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FYI
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The term sustainability refers to economic development that takes full account of
the environmental consequences of economic activity and is based on the use of resources that can be replaced or renewed and therefore are not depleted.
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Source: Michael Allaby, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Ecology
[Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994], 376.
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There continues today to be a concern about forest management practices on
both federally held and private and industrial lands. To many recreational users of national forests and to conservationists, the U.S. Forest Service has
been more interested in timber sales than in managing the forestland for wildlife habitat and human recreation.
Some Texas environmental organizations have been concerned over the
Forest Service practice of clear-cutting—the felling of all trees in a designated area in one operation. This practice converts the native mixed forests to
single-species, even-age timber crops and has a number of negative consequences.* Clear-cutting often results in: (1) the elimination of the native
forest ecosystem, causing vastly reduced habitat for wildlife; (2) increased erosion, with attendant stream silting and nutrient loss from the soil; (3)
impairment of recreational values because of loss of wildlife viewing and other experiences associated with forests; and
(4) susceptibility of the forest to insect damage, diseases, acid rain, and blown-down trees.*
An alternative to clear-cutting is a process called selection management. Under selection management, individual trees
are marked and cut, creating small clearings that allow for regeneration through natural reseeding from remaining
trees. Authorities believe that shifting from even-age management to selection management would yield enormous benefits to wildlife and to the productivity of forestland.
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