Dear all
I refuse to accept the FAO's stubborn refusal to clearly separate industrial tree monocultures (fake forests) from real forests, and until this changes, there can be nothing "constructive" about engaging in such a misleading process.
The FAO misuses the word "forestry" to muddle up any bunch of planted (usually alien, and often invasive) trees that can be cut down to produce wood, with naturally established, biodiversity rich, ecologically productive, climax forest habitats in which trees are the main component.
In the latest FAO "Forest Resource Assessment" reports, the simplistic and confusing term "planted forest" is used to designate timber or pulp wood plantations, but anyone with a basic understanding of 'forestry' should know that it would be far more accurate to apply this term to when functional forest habitat is planted or re-established using a mix of appropriate locally-occurring indigenous trees, under-storey shrubs and ground layer plants.
So why won't the FAO use precise and factual terminology to correctly describe an industrial land use that obliterates biodiversity, depletes and pollutes water resources, contaminates and erodes the soil, and displaces and disadvantages local communities?
No-one calls a maize field or a bamboo plantation a 'planted grassland', so why mis-represent tree plantations as "planted forests" unless there is an ulterior motive?
Wally
Wally Menne
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WallyWally Menne