Forestry on a Social Context

“… In effect an integral part of economic growth and community development. Its success depends on large-scale active participation of the people. Thus, social forestry is more precisely defined as forestry for the people and by the people” (Chowdhury, 1983 as cited by Social Forestry Program (SFP), 1985)
When a man decides to pet a dog, it is his responsibility to provide him with everything essential. It is a mutualism that exists among biological organisms. If the man does not provide the dog with physiological needs, food for example, it is natural for the dog to become weak and eventually die or the dog will probably be an animal that is capable of attacking his own master. The negative effect does not only follow the physiological deprivation but also comes along with lack of emotional care. The man might provide the dog with food and other tangible materials but without the proper attention that is labeled love, the dog would not be as active nor reach his full potential as man’s best friend. Dogs perhaps are the sweetest animals but on a defined limit. Same is true with the forest and its connection with human beings. People will gain the highest productivity rate of the forest if they will consider the forest as a limited source that will soon be useless unless cared for.
It is a universal truth that we are under one system that gives us everything we need to subsist. The socio-biophysical system is the greatest supermarket that supplies man with what is truly valuable. In economics’ law of supply and demand, supply and demand are inversely proportional. As supply increases, the demand decreases and as the demand increases, the supply decreases. This could be related to the pressing issue of increasing population growth, intensified by rapid deforestation. As people continue to add, spaces for homes would be scarce. Impoverished people also contribute to this issue because they are nonetheless uneducated about the effects of their acts. They tend to abuse whatever is free. They could live freely on a free land given by the forests unknowingly ruining the natural biological flow of the biome. Other factors to it are the government and business firms who must find a solution to this problem, but nonetheless is not interested for the betterment of the people other than their sole intention of multiplying their cash flows.
An obvious solution of the government to the land issue would have been to give the landless a house to live on, but since land for this plan is scarce, the vast space of the forests is sacrificed. The forests are destroyed to give man his basic need. The natural world is sacrificed for the socio-economic world. In addition, forests are the primary habitat for faunas; therefore, as their habitat was destroyed their existence is also at stake.
It is fine to use forest lands for the people, but there should be a defined limit between utilization and exploitation. If the forests are destroyed in one full blast, nothing will be left but memories of a paradise, which existed from a distant past.
The forests are also sacrificed to give way for the commercialized industry. Forest lands are converted into agricultural and industrial domains to offer man modern conveniences. Foods, for example, are no longer directed from forests but from the processed or cultured products of agriculture.
As the natural forest covers continue to decline, the natural protection from natural destruction also declines. The leaves of plants are known to inspire carbon dioxide, which is a harmful gas to the world, and to release oxygen. This plant process balances the gas composition in the atmosphere, such as the carbon dioxide-oxygen ratio, so destroying the cycle by deforestation also destroys the ratio. As trees are destroyed, the more vulnerable the earth to global warming; this is due to the increase of carbon dioxide, which cannot pass through the ozone layer. It is important for the carbon dioxide to be absorbed by trees; otherwise, it will just be trapped in the atmosphere. If the carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere gets more abundant, it will trap the heat from the sun that penetrates the earth. It results to climatic change.
Social forestry exists because there is a need for rehabilitation of the forest-man relation. Social forestry’s primary role is to educate people about the value, effects, causes, and essence of forests to man. It could help in the sense that people are the main character involved and they have the capacity to solve their own problems. I conclude that social forestry has no definite parameters. For as long as people and forest meddle, it is called social forestry. No answer could be solved unless from people’s intervention. The answer is not written on any academic doctrines but lies behind every one’s brain. It is the very essence of the concept social forestry, which is to open people’s awareness of the harmful and bountiful surprises of the forests. The concept was created to let people know that they do not own the world but they live on a system where no one must profit for only one’s sake but for the equal and equitable distribution of benefits.