarp forests in Southeast Asia,^[1] including in Vietnam.^[7] In the Philippines, overlogging has created brushlands comprising relict trees, shrubs, and grasses.^[8] As of 1994, overlogging had led to the loss of 1.2 million hectares of Russia's forests.^[9]

In China, tropical forests were affected by overlogging prior to the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949, and they were overlogged during the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976.^[10] The process has created post-extraction secondary forests.^[10] At the Nature Reserve of Jinyun Mountain in Chongqing, overlogging affects the growth of Phyllostachys pubescens (giant bamboo).^[11] It is also a problem in the Karakoram and Kunlun Mountains,^[12] and it has caused flooding in the Min River Area of Fujian.^[13]

Restoration

The restoration of overlogged forests can be important to the conservation of biodiversity or the availability of natural resources like water and carbon for local populations.^[1]

The effects of overlogging can be mitigated by setting aside profits for forest rehabilitation, a practice which is also economically profitable.^[14] Enrichment planting, or planting trees in degraded forests, is a form of artificial regeneration that has been employed in East Kalimantan and South Kalimantan, Indonesia.^[1] A logging quota was established in China in 1987; it has stopped deforestation and degradation but has not led to forest regeneration.^[15]

In 1996, in response to activism regarding overlogging by corporations in Malaysia, the primary industries minister led a forestry mission to see the impact.^[16]

Representations

The works of Frederic Edwin Church, a 19th-century American painter who often portrayed the progress of industrialization in his landscapes, indicate that he was "aware that overlogging led to erosion and the pollution of streams."^[17]

See also

• Environmental impact of paper
• Overfishing
• Overgrazing