What Are Sustainable Forestry Practices?
Thursday, July 30, 2020 09:41:00 AM America/Los_Angeles
Sustainable forestry practices are an important piece to the larger puzzle that is forest conservation. It’s absolutely critical for foresting companies to follow these practices because it is tantamount to the Earth’s longevity as a life-generating ecosystem. Fortunately, there are many international eco-friendly non-profit organizations making a difference to conserve our planet’s woodlands. Specifically, the Forest Stewardship Council and the Rainforest Alliance work directly with membership companies and communities all over the world to create and certify rigorous management standards as it pertains to their in-house operations and forest management systems.
With all of that said, let’s list some of the most important sustainable forestry practices.
- Harvesting wood at levels beneath the forest’s annual growth rate allows the forest the chance to regenerate while ensuring that its ecological health is, at the very least, maintained.
- Reseeding trees at an appropriate ratio that strikes a balance between demand and tree growth rate.
- Upcycling forestry byproducts so as not to generate unnecessary waste. (We help out with this one!)
- Disposing of waste properly.
- Avoiding trading or sourcing products from illegally harvested woods. This includes woods harvested in violation of traditional and civil rights, in forests where high conservation values are threatened by poor management practices, in forests that are being converted to plantations, and in forests in which genetically modified trees are planted.
- Conserving a forest’s biodiversity by protecting its water resources, soils, plant species, and animal populations.
- Avoiding the use of chemical pesticides.
- Reducing the risk of forest fires.
- Ensuring that all foresting company employees are offered work-related training, high-quality health insurance, and onsite medical care.
- Compensating indigenous groups for the traditional knowledge shared with the foresting company regarding forest species and operations.
Bark Potty is proud to work with suppliers who follow sustainable forestry practices and we are dedicated to supporting reforestation efforts. Bark Potty contributes 1% of every sale to One Tree Planted through our partnership with One Percent for the Planet. We love supporting this eco-charity and contributing to planting trees all over the world!