Author: Gagik Amiryan

Once, a wise man, sending his disciples to the forest, says:

Go to the forest and bring what is useful from there.

Everyone brought something. one edible plant, another mushroom and fruit, and another one brought wood. And one student returned empty-handed. The sage praised the latter. The young man understood that everything in the forest is useful, and the whole forest he could not bring with him.

The forest is a complex ecological system with its components and many links. Trees, shrubs, lichens, mosses, fungi, animals and various microorganisms are the main elements that make up a forest. They are all interrelated. Break one link in the chain and the system will be destroyed.

Forests Simply Support Life on Planet Earth

Forests provide us with timber, resins, tannins, medicines, vitamins, technical alcohol, organic acids. Man gets various wild fruits and berries from the forest. After all, it was from the forests that man got paper and spread literacy for centuries.

But forests produce more than just timber and provide more than just economic benefits.

An average productive tree absorbs 2.9-4.1 tons of carbon dioxide (СО₂) and releases 2.2-3.2 tons of oxygen (О₂) in a year. Forest vegetation absorbs 8 kg of carbon dioxide gas on 1 ha in 1 hour, as much as 200 people would breathe.

It is very difficult to estimate in drams the ability of the forest to clean the air from dust and harmful gases, and the water from pollution. Forests trap 50% of airborne dust with their foliage. This is simply an amazing ability. Trees collect up to 60 times more dust than a window and 10 times more than an open space.

Evaporation from the leaves of forest trees makes the air more humid, which is why forested regions are less arid than non-forested landscapes. The roots of trees, absorbing moisture from the upper layers of the soil, do not allow their level to decrease, thus saving the surrounding vegetation.

The forest secretes biologically active bactericidal substances - phytoncides. 1 ha of broadleaf forest produces 2 kg of phytoncide every day in summer, pine forest - 5 kg, juniper forest - about 30 kg. It is no coincidence that many sanatoriums and hospitals are built in coniferous forests. In coniferous forests, the air is almost sterile and contains only 200-300 bacterial cells in 1 cubic meter of air. In operating rooms, for example, where everything, including the air, must be sterile, according to existing norms, 500 microorganisms in 1 m³ of air are allowed.

Unlike open areas, where 50-60% of rainwater runs off and is lost, on forested slopes (even those with a slope of 300 and more) the precipitation is almost completely absorbed into the soil, preventing and preserving the soil from erosive processes.

Forests have a decisive role to play in protecting our country and humanity in general from the catastrophic threat of climate change, not only absorbing greenhouse gases, but also creating sustainable landscapes.

The forest is bound to man by inexhaustible pleas. It has mentally and materially entered into human life that it is even impossible to predict what tragedy awaits humanity if it loses this truly natural cosmic wealth.