The use of wood without the respective protection inevitably leads to its replacement. When this wood is used in a national park call attention to public opinion because the consequences generated by the very short life service, and replacement is required, means more wood not preserved, rapidly deteriorated in a constant repeated cycle. This becomes an environmental problem, especially when the wood used is harvested inside the same park by the villagers for use as fence post or in cattle farms; such wood is not treated with chemicals to prolong its service life, which causes the deterioration in a very few years. In this way, the inhabitants of the park are forced to harvest lumber in remaining forested areas, causing serious environmental damage to the protected ecosystems. Additionally, in Venezuela, into the Sierra Nevada National Park, it is hard to obtain information about the quantity and type of wood used for fence posts because the farmers are afraid of legal consequences. In the Sierra Nevada National Park, Mérida, Venezuela, there are two recreational areas, La Mucuy and Mucubají, both use some wood for signaling, kiosks, houses of park rangers, handrails and docks among others; empirically wood is bathed in homemade mixtures of liquid asphalt-kerosene or burned oil-gasoline, which do not offer permanent protection and is deteriorated by microorganisms in less than two years wood and consequently must be replaced. In spite of the advances in the investigations of the techniques to preserve wood, the development of new chemicals and use of modern equipment, the protection of the wood is only limited to industrial uses, at least in countries such as Venezuela, with large natural spaces dedicated to ecotourism, but with a clear lack of knowledge in principles of technical protection of the wood. It is intended to publicize this unique situation to draw attention to the need to promote and carry out extension on the importance of the protection of wood, especially in rural areas where there is no culture on wood preservation, or to apply wood treatments technically driven.

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