8-22 Sustainable Forestry and the Green Revolution

Removes trees from the forest in ways that do not cause a large impact on other trees and tries to keep plants and animals in as natural a state as possible

• Wood can be chipped and used for mulch

• Reforestation

• Removing diseased trees to prevent spread of infection

• Selective cutting

Replanting trees in an area that has been logged

• Stopping natural fires by putting out forest fires as soon as they start

• Adds biomass buildup which can lead to bigger fires

• Better to monitor to prevent damage and worse fires in future

• Dead biomass builds up and provides fuel for fires

• Small controlled fires will burn up the extra fuel load (dead biomass)

• Helps to promote nutrient cycling

Shift from small family farms (subsistence) to
large industrialized farms (spread to the developing world in the 1940s)

Wheat, corn, and rice

• Synthetic fertilizers

• Chemical pesticides

• Irrigation

• Machinery

• Genetically modified organisms (GMO)

• Fossil fuel use for machinery

Started the Green Revolution and won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work

also reliance on fossil fuels

• Prevented some deforestation and land conversion

• Preserved biodiversity and ecosystems

• Pollution, erosion

• Salinization, desertification

an organism that contains DNA from another species

organisms that have been genetically
engineered by recombinant DNA (new genes spliced into their genome)

• Reduced use of chemical insecticides

• Increased no-till farming

• Decreased irrigation, deforestation, land conversion

Increased herbicide use affects health and habitats
Some GM fields support less biodiversity

• Drought resistance

• Pest resistance

• Faster growth

• Larger fruit/grain

Bt corn

has been modified with a gene from soil bacteria (Bacillus thuringiensis) to produce a protein that kills many different corn pests