Sustainably managed forests allow us to obtain wood-based products sourced from poplars harvested at the right age, while, in addition, plantations optimize land use and supply, therefore taking the stress off forests to provide raw material. It is crucial to understand that the environmental requirements towards the conservation of forest areas do not exclude a responsible productive activity. They are, in fact, highly compatible.
We must think about how to be more efficient in the production of timber as raw material. First and foremost, forests must be managed in order to harvest the trees at the right age and in the best conditions, replant them adequately, and, in general, protect the flora and fauna to preserve the ecosystem as a whole.
Plantations, however, take this a step further, as they are an unharmful way of providing more resources naturally taking the stress off forests to provide raw material. We can say that plantations actually help nature be more productive while providing the economy with a valuable material that is natural, renewable, sustainable, reusable, recyclable and inexhaustible.
Poplars in plantations and managed forests are not genetically modified trees, but cultivated trees bred, planted and grown in the most efficient way, like crops in agriculture. Every cut poplar is replanted, while in unmanaged forests there is no cutting nor replanting and the forest actually becomes abandoned land of no use to anyone or for anything. It is crucial to understand that the environmental requirements towards the conservation of forest areas do not exclude a responsible productive activity. Indeed, they are highly compatible and, in fact, giving up on a forest development, is as much as foregoing the generation of employment and profit in rural areas.