Abstract
American forest resource management and planning goes back to the European roots of American Forestry. Timber management plans, documents based on forest regulation for timber production, were the foundation of American forestry. These types of management plans predominated until World War II. Multiple use forestry developed after World War II and issues like recreation, wildlife, water quality, and wilderness became more important. In the 1970’s harvest scheduling became part of the planning process, allowing for optimization of multiple goals. By 2001 social, environmental, and economic goals were integrated into the timber production process. American forestry experienced distinct historical periods of resource planning, ranging from classic sustained yield timber production, to multiple use-sustained yield, to sustainable human-forest systems. This article traces the historical changes in forest management planning philosophy using the forest management textbooks of the time. These textbooks provide insight into the thought process of the forestry profession as changes in the concept of sustainability occurred.
Highlights
Sustainability has always been part of American forest management, but the definition of sustainability and what was being sustained have changed dramatically over the past hundred years.Forest management developed from a system that produced a sustained annual timber yield to one that meets today‘s broader definition of sustainability that considers the multiple uses of the forest and the total environment, including ecological, social and economic factors
The multiple use policy that has been a framework for American forest management planning evolved from this language [3], but the original multiple use policy implicitly assumed timber primacy and sustained yield as co-foundations of the concept [4]
Even the second edition seven years later [26] made clear that optimum timber production was the focus of the textbook and the primary focus of forest planning. Another early classic American forest management textbook by Chapman [27] stressed that these plans were timber management plans. ―The general purpose of the management plan is to bring together in one document the guiding principles and measures for development and control of the business of timber production and yield for a given working circle
Summary
Sustainability has always been part of American forest management, but the definition of sustainability and what was being sustained have changed dramatically over the past hundred years. The multiple use policy that has been a framework for American forest management planning evolved from this language [3], but the original multiple use policy implicitly assumed timber primacy and sustained yield as co-foundations of the concept [4]. The temporal changes in these parameters illustrate changes in what foresters consider the foundations of the profession This article utilizes these textbooks and related publications to trace American thought on forestry planning from the late eighteenth century to today. What was the political and professional environment of this period and how is it reflected in the forest management textbooks?
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