Logging

Logging is the process in which trees are cut down for forest management and timber. Logging is controversial due to its potential environmental and aesthetic impacts.

Use of the term logging in forestry

In forestry the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a mill. In common usage however the term may be used to indicate a range of forestry or silviculture activities. For example the practice of the removal of a valuable trees from the forest has been called selective logging sometimes confused with selection cut.Illegal logging refers to what in forestry might be called timber theft. An example of illegal logging is cedar theft, which is most common in the American Pacific Northwest. Timber theft in all forms is quite rare in the United States. In common usage what is sometimes called clearcut logging is not is necessarily considered a type of logging but a harvest or silviculture method and is simply called clearcutting or block cutting. In the forest products industry logging companies may be referred as logging contractors.

Logging usually refers to above-ground forestry logging. Submerged forests exist on land that has been flooded to create artificial dams and reservoirs, and trees have started to be felled there too.