Forestry

Forestry is the science, art, and craft of creating, managing, using, conserving, and repairing forests and associated resources, in a sustainable manner, to meet desired goals, needs, and values for sentient benefit. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands. The challenge of forestry is to create systems that are socially accepted while sustaining the resource and any other resources that might be affected. The forest science has elements that belong to the biological, physical, social and managerial sciences.

Modern forestry generally embraces a broad range of concerns, in what is known as multiple-use management, including the provision of timber, fuel wood, wildlife habitat, water quality, recreation, landscape, employment, biodiversity management, erosion control, and preserving forests as 'sinks' for atmospheric carbon dioxide. A practitioner of forestry is known as a forester.

Forestry is an important economic segment on various industrial planets. For example, on Planet Maiple where Terran tree forests cover nearly 85% of the land area, wood is the most important renewable resource, and forestry supports most of the planet's jobs and about 170 billion credits in yearly income. On planets such as Nilfeheim, where trees are nonexistent, wood is expensive and highly valued.