Unsustainable forestry is rapidly eroding biodiversity

M Lambertini/BirdLife The pulp and paper industries are currently expanding Zoom In

Unsustainable forestry practices are spreading and intensifying across the world. This is leading to extensive habitat loss, particularly in the tropics, with grave and irreversible consequences for biodiversity.

Logging is responsible for much deforestation

It is estimated that since historical times the world has lost through human activity c.40% of its original 60 million km2 of forest cover. Approximately 120,000 km2 of tropical forests are destroyed each year, an area roughly the size of Malawi, Nicaragua or North Korea. Commercial clear-cutting and selective logging for timber is, directly or indirectly, responsible for much of this deforestation, especially in Asia (see box 1). Many countries try to mitigate the effects of logging through regulation and programmes designed to advance sustainable forest management, but enforcement is often poor, and illegal logging predominates in some regions. In addition to its direct impacts, logging can also open up forest to encroachment and settlement, and other damaging disturbance, such as hunting and fire (box 2).

The pulp, paper and palm oil industries are currently expanding

The pulp and paper industry is currently expanding in tropical Asia, with several huge mills operational or under construction in Sumatra, Borneo and Mindanao. Large areas of mature forest are being cleared for pulp fibre, and the land is then converted to other uses such as oil palm plantations (box 3). The recent accelerating loss of forest in Indonesia has led to 65 species being moved to higher threat categories on the IUCN Red List.

Logged forest is an impoverished habitat for biodiversity

Logging can be selective and well-managed, but often it is not. Even selectively logged forests support consistently fewer forest-specialist bird species than primary forests. Those species that do persist often become rare. Many are understorey insectivores, unable to survive in the open, fragmented habitats created by current forestry practices (box 4).

Boxes: case studies and scientific analyses

Download SOWB pp.36–37 (PDF, 313 KB) containing the following:

1. The forests of Asia, in particular, have suffered from unsustainable forestry practices
Among the three major continents with tropical forest, Asia is losing the greatest percentage of its natural forest each year

2. Human-initiated fires are responsible for massive losses of rainforest in Indonesia
In Borneo and Sumatra during 1997-98, fires damaged or destroyed c. 50,000 km²

3. Lowland forests will have been destroyed across large parts of Indonesia by 2010
By 2000, Indonesia had lost 40% of its forest cover, and the rate of deforestation is accelerating

4. Forest bird communities are depleted even under selective logging regimes
In selectively logged forests, terrestrial and arboreal insectivores are generally less abundant