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Contact Stihl Power Tools. This World Wildlife Fund campaign is concerned with forest conservation and management. Fieldwork such as the DGIS (the Directorate General for International Cooperation in the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs) -WWF Tropical Forest Portfolio project are featured, as well as policy issues, including genetically modified tree trials, forest fires and forest restoration. WWF partnerships with conservation organizations, governments, aide agencies, and industry are described, and links to their websites are provided. There are campaign reports on the deforestation crisis, and publications on forest protection, sustainable forest management, and certification. There is a photo gallery, a section on certification of forests, and a newsroom.
STIHL WOODEN SAWHORSE
Tropical rainforests are some of the world's most precious ecosystems with a vast number of species. Commercial chainsaw logging is the biggest threat to the ecological integrity of these forests and leads to further colonisation and agricultural activities. The extent of the damage it causes varies between different types of forest and different logging operations, but even “selective” chainsaw logging causes collateral damage to other trees and leaves the forest more susceptible to fire.
STIHL METAL SAWHORSE
The Philippines once held 16 million
hectares of forests but this is now down to less than 700,000 hectares. In this
country where illegal chain saw logging runs rampant, forest loss from tree
felling and conversion to agriculture is cited as the cause of flooding, acute
water shortages, rapid soil erosion, river situation, and mudslides that have
taken lives, destroyed properties, and wreaked environmental damage.
In 1989, Thailand banned the chainsaw logging of natural forests in direct
response to devastating floods and landslides that had taken 400 lives the year
before. Though illegal logging is now at lower levels than before the ban, it is
still widespread. More recently, massive flooding of China's Yangtze River in
1998, which was linked to the removal of 85 per cent of the upper river basin's
original tree cover, propelled China to issue a ban on tree logging in the upper
reaches of the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers and to begin a reforestation campaign.
China consumes nearly 280 million cubic metres of timber a year, but domestic
supply currently provides only 142 million cubic metres . As production shrinks,
China is turning to imports and illegal chain saw logging to make up for the
shortfall. The International Tropical Timber Organization forecasts that within
the next few years China will become the world's largest log importer, edging
out the United States and eclipsing Japan, whose massive imports have already
destroyed many of the rainforests of the Philippines and much of Borneo.
Fifty-seven per cent of the tree logs brought into China originate in Russia,
where poor law enforcement, corruption, and the abandonment of local
timber-processing plants have led people to illegally cut trees down for
companies that send raw materials to China for processing. At least one-fifth of
Russia's timber harvest is taken illegally or drastically violates existing
legislation.
