It is difficult to understand the complexity related to forestry use in southern Mexico, especially if we do not consider the socio-environmental context.
Before delving deeper into the matter, it is important to highlight a few points. In the first place, all the wood we use at ITZ comes from the Yucatan Peninsula, where we are located, and has all the necessary permits issued by SEMARNAT, complying with the controls established by PROFEPA and under the CONAFOR programs.
In the second place, it is worth mentioning that Quintana Roo's forest ejidos have forest management plans, environmental impact statements, and forest inventories. These are key elements to ensure truly sustainable forestry use.
In the third place, the peninsula's rainforests are not isolated or uninhabited areas; they are home to rural communities that depend on economic activity to make a living. Studies have shown that forestry use as a source of income for these communities helps to protect the rainforest, not only by preventing them from engaging in activities with a greater environmental impact, such as livestock farming or agriculture, but also by generating a common interest in the preservation of the rainforest. An example of this is how communities act immediately to put out fires during the dry season.
Before continuing, it is essential to understand the difference between deforestation, logging and forestry use. The first two are unplanned and uncontrolled activities, while forestry use refers to a set of well-planned operations that include the extraction and transport of timber in a sustainable manner in a forest area.
So, how is forestry use carried out in a sustainable manner? On the one hand, as we have already mentioned, it is done in a controlled manner: logging is done selectively following management programs in grids, which gives each area more than 100 years to regenerate. In addition, annual studies are carried out to ensure that the ecosystem is not affected. On the other hand, involving local communities in related activities, such as selective logging, timber transportation, sawing, kiln drying, carpentry and working in reforestation programs, as well as making handicrafts from wood or seeds, harvesting some of the edible seeds, or beekeeping, which is one of the most important human activities for the conservation of ecosystems.
Forestry use, when carried out in a controlled manner –not to be confused with illegal logging!– only contributes 5% to tropical deforestation, while activities such as livestock farming and agriculture are responsible for around 80% of the damage. While agriculture and livestock farming cause irreversible deforestation in the short and medium terms, at the same time they contaminate the soil with agrochemicals and animal waste, forestry use, in the long term, is what allows the rainforest to continue to exist.
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