Timber Industry and the Process of Technogenesis

An analysis of the environmental protection activities of timber industry enterprises based on data from open sources and on the experience of expert assessment of the negative impact of a number of industrial facilities processing wood biomass has made it possible to describe the mechanisms of influence of an integrated type of economic activity on the modern technologies. The groups of technogenesis characteristic of natural landscape and geochemical processes in the zone of influence of timber industry enterprises have been identified, those being biogenesis, hydrogenesis, humatogenesis, chelation and anthropogenocenosis. During the industrial exploitation of forests, the core of the forest biogeocenosis and the specific complex of plants of the lower tier, which determines biogenic migration, change. The features of the manifestation of hydrogenesis associated with a change in the action of water and its penetration into the lithosphere have been considered. The manifestations of humatogenesis and chelation have been analyzed from the perspective of changes in the carbon content in forest litter. It has been established that the sources of anthropogenocenosis are objects of technical infrastructure and economic activity that are associated with the turnover and processing of wood raw materials, which contributes to a change in the nature of migration, accumulation of chemicals in various environments and the formation of biogeochemical barriers in their path. There is a special type of “economic urbanization” at the present stage of social development, in which the timber industry participates as a processor of plant raw materials and a supplier of finished products with waste generation in urban agglomerations with their possible subsequent processing. Several possible mechanisms of technogenesis at various stages of the development of economic activity in the forestry sector have been identified. The significant role of the degradation mechanism has been emphasized. The modern nature management orientation and development of modifying mechanisms of technogenesis, such as supportive, creative and managing (the most promising for the implementation of a circular economy) and their combination in the process of exploitation of the territory open up new opportunities. Forecasts have been provided on the prospects of the transition from the traditionally perceived technogenesis (mainly degradation) to nootechnogenesis. This transition is based on the implementation of the principles of a managed natural-technical system, taking into account the dynamics of restoration and regulation of reproduction of forest resources under environmental restrictions, which is the key to a sustainable timber industry.