The old Latin word for forest is 'sylvie'. This is where we get the English word 'sylvan' (also spelt 'silvan' and 'silvian') an adjective that means 'of or connected to a forest'. Thus, Sylvie culture is the culture of the forest. The inter-relationships between soil, plants, trees, animals, water as well as man makes up the culture of the forest that is also known as forest ecology.
The forests of the world are vital for the health of the planet. Forests along with plankton in the sea are the main carbon recyclers for the planet. More than 20% of the world's oxygen is made in the Amazon rainforest (http://www.rain-tree.com/facts.htm). More than 80% of the world's dietary items originated in a forest. These food items include fruits such as avocados, coconuts, figs, oranges, lemons, grapefruit, bananas, guavas, pineapples, mangos and tomatoes; vegetables including corn, potatoes, rice, winter squash and yams; spices like black pepper, cayenne, chocolate, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, sugar cane, turmeric, coffee and vanilla and nuts including Brazil nuts and cashews. Without the culture of forests our diets would be very poor and our life expectancy would surely be much shorter as a result.
Forests not only supply foods, they also supply medicine. 25% of Western pharmaceuticals are derived from rainforest ingredients. Scientists believe that the biodiversity of forests hold the key to finding cures for most of the serious diseases in the world. At present, only 1% of the plants of the Amazon have been tested by scientists. There are many undiscovered species of flora in the forest that could unlock the door to many cures that could see humanity extend its life to ages as yet unheard of. Such is the promise and magic of forestry culture.
How sad it is and how myopic it is that mankind seems intent on destroying this most important of cultures, our forests. Every one and a half seconds an acre of forest is cut down somewhere in the world. At the present rate of logging and clear cutting all the great forests in the world will be gone in 40 years. If you factor in the likely rise in sea levels due to climate change this process of deforestation could be accelerated.
Without the lungs of the world how will we survive? Without the medicines of the forest how will we survive? Every year clearing forests causes the extinction of 50,000 plant, insect and animal species. We are losing our birthright, our bio diversity at an alarming rate. The end result is that we Homo sapiens will also become extinct. We will have bought about our own ruin through the use of our supposed 'sapience' to make money instead of studying and protecting nature.
It seems very apparent that the culture of money, of economics and of consumerism is at logger heads with the culture of the forest. The Amazonian indigenous people have learnt to live with the forest and to derive many of the benefits of the forest. 500 years ago there were 10 million Indians in the Amazon. Now there are 200,000. We are killing the forest and the people of the forest.
This website is designed as a resource for all those concerned with these larger issues of protecting the environment. It is about suggesting ways to limit our negative impact on the environment and how we can help forests as well as oceans and other ecosystems to recover from the damage done mainly by man.
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It must be nearly 30 years ago that I heard the expression, the paperless office. I’m sure many readers will have come across it too, but if you’ve worked in any sort of office based environment I’m willing to bet that it’s still no where near becoming reality yet. In fact I personally have not really envisaged any real drop in paper usage at least just in the places I’ve worked from. There are lots of good intentions, like those signatures in every email that nobody ever reads asking ‘do you really need to print this email’. Does anyone really take any notice of them, good intentions sure but less paper – I don’t think so.
Of course we do use recycled paper more and most paper in the majority of environments I use is reused as far as I can tell. So that’s got to be good news for the world’s forests, there are lots of other phrases like sustainable forestry which suggest things are moving in the right direction. People want to help, we genuinely want to change but it’s not easy to fit these changes to busy word schedules and office environments.
I’m hoping the new wave of tablets and notebooks will make a difference eventually. One of the most difficult things about not printing stuff out was it was so much easier to read text on a page than a shiny screen. The Kindle has smashed this myth – it is genuinely as easy to read as a book. If you’ve never seen one, I urge you to check them out they really are as good as they say. The technology that makes the electronic display as easy to read as the printed word will hopefully help to push towards the paperless office. The advantage again is the sheer cost – the Kindle is very inexpensive and I suspect will plummet over the years to come. More and more reason why they could come to replace the reams of paper we produce.
If you are keen on reducing the amount of resources related to printing then you should also consider the toner cartridges. The amount of oil required to manufacture a new toner cartridge is about 3-4 liters yet they are manufactured to be one use only. The reason is simply to maximize profits for the printer manufacturers, there is not other reason they could be easily reused. In fact there are lots of companies that will supply kits to refill toner cartridges, you just have to look around. The payoff is great – both to the environment and to your printing costs – approximately 80% – of course this could be even greater if you really do try and print out much less.
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