Forestry and Water Conservation in South Africa

How does tree planting for economic purposes help or hinder wider imperatives
to conserve water and preserve biodiversity? The question is one of considerable
importance in parts of the world where tree planting for economic purposes
has had a significant ecological or hydrological impact. Reconciling diverse
economic and environmental demands associated with tree planting is a serious
challenge in countries that lack commercially viable indigenous forests or tree
species and therefore must either import large volumes of wood or grow exotic
trees for domestic consumption. In many countries, there is considerable conflict
between the forest sector, on the one hand, and environmentalists and scientists
who are concerned about the impact of tree planting, on the other. The tension
is likely to intensify in the coming decades as a result of predicted climatic
changes, population growth, and the rise of living standards, all of which will
put pressure on the world’s finite resources. New  insights are necessary to
resolve the demands of diverse sectors of society in the face of these pressures.
We need to move beyond polarised debates between those who view the issue
from either economic or ecological perspectives, which have grown increasingly
divergent in the past three decades.