Forestation is the natural or intentional restocking of existing forests and woodlands ( forestation ) that have been depleted, usually through deforestation . Reforestation can be used to rectify or improve the quality of human life by soaking up pollution and dust from the air, rebuild natural habitats and ecosystems , mitigate global warming since forests facilitate bio sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide , and harvest for resources, particularly timber , but also non-timber forest products .
A similar concept, afforestation , another type of forestation, refers to the process of restoring and recreating areas of woodlands or forests that may have existed long ago but were deforested or otherwise removed at some point in the past or lacked it naturally (e.g., natural grasslands ). Sometimes the term "re-afforestation" is used to distinguish between the original forest cover and the later re-growth of forest to an area. Special tools, e.g. tree planting bars , are used to make planting of trees easier and faster.
Management
A debated issue in managed reforestation is whether or not the succeeding forest will have the same biodiversity as the original forest. If the forest is replaced with only one species of tree and all other vegetation is prevented from growing back, a monoculture forest similar to agricultural crops would be the result. However, most reforestations involve the planting of different seed lots of seedlings taken from the area, often of multiple species.
For harvesting
Reforestation need not be only used for recovery of accidentally destroyed forests. In some countries, such as Finland , many of the forests are managed by the wood products and pulp and paper industry . In such an arrangement, like other crops, trees are planted to replace those that have been cut. In such circumstances, the industry can cut the trees in a way to allow easier reforestation. The wood products industry systematically replaces many of the trees it cuts, employing large numbers of summer workers for tree planting work. For example, in 2010, Weyerhaeuser reported planting 50 million seedlings. However replanting an old-growth forest with a plantation is same characteristics in the new.
For climate change mitigation
Forests are an important part of the global carbon cycle because trees and plants absorb carbon dioxide through photosynthesis . By removing this greenhouse gas from the air, forests function as terrestrial carbon sinks , meaning they store large amounts of carbon. At any time, forests account for as much as double the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Even as more anthropogenic carbon is produced, forests remove around three billion tons of anthropogenic carbon every year. This amounts to about 30% of all carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels . Therefore, an increase in the overall forest cover around the world would tend to mitigate global warming .
Examples
· Sub Saharan Africa - Plans to plant a nine-mile width of trees on the Southern Border of the Sahara Desert
· Canada - in Canada, overall forest cover is increasing over the last decades
· China - in China, extensive replanting programs have existed since the 1970s. Programs have had overall success
· India - Jadav Payeng had received national awards for reforestation efforts, known as the " Molai forest
· Japan - Mass environmental and human-body pollution along with relating deforestation, water pollution, smoke damage, and loss of soils caused by mining operations in Ashio , Tochigi became the first environmental social issue in Japan, efforts by Shōzō Tanaka had grown to large campaigns against copper operation.
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