Why wood storage sheds are not as useful as they used to be
Posted November 05, 2018 12:13:54When it comes to the future of the country’s forests, it is more important to manage them than to build them.
The vast majority of these are lost to development, says Mark Crouch, director of sustainable development at the Forestry Commission.
He says the main reason is that land managers have decided that it is easier to build new, less important forestland, and the forests will eventually be more important for people and the environment.
“It is important to understand what the future looks like in terms of the impact on forests and how we can work with the government to manage the forest in a way that maximises the benefits of these forests and minimises the impact that development is having on them,” he said.
Mr Crouch has been monitoring the effects of development in the South Downs for the last few years.
The last major timber sale, in the late 1990s, led to huge damage to the countryside and significant changes in how people live in the area.
Cambodia is now the only country in the world with a national forest system, but it is fragmented, he said, and only around 30 per cent of the forests in the country are managed.
Forestry has been a major industry in the region for a long time, and in fact, the majority of the wood in the timber industry is from Cambodia, he says.
While timber has been growing in the past 20 years, the industry has struggled to attract more people, he adds.
A new report from WWF Cambodia shows that in the last five years, forestry sector employment has contracted by 14 per cent.
The country is now one of the worst countries in the World for forests, with the worst productivity and a large number of forests that are already over-exploited, the report says.
The report points to the impact of a global trend in which most of the world’s forests are being logged for timber, which is used to make products such as clothing, furniture and plastics.
The timber industry has also been under pressure as global demand for plastic products has grown.
The impact of this demand has also led to a decline in the productivity of Cambodian timber, as it is no longer profitable to cut and cut, says Mr Crouch.
“There is a significant number of workers in Cambodia that are either unemployed or are on welfare,” he added.
The Government has already announced it will spend $4 billion over the next five years to improve forestry and improve the livelihoods of people living in the countryside.
