Clearcuts usually leave behind damaged ecosystems and reduced living conditions for local communities. But they are apparently highly profitable for the concessionaires and the related industry - in a short term view. Sustainable development as one important pre-condition for the survival of well balanced forests and the welfare of people means in terms of forestry an Ecological Forest Use. Ecologically Responsible Forestry Forests are supercomplex ecosystems the full comprehension of which is a beyond human understanding. Therefore the complicated processes can never be fully predicted.
Ecological forestry is forestry by adaptation to nature.
Actual industrialized forest management however is mostly an intervention forestry. It functions as high input system aiming at a maximum of output in terms of timber and money. This means inevitably violations of ecological and social laws. The awareness of the failure of this intervention forestry and the pressure on goverments. After the 1992 Rio-Summit have led to sereral initiatives worldwide to define and establish alternative forest management systems in the sense of ecological forestry.