Fundamental changes have occurred in all aspects of forestry over the last 50 years, including the underlying science, societal expectations of forests and their management, and the evolution of a globalized economy. This textbook is an effort to comprehensively integrate this new knowledge of forest ecosystems and human concerns and needs into a management philosophy that is applicable to the vast majority of global forest lands. Ecological forest management (EFM) is focused on policies and practices that maintain the integrity of forest ecosystems while achieving environmental, economic, and cultural goals of human societies. EFM uses natural ecological models as its basis contrasting it with modern production forestry, which is based on agronomic models and constrained by required return-on-investment. Sections of the book consider: 1) Basic concepts related to forest ecosystems and silviculture based on natural models; 2) Social and political foundations of forestry, including law, economics, and social acceptability; 3) Important current topics including wildfire, biological diversity, and climate change; and 4) Forest planning in an uncertain world from small privately-owned lands to large public ownerships. The book concludes with an overview of how EFM can contribute to resolving major 21st century issues in forestry, including sustaining forest dependent societies.

"The fourth edition of Forest Management - revised significantly from previous, successful editions - offers authoritative, up-to-date coverage of broad-scope concepts and ideas for those entering the fields of forest management, forest economics, and forest ecology. Viewed as large integrated ecosystems that are often owned and managed by multiple landowners, forests continue to be at the center of debates involving global warming and the sustaining of human populations. Because long-term ecological outcomes of forest management activities continue to be of heightened concern to citizens, interest groups, and regulators, the comprehensive fourth edition recognizes the scope of ecological, economic, and social outcomes from the management and use of forest lands. It provides future decision makers and stakeholders with contemporary methods to make quantitative estimates of the consequences of implementing alternative management or policy scenarios for forests."--pub. desc.

Classical silviculture has often emphasized timber models, fundamentally based in production agriculture. This books presents silvicultural methods based in natural forest models—models that emulate natural disturbances and development processes, sustain biological legacies, and allow time to take its course in shaping stands. These methods, dubbed “ecological forestry,” have been successfully implemented by foresters for decades managing a wide variety of forestlands. Ecological silvicultural strategies protect threatened and rare species, sustain biological diversity, and provide habitat for game and non-game species, all while providing timber in profitable ways.

Model-driven individual-based forest ecology and individual-based methods in forest management are of increasing importance in many parts of the world. For the first time this book integrates three main fields of forest ecology and management, i.e. tree/plant interactions, biometry of plant growth and human behaviour in forests. Individual-based forest ecology and management is an interdisciplinary research field with a focus on how the individual behaviour of plants contributes to the formation of spatial patterns that evolve through time. Key to this research is a strict bottom-up approach where the shaping and characteristics of plant communities are mostly the result of interactions between plants and between plants and humans. This book unites important methods of individual-based forest ecology and management from point process statistics, individual-based modelling, plant growth science and behavioural statistics. For ease of access, better understanding and transparency the methods are accompanied by R code and worked examples.

Climate changes, particularly warming trends, have been recorded around the globe. For many countries, these changes in climate have become evident through insect epidemics (e.g., Mountain Pine Beetle epidemic in Western Canada, bark beetle in secondary spruce forests in Central Europe), water shortages and intense forest fires in the Mediterranean countries (e.g., 2005 droughts in Spain), and unusual storm activities (e.g., the 2004 South-East Asia Tsunami). Climate changes are expected to impact vegetation as manifested by changes in vegetation extent, migration of species, tree species composition, growth rates, and mortality. The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has included discussions on how forests may be impacted, and how they may be used to mitigate the impacts of changes in climate, to possibly slow the rate of change. This book provides current scientific information on the biological and economical impacts of climate changes in forest environments, as well as information on how forest management activities might mitigate these impacts, particularly through carbon sequestration. Case studies from a wide geographic range are presented. This information is beneficial to managers and researchers interested in climate change and impacts upon forest environments and economic activities. This volume, which forms part of Springer’s book series Managing Forest Ecosystems, presents state-of-the-art research results, visions and theories, as well as specific methods for sustainable forest management in changing climatic conditions.

Forest Management and Planning, Second Edition, addresses contemporary forest management planning issues, providing a concise, focused resource for those in forest management. The book is intermixed with chapters that concentrate on quantitative subjects, such as economics and linear programming, and qualitative chapters that provide discussions of important aspects of natural resource management, such as sustainability. Expanded coverage includes a case study of a closed canopy, uneven-aged forest, new forest plans from South America and Oceania, and a new chapter on scenario planning and climate change adaptation. - Helps students and early career forest managers understand the problems facing professionals in the field today - Designed to support land managers as they make complex decisions on the ecological, economic, and social impacts of forest and natural resources - Presents updated, real-life examples that are illustrated both mathematically and graphically - Includes a new chapter on scenario planning and climate change adaptation - Incorporates the newest research and forest certification standards - Offers access to a companion website with updated solutions, geographic databases, and illustrations

This edited volume presents original scientific research and knowledge synthesis covering the past, present, and potential future fire ecology of major US forest types, with implications for forest management in a changing climate. The editors and authors highlight broad patterns among ecoregions and forest types, as well as detailed information for individual ecoregions, for fire frequencies and severities, fire effects on tree mortality and regeneration, and levels of fire-dependency by plant and animal communities. The foreword addresses emerging ecological and fire management challenges for forests, in relation to sustainable development goals as highlighted in recent government reports. An introductory chapter highlights patterns of variation in frequencies, severities, scales, and spatial patterns of fire across ecoregions and among forested ecosystems across the US in relation to climate, fuels, topography and soils, ignition sources (lightning or anthropogenic), and vegetation. Separate chapters by respected experts delve into the fire ecology of major forest types within US ecoregions, with a focus on the level of plant and animal fire-dependency, and the role of fire in maintaining forest composition and structure. The regional chapters also include discussion of historic natural (lightning-ignited) and anthropogenic (Native American; settlers) fire regimes, current fire regimes as influenced by recent decades of fire suppression and land use history, and fire management in relation to ecosystem integrity and restoration, wildfire threat, and climate change. The summary chapter combines the major points of each chapter, in a synthesis of US-wide fire ecology and forest management into the future. This book provides current, organized, readily accessible information for the conservation community, land managers, scientists, students and educators, and others interested in how fire behavior and effects on structure and composition differ among ecoregions and forest types, and what that means for forest management today and in the future.