Biodiversity and its relationship to ecosystem health and integrity

The human population has increased from about 1 billion to its present 5.8 billion in the time taken to grow a mature forest stand in most of Canada. Over the period required to grow another mature stand, the population is expected to grow to between 12 and 16 billion. With the present per capita wood consumption and the present rate of population growth, the annual increase in demand for wood is greater than the present allowable annual harvest in British Columbia. Although both the area of forest and/or the volume of wood are increasing in some countries (e.g., Scandinavia, Canada), the global area of wood-producing forest is declining, and the pressure on the remaining forest continues to increase. The increasing demands on the world's forests have raised serious concerns about loss of biological diversity. This conbiological diversity and various concepts of ecosystem "health" and "integrity".