Laura Tangley

About the author: Laura Tangley is a writer for U.S. News & World Report and coauthor of Trees of Life: Saving Tropical Forests and Their Biological Wealth.

Sustainable logging, also known as sustainable forest management (SFM), is a conservation tool that allows carefully supervised logging in certain areas of the rain forests. The idea behind SFM is to allow "rainforest-friendly" logging as a compromise between all-out protection and total destruction of the rain forest. The slogan for SFM is "Buy good wood and help save the rain forest." However, new evidence shows that sustainable harvests may damage rain forests and their ecosystems more than standard logging practices. In addition, environmental and development organizations have invested hundreds of millions of dollars into sustainable forestry, but only a small proportion of tropical forests are...