1. Logging
Trees from the rainforest are used for building houses, making furniture, construction of doors, window frames, crates, coffins, furniture, plywood sheets, chopsticks, household, providing pulp for paper products, such as newspapers and magazines and many more items. Behind these items, there is a huge problem.
Commercial Logging companies cut down mature trees that they select for their timber. The timber trade defends itself by stating, “this method of ‘selective’ logging ensures that the forest re-grows naturally and in time, is once again ready for their ‘safe’ logging practices.”
For some cases, this is untrue because of the nature of rainforest's and the logging practices. Selecting the mature trees result in the destruction over nearly 50% of all trees present before logging. The heavy machinery enter through the forests and build roads which causes the trees to fall and the soil to be compacted. Those heavy machinery that they use cause much extensive damage, to the point of there being no chance of regeneration.
Even with just one tree falling there are many loses because of it. It tears down with it animals that use the tree to climb around, vines, plants that grow on one another, and lianas. It leads to a large hole left in the canopy and for a complete regeneration, it can take hundreds of years.
After cutting down the ‘mature’ tree, removing it from the forest can cause even further destruction. If the timber trade carries the fallen tree out carelessly then there could be substantial damages or even to the point of destroying other trees that remain around the fallen tree. According to WWF, it is believed that in many South East Asian Forest countries, between 45-74% of trees that remain after the logging have been substantially damaged or even destroyed.
In 1988 and organization called, The International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) was formed to control the international trade in the tropical timber. They noted that the amount of logging that has occurred was “on a world scale, negligible.” They even go on to say, “"Logging roads are used by landless farmers to gain access to rainforest areas. For this reason, commercial logging is considered by many to be the biggest single agent of tropical deforestation."
The practice of logging is a huge widespread problem that even Robert Repetto of the World Resources Institute has ranked commercial logging as the biggest agent of Rainforest deforestation.
1. Logging