The positive and negative impact of deforestation

Part 2/2

On the initial installment of this article, we talked about the positive impact of deforestation. Today, we will discuss the other side of the coin. And unfortunately, the disadvantages of deforestation far outweigh its benefits. Listed below are some of the negative impacts of Deforestation:
 

1.      Soil is purposely exposed to rain and heat. When forests are being cleared, vegetation which acts as soil cover is removed as well. The bare soil is exposed to extreme scenarios which are produced by the natural rainwater and the heat of the sun. With these natural alternating activities, the soil has a tendency to immediately compact. As rainwater flows through it, nutrients are washed out as well as other organic materials which make the soil fertile and rich. Further, regular cropping, grazing and tilling slowly results in degradation of the soil; making its quality inferior.

These activities are crucial concerns in areas where forest locations are much dry. Agricultural activities on top of deforestation can practically result in the desertification of majority of vast lands. Desertification is also a direct impact of the demand to the soil to product more because of increase in its population, thereby lessening to a serious degree of the lands occupying capacity.

2.      Non-suitability of deforested areas for conversion. A lot of the areas that have experienced deforestation are basically not suitable for long-term agricultural activities like farming and ranching. As soon as deprived of its forest cover, the lands immediately degrade in quality, thereby losing their arability and fertility.

The soil in a lot of deforested regions is similarly not suitable for maintaining annual crop products. A lot of the grassy communities are also not as productive as compared to more arable regions and ergo, unfit for cattle grazing and poultry raising.

3.      Flooding. Deforestation can bring watersheds that do not have the capacity to regulate and sustain flow of water from streams and rivers. Trees are immensely efficient in the process of absorbing water in volumes, maintaining the amount of watersheds in a normal level. The forest is also regarded as ca cover to prevent seepage and erosion. As soon as they are gone, big amount of water may result into flashfloods, a lot of which caused disasters in parts around the globe.

Once the topsoil which is fertile, is flooded into lower regions, a lot of coral reefs and coastal fisheries suffer sedimentation which is caused by the flooding. This may result in negative effects in the economic viability of several businesses and significant fatalities in the wildlife habitat.

4.      The eradication of indigenous communities and their ethnical way of living. When governments decide to undergo deforestation mainly to open its doors for civilized communities, access to forests’ natural resources by ethnical groups are basically taken for granted. To tell you the truth, ethnical groups are often ignored in political and economic decisions that mainly affect their lives. This encroachment makes their rights taken for granted as much as it takes away the natural resources that their forefathers have bestowed on them.

5.      The loss of significant amount of biodiversity. This is practically the most serious disadvantage and impact of deforestation. Simply put, it means the extinction and destruction of a lot of animal and plant species, a lot of whom remain unknown and whose benefits will be left undisclosed. Every year, as deforestation continues to emerge, a lot of the wilderness from which we avail of a lot of benefits and would have continued to benefit will forever be eradicated. With it are tons of chances in the form of wildlife that could supply us tons of medical and economic resources to issues we are currently facing.

We cannot deny the fact that deforestation has given us chances to enhance our lives; we have not mastered the perfect kind of responsibility that goes with having control over the earth’s resources. As an outcome, we and thousands of other species on earth suffer immensely from the consequences of our actions.

This article is too short to discuss a lot of issues relative to deforestation. Let us slowly unravel what this has to offer in our future articles.

 Source

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/deforestation/

https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/deforestation

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The Advantages of utilizing Reclaim Wood as Furniture

Based on its studies, the United Nation Environment Program, there are presently twelve species of trees that are on the watch and regarded as an endangered. A lot of these have been famous choices to make cabinets, furniture, musical instruments, and several other items utilized by people. On a yearly basis, with an approximation of forty (40) million hectares of the earth’s forests are swiped for this purpose. As our limited resources immediately comes to a close, consumers and companies alike are searching for methods and techniques to consolidate environmental responsibility in to their way of living.

Ulin log transformed in stool and finished with a butterfly joint.

Energy conservation, paper-less theory, and recycling have been there long before.  Another efficient way to become environment-friendly is by furnishing your home with reclaimed wood furniture.

Instead of being thrashed, old woods from dismantled buildings and homes is refurbished, harvested, rejuvenated and given a renaissance as dresser or coffee table. The use of reclaim wood can supply a positive environmental impact beyond the preservation of virgin trees. A lot of builders also utilize non-toxic paints and glue as well as natural oil finishes.

The main objective is to come up with a high quality, beautiful product while giving the environment a breather and develop as soon as possible. Reclaimed wood yields stylish yet rustic type of furniture. In several cases, it is difficult to regard the piece is not brand new. In some cases as well, evidence such as rustic nail holes or saw marks are retained for a purpose, supplying an antique feel, well-worn appeal. It can be tailored to suit a vast array of homeowners’ tastes and feels and can be blended with traditional, rustic, or contemporary tastes.

There is also a sense of mystery surrounding a piece of reclaimed wood product. Your night shelf could emanate from a turn of the century raw house or a barn. Or maybe it was salvaged from a neighbor’s unused deck. Whatever the case is, it has a story to tell and history of its own.

At the end of the day, the cost efficient factor of this type of furniture is a lot more enticing to buyers. Even though hand-made furniture can be expensive, reclaimed materials are basically cheaper as compared to brand new items. Reclaimed wood is basically treated and pre-cut, lessening expenses significantly.

Any property owned with a taste for nostalgic feels, an eye for a stylish theme, and a goal to protect and preserve our natural resources would be wise to mull over buying reclaimed wood furniture. Whatever your goal is, reclaimed wood is the “in” thing as of the moment. Let’s just say that yesterday’s pieces are the most loved pieces of today and still embraced until tomorrow.

As for us, at Kaltimber, we are not fully dedicated to furniture but to decking and flooring in reclaim wood. All the character and history carried in each and every single piece makes all our projects unique. Our leftover are used to create unique piece of furniture on occasion.

Forest to protect cities from earthquake

The deflected waves to protect a building can destroy the neighbor and, among the famous surface seismic waves known by seismologists  as Rayleigh waves, some have wave lengths large enough not to be affected by the already envisaged seismic invisibility systems. Fortunately, these problems seem to be able to be overcome using ... trees!

Experiments carried out in France with a small pine forest not far from the campus of the Université Joseph-Fourier in Grenoble, together with numerical simulations, confirm that the trees can behave as resonators rebroadcasting the waves of Rayleigh in a certain frequency band in response to the arrival of these of an earthquake. In the end, they are sent deep into the ground, even for large wavelengths. Oddly enough, the most effective protection is obtained with trees planted in a dense and random way. It improves again by covering a larger frequency band if the trees are arranged with decreasing heights.

Yet there is a problem: at the moment, the concept only works if the waves arrive from two directions only. But the researchers are confident. They'll blow up that lock.

Earthquake damaged road

Avoiding destruction in your construction

This 8km, 15 year old road in East Kalimantan is due to be shipped off to Bali and replaced with new illegal Ulin wood

In today’s ever-globalising world, it is hard for the discerning consumer to know where the wood they buy comes from. How do we get reliable information the wood’s origins, particularly when production is increasingly less localised and further away from the point of sale?

It is not easy, but it is possible.

The current laws for both new and reclaimed wood are, quite frankly, not that great and wide open to loopholes, as a recent trip to Kalimantan showed me. Exploiting a 2008 regulation from the Ministry of Forestry on inter-island trading of Ulin (Kalimantan Ironwood), I met with traders who were busy setting up deals with communities to replace their 15 year-old Ulin roads and bridges with new Ulin, only to sell the old stuff to the Bali reclaimed wood market! The old wood was pulled up as the new stuff was being simultaneously laid down. As one trader said, ‘We can’t send it out of Kalimantan, but we can replace the old wood with new and send that out instead!’

Much of this imported reclaimed wood ends up in the yards of reclaimed wood wholesalers in Denpasar, who supply raw material to many projects and retailers on Bali.

What concerns me is the possibility that the demand for reclaimed wood in Bali and elsewhere is actually fueling greater destruction of the forests, instead of the reverse. We got into the reclaimed wood trade because we saw it as a way to re-use an old and valuable material, thus reducing demand on the need for new wood. The average punter we meet generally buys recycled timber in an effort to help the planet.

The government was obviously concerned to when in mid 2007 in an effort to ward off the extinction of Ulin, it froze all harvesting and trade of the species and instigated an island-wide inventory of remaining stands in natural forest. The moratorium on the harvesting and trade of Ulin lasted until mid-2008, when it was replaced by a new law that limited export of Ulin only to a handful of Kalimantan-based timber companies who had existing stocks of Ulin in their forest concessions.

Current regulations require that Ulin traders obtain an endorsement from the BRIK (Forest Industry Revitalisation Agency) and a permit (PROKALINDO) to export Ulin out of Kalimantan. Only a handful of companies currently hold this permit. This has made it very difficult for new Ulin traders to find export markets for their wood.

Reclaimed wood exports require all sorts of permit processes of their own, including site inspection by the forestry department, police and forestry permits and so on. But generally speaking, it is relatively simple for the trained eye to differentiate new wood from recycled.

The big issue is of course sustainability. It was unsustainable and rampant exploitation that led the government to implement a law to restrict Ulin trading in the first place. Ulin has a 50 year in ground rating, which means we can expect a heartwood post to last 50 years, or more if it above ground. Growing at around half a centimetre a year, a 5 x 20 board would be cut from a tree that is at least 40 years old. Roughly speaking, a sustainable cutting cycle for Ulin would need to be at least 50 years. We are all for wood being used by local communities for appropriate applications. But what will this community do when in another 15 years when the roads need replacing again and there is no wood left?

So here are the three things you need to make sure your wood is legitimate reclaimed wood:

1. Ensure your supplier can provide evidence of the original structure the wood came from and its location (photographs or documentation)
2. Ensure that the original structure was not replaced with new wood when it was demolished
3. Only buy from trusted suppliers that can comprehensively and satisfactorily respond to your queries

Building termites out

I was recently called over to a client’s house to take a look at a pool deck that was installed a year previous using reclaimed wood that the supplier had advised was Ulin (Kalimantan ironwood).The deck was literally crumbling and on the surface showed evidence of rot and termite infestation. The installation had all the classic signs of bad building practices and what NOT to do in exterior wood applications!

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The enemy of wood... subterranean termites

When building with timbers outside there are 3 main things that we must protect against:
1) Solar degradation, 2) Rot and 3) Termites. I will talk more about sun and rain in forthcoming newsletters, but for the moment lets focus on termites.

There is a myth that some timbers are termite proof, this is simply not true. Certainly some timbers like Ulin (Eusideroxylon zwageri) are less attractive to termites as their heartwood contains specific extractives that have anti decay and insect resistant characteristics. Untreated Ulin heartwood posts are expected to last 50 years in ground contact, giving this timber the distinction of being one of the most durable timbers in the world. For sure this timber is particularly unattractive to termites, but it is not true to say that it is immune to an eventual attack from termites.

The best way to stop termite infestation is by understanding how termites like to live and build things that don’t suit their lifestyle. Although termites need water, they can’t actually drink, instead they absorb it either through the food they eat, or through a waxy layer on their outer skin. Hence if you design your building so all timber is separated by a visual barrier from any water source, you will at least be able to see them coming and going from water to food and stop them in their tracks. A good example of visual barriers are:

• Reinforced concrete slab with an exposed slab edge (that’s a slab with no cracks greater than 1.2mm (the width of a skinny termite). Termites will have to crawl over and around the slab, to go from water to food, hence you can just check your slab edge regularly.
• Steel stirrups or shoes on the bottom of posts, so the steel enters the ground and not the timber
• Flat metal sheet caps on top of the brick columns under your house. (known as Ant Caps). 
• All of these measures are environmentally friendly work forever at no running cost and all you have to do is a regular inspection.

Most of the termites that attack buildings are subterranean termites, living underground, then coming up inside trees and houses to eat dead wood, getting their water from moist ground contact. Subterranean termites cant crawl about in the open and will have to build mud tunnels to protect them from the sun, making their intrusion into your house much easier to detect and treat. In the tropics we also have arboreal and air born termites that can fly into your home. Again though as before the golden rule is that they all need to gain access to water.

A common practice in Indonesia is to install timber decks and stairs directly onto concrete slabs. This builder had closed the edges of the steps with a small wall of concrete, which had the dual impact of not letting light and air in, and trapping water under the timber boards. This is a big no-no if you want to increase the life of your timber and avoid termites. Exterior timber really needs to be kept dry and be installed in a way that allows good airflow and access. This is particularly important in the tropics, where there is a relatively higher decay and inherent termite hazard than in the temperate zones. In this case, the termites had simply tunneled up from the slab and into the boards.

Remember it’s the combination of water and timber that cause most trouble, so design your house so the timber stays nice and dry and preferably out of the sun. And build your house so it’s comfortable for you to live in but not for termites. Darrin, who runs Termite Web, one of the best information hubs on termites around (http://www.termiteweb.com) advises that we can learn a lot from traditional house building practices in the villages in Southeast Asia, as these communities these have co-existed with termites for hundreds and thousands of years. He reckons stilt building prevents 90% of common termite problems (subterranean termites), because it controls the entry points for termites very well.

Throughout the world there are many agents selling complicated systems for termite protection, including a great range of toxic chemicals and the like. These systems vary from outright stupid to out right dangerous, with a fair amount of crossover in between. Fancy visual barriers i.e. things that termites cant crawl through but must crawl round do work, but are often expensive and often a complex solution to a simple problem. When in doubt fall back on the good old fashioned three step rule:

1. Separate timber from water (including ground) with a visual barrier
2. Regularly check the visual barrier
3. If there is an infestation, bait the termites with a nice soft piece of timber soaked in an accumulative poison that they can take back home and feed the queen to kill off the hive. Killing off 1 or even 1 million termites won’t stop them, killing off their one queen will.

Another small eco-tip… world timber supplies would be much healthier if we simply used the right timber for the right application. So build that one-off handmade guitar out of some amazing beautiful rainforest timber, but don’t waste that timber making wood pulp for paper or packing crates! And use a good quality, preferable second hand exterior grade timber in an exterior application and try not to waste it on interior uses where a less resistant more common and perhaps even prettier timber will do.

By the way, we checked the termite infested timber that my client had installed and it turned out it was NOT ulin… it was a less-resistant Shorea species completely unsuitable for external applications!

For more information read “Building out Termites” by Robert Verkerk

Thanks to Dave Hodgkin and Darrin from Termite Web for help with this article.