Forest products have played their part in national economies for many centuries. In children\’s stories there are many woodcutters who usually live solitary lives and bring hints of deep dark forests into the stories. They are among the earliest of fictional products themselves, and probably produced charcoal and timber that were much needed products, and still are.

In countries where trees grow plentifully lumber is used for building. In countries where there are hardly any trees houses are built out of mud or stone but some timber is needed for roof trusses so poles are transported up mountain sides on the backs of donkeys. This shows how great the demand for lumber is in building.

The north Europeans have always been sea faring nations that made great use of timber for ship building. During the reign of Henry V111 a huge industry revolved around building a navy out of the great oak trees on British forests. Massive trees were selected for the masts of sailing ships. They were hauled by teams of horses to coastal shipyards.

A very important product of natural forests is oxygen which is given out by trees. It is needed by animals and human beings, and helps to maintain the natural balance of gasses on the planet. Some people are very concerned that logging companies cut down trees indiscriminately resulting in deforestation and less oxygen in the environment.

Fewer people get excited about the environmental damage done by artificial forestation Plantations of pine and eucalypts have been planted over great swathes of countryside in countries where these trees are aliens. They kill all the indigenous life in the ground beneath them and threaten the water supplies of whole countries. Quite probably artificial forestation does more damage than deforestation. However, this is where the materials needed for wood pulp and paper are produced.

The manufacture of paper and cardboard from wood pulp is a relatively new industry having begun as late as the 1860s. Previously paper was made on a smaller scale from other materials. In the 1950s it became possible to plant huge areas of grassland to pine and gum trees. The trees grow rapidly in the foreign climate and are ready to be harvested in ten to fifteen years as straight poles of about fifteen centimetres.

The poles are stripped and transported by road or rail to pulping plants. Chemical, mechanical or thermal processes are used to reduce the poles into pulp which can be exported in pulp form or processed locally into various qualities of paper.

Wood pulp is perhaps the most important of artificial forest products because it can be used for producing bio fuels as well as paper. Being a renewable resource trees may be a better source of fuel than fossil fuels. However, planks and lumber are also produced in man made forests. The long straight eucalypt poles are suitable for telephone poles and trusses. Softwood planks from pine are used extensively in the manufacture of cheap furniture.

In modern societies forest products are prevalent in almost every aspect of daily life. As new uses are found for them they will continue as essential materials in modern economies. However, sight should not be lost of the importance of oxygen from living trees as a vital ingredient in daily life.

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