Perspectives: Thirty years of triad forestry, a critical clarification of theory and recommendations for implementation and testing

Abstract

The term “triad” in forestry refers to a landscape management regime composed of three parts: (1) intensive plantation management, (2) ecological forest reserves, and (3) a matrix of forests managed for multiple uses following the principals of ecological forestry. In this paper we review the sociohistorical and academic context for triad forest management and related concepts. We argue that the triad has the potential to minimize trade-offs between meeting global demand for timber products and forest ecosystem services that are typically under-provisioned in forests intensively managed for timber production. The triad should include intensive monitoring of multiple ecosystem services outcomes from each of the three management types so that specific practices and allocation between intensive plantations, reserves and the matrix can be adapted to changing societal and ecological conditions. We describe guidelines for implementing the triad that may assist policy makers and forest managers in putting theory into practice and provide a real-world example of triad adoption from Nova Scotia, Canada. While the triad concept has many promising qualities, there are many challenges to its wider adoption; we summarize four significant challenges (multiple ownerships, saturation of high productivity plantations, reserves under global change, and shifting wood demand and production) and offer ways to potentially overcome come them. The triad is an auspicious landscape approach, but to date there is very little empirical evidence supporting triad over alternatives, thus experimental and observation studies are needed to compare the efficacy of the triad over other forest landscape management schemes.