FOREST PRODUCTS

FOREST PRODUCTS Timber, a major product of for­ests, has a wide variety of uses in construction and as an industrial raw material, and most importantly, as fuel. Whole timber is used for heavy-duty construction work such as railway sleepers. The strong, damp-resistant tim­bers from the mangrove swamps are used for such construction in tropical laryds.

Sawnwood, mostly from coniferous trees, is also used in the form of planks, boards and beams, and for construction of houses. Mahagony, rose-wood, ebony are cabinet woods used for furniture. Cheaper furniture if; made from softwoods, e,g., pine. Wood may also be cut into thin sheets which are subse­quently glued together to form a light but strong material called plywood. Timber is also the base of fibre-and­particle-boards made from pulp or from sawdust and other waste materials. Boards, such as hardboard, blockboard, chipboard, etc., are used for furniture and internal construc­tion work such as linings, ceilings and so on.

A very important use of wood is in the pulp and paper industry. Wood has lignin and cellulose, and pulping extracts the cellulose from which paper (and synthetic textiles) are made. Both hardwoods and softwoods can be used for pulping. It is because of the ease in dealing with softwoods and the predominance of softwoods in the main industrial areas of the world that softwoods dominate in the paper industry. Wood cellulose is the basis of the synthetic textiles known as rayon. The cellulose for the textile industry comes from spruce wood pulp but it can also be extracted from cotton linters. The USA, Japan and European countries such as Italy are the major rayon producers.

A few countries with vast forest resources domfuate timber production. Russia (north Siberia) and the USA and Canada are the leading producers. Canada is the greatest newsprint producer and the leading timber exporter. Smaller countries which are important commercial timber produc­ers and exporters include Sweden, Finland, Japan, France and Gerrriany in the temperate latitudes, and Malaysia and the Philippines in the tropics. In India, timber is largely derived from the forests of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Karnataka, Uttaranchal, Assam and Jammu and Kashmir.

Two-thirds of the total firewood is derived from Maharashtra, Karnataka, hhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh alone.Gums, such as balata and gutta percha, are still collected but their production is now not so important. Other natural gums are still essentially forest products.
Chicle from the Central American forests and jelutong from south-east Asian forests are used in the manufacture of cnl!Wtng gum.

Resin, pitch, tar and turpentine are products once used in ship-building (hence- the name 'naval stores') derived from the resinous material exuded from coniferous trees. Turpentine, the distilled form of resin, is used in paint. Major sites for production of naval stores are the southern USA and the Landes of France.
Cork is the thick bark of the cork oak (Quercus suber), which is found in southern Europe and North Africa. Spain, Portugal and North Africa are major producers of cork.

Tannin is found in a number of trees including the hemlock of North America and Europe, the oak and chestnut of the temperate hardwood forests, the quebracho of South America and the wattle of Africa. Mangrove species from the tropical coastlands also provide this material which is used in leather manufacture.
Bamboo and vines. or creepers such as rattan are used for furniture, basketry and weaving. An important medici­nal plant is chinchona; the drug quinine is extracted from the bark and wood of this tree.

The coca shrub's leaves are the source of the drug cocaine. Both were originally native to the Andes, but both are mostly grown for world markets in plantations in Indonesia. Camphor, an oil distilled from the camphor tree, is used in the manufacture of cosmetics, soaps, explosives and plastics, as well as ointments. Morphine and heroin are also produced or collected legally from forest plants or opium poppies.