Why is lumbering industry considered to be the main occupation of people living in North America
Answers
Lumber Industry, production and harvesting of trees for varied uses, as in the fabrication of telegraph poles and railroad ties, and in building construction, shipbuilding, and furniture manufacture. The lumber industry includes the various businesses that convert trees, or timber, into lumber products. Other industries convert timber into pulp and paper, chemicals, or fuelwood.
The United States, Russia, Canada, Japan, Sweden, Germany, Poland, France, Finland, and Brazil are the chief lumber-producing countries in the world. In addition, many beautiful varieties of timber–such as mahogany, ebony, and rosewood, used chiefly in furniture manufacture–are produced in tropical Asian, Latin American, and African countries.
Lumber is produced from both hardwood and softwood. Wood from broad-leaved trees is called hardwood, and wood from cone-bearing trees is called softwood, regardless of its actual hardness. Many softwoods are actually harder than some of the so-called hardwoods. Most lumber in the United States is softwood, such as southern yellow pine, Douglas-fir, ponderosa pine, western redcedar, and true firs. Most hardwood lumber, such as oak, gum, yellow-poplar, maple, and ash, is used for miscellaneous industrial applications, primarily wood pallets. Hardwood species with beautiful colors and patterns, such as black walnut, black cherry, or red oak, are used for such high-grade products as furniture, flooring, paneling, and cabinets.
Approximately one-fifth of all U.S. land grows potentially commercial timber, of which about 70 percent is privately owned. The United States annually produces over 30 billion board feet of lumber from these forests. (The board foot is the standard U.S. measure of lumber and equals the volume of a board that is 1 square ft in area and 1 in thick.) Over two-thirds of this lumber is softwood, which comes primarily from the Southeast and Pacific Northwest. Appalachian and northeastern states produce the majority of hardwood lumber.
Most U.S. lumber production supplies domestic markets, particularly single-family homes. The national economy and natural events both influence the activity of the lumber industry. A good economy encourages people to build new homes or remodel existing ones. Natural disasters, such as the devastation left by Hurricane Andrew in Florida and Louisiana in 1992 and by the Mississippi River flooding in the Midwest in 1993, create a demand for lumber to rebuild damaged homes and businesses. Large forest fires, hurricanes, and epidemic outbreaks of forest pests can also damage forest lands and decrease timber supplies to local mills.
Currently, the United States exports logs and finished lumber products primarily to Japan, Mexico, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Many of the exported logs are converted to lumber that is imported back into the United States. The Canadian provinces of Québec and British Columbia are major global exporters of softwood logs and lumber products, and the United States both exports and imports lumber to and from Canada.
As global demand for lumber rises, increased harvesting has developed in tropical countries and recently in the northern, or boreal, forests of Russia. The current rate of harvesting in tropical rain forests has alarmed scientists concerned with the ecological importance of these forests in the preservation of biodiversity. Forests also play an important role in regulating the climate of the planet by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (see Carbon Cycle; Ecology). Scientists are therefore also increasingly concerned about the role that tropical deforestation may play in global warming (see Environment).
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