Reforestation Research Articles

An Integrated Approach to Assess the Potential of Forest Areas for Therapy Services

The study considers forest therapy as a tool for diversification of forest management. An up-to-date integrated approach for assessing and mapping potential of forest areas which could provide conditions for forest therapy services is developed and tested. It is based on combining data from the traditional forest inventory in Bulgaria and other open databases with methods for integrated assessment and mapping of ecosystem services: 7 criteria groups and 22 indicators are proposed, rated on a 5-point scale. Overlay analysis is applied to generate a composite assessment for each forest unit. Using spatial statistics tools, territorial hot spots with potential for forest therapy are identified. The methodology was successfully tested in a pilot case-study region, Smolyan Municipality, but it is applicable at broader scale, regardless of the type and ownership of forests. This approach could be transferred to other countries as well after adapting to their geographical, geoecological and socio-cultural specifics and database available. It is a cost-effective and informative tool to support forest owners and managers to diversify forest welfare services focusing on insufficiently used forest recreation potential.

Forest Recreational Services in the Face of COVID-19 Pandemic Stress

Forest ecosystems provide numerous services and benefits to both humans and biodiversity. Similarly, urban forests services play a vital role by providing urban dwellers with recreational and leisure space, mental health relief, and meditation. In the wake of the COVID-19 epidemic, many people living in the urban areas could benefit from the forest and park recreational services to relieve psychological stress due to lockdown rules. The study examined existing literature simultaneously; however, very few studies have presented the relationships between forest services’ role on COVID-19 stress relief. Furthermore, we examined forest visitors’ frequency at the Training Forest Enterprise (TFE) Masaryk Forest Křtiny in the outskirts of Brno City in the Czech Republic. The study collected data using a TRAFx infrared trail counter before the pandemic (2015–2018) and during the COVID-19 period (2021). As in other studies of the subject, we observed an increasing trend in forest visits during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2021, compared to the same months before the pandemic in 2016 and 2017. We recommend further research to focus on scientific analysis of the relationship between forest ecosystem services and COVID-19 stress and mental health. Moreover, given the spike in visitors during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2021 in March and April, our data provide evidence regarding the role of nature for relieving stress and supporting mental and physical health. Policy, decision-makers and medical advisors could use such data and study to guide future lockdowns and pandemic situations regarding nature and forest recreational use and importance.

Vulnerabilities and Threats to Natural Forest Regrowth: Land Tenure Reform, Land Markets, Pasturelands, Plantations, and Urbanization in Indigenous Communities in Mexico

Despite the economic and social costs of national and international efforts to restore millions of hectares of deforested and degraded landscapes, results have not met expectations due to land tenure conflicts, land-use transformation, and top-down decision-making policies. Privatization of land, expansion of cattle raising, plantations, and urbanization have created an increasingly competitive land market, dispossessing local communities and threatening forest conservation and regeneration. In contrast to significant investments in reforestation, natural regrowth, which could contribute to landscape regeneration, has not been sufficiently promoted by national governments. This study analyzes socio-ecological and economic vulnerabilities of indigenous and other peasant communities in the Mexican states of Veracruz, Chiapas, and Morelos related to the inclusion of natural regeneration in their forest cycles. While these communities are located within protected areas (Los Tuxtlas Biosphere Reserve, Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve, El Tepozteco National Park, and Chichinautzin Biological Corridor), various threats and vulnerabilities impede natural regeneration. Although landscape restoration involves complex political, economic, and social relationships and decisions by a variety of stakeholders, we focus on communities’ vulnerable land rights and the impacts of privatization on changes in land use and forest conservation. We conclude that the social, economic, political, and environmental vulnerabilities of the study communities threaten natural regeneration, and we explore necessary changes for incorporating this process in landscape restoration.

Carbon stocks and stability are diminished by short-interval wildfires in fire-tolerant eucalypt forests

Forests play a key role in mitigating global climate change through carbon storage and sequestration. Wildfire affects forest carbon through combustion and by influencing forest mortality and regrowth, which are also influenced by a forest’s growth environment. Wildfires are becoming more severe and frequent in many temperate regions but the impacts of such changes–in association with projected warmer, drier climates–on forest carbon stocks, remains under-quantified in many temperate biomes. We compare the impacts of a single high-severity wildfire and two high-severity wildfires within a short interval (six years) on carbon stocks 2–3 years after the last wildfire in multiple carbon pools of fire-tolerant eucalypt forests in temperate, south-eastern Australia. These forests are assumed to contain relatively resistant carbon stores because the dominant eucalypts are rarely killed by fire, reliably resprouting after most fires. Mean carbon stocks in the principal aboveground pools were decreased by one, and particularly two, high-severity wildfires after controlling for site aridity, which was negatively related to aboveground carbon stocks. On average, the percentage of aboveground carbon stocks in live biomass decreased from 76% at Unburned sites to 62% at Single-burned and 47% at Double-burned sites, contributing to increases in standing deadwood carbon stocks from 11% at Unburned sites to 42% at Double-burned sites. As such, the proportion of carbon in large, living trees (an indicator of carbon stability and carbon-recovery capacity) was decreased after short-interval wildfires. Soil carbon stocks to 10-cm depth were also significantly reduced at all wildfire sites (likely due to erosion), which could also delay post-fire recovery of productivity. Overall, our findings indicate that both single and short-interval wildfires can significantly reduce the amount of carbon stored in fire-tolerant eucalypt forests, and that the potential for carbon-stock recovery could be compromised by predicted warmer and drier (i.e., more arid) future climates, and by soil feedbacks to productivity. Actively managing carbon stocks in fire-tolerant eucalypt forests could be required in the coming decades to mitigate these risks.

Evidence of the association between deadwood and forest recreational site choices

The level of biodiversity is in decline, also in forests. As more natural structures are known to safeguard biodiversity, changes in forest management, including higher amounts of deadwood, may help reverse the decline. However, this could lead to trade-offs between forest ecosystem services, and forest recreation might be negatively affected by the presence of more natural forest structures, especially deadwood. So far, only a few studies have investigated the influence of deadwood on recreation in larger forest areas and on a national or regional scale. To better understand the possible impact, we analysed how higher amounts and different forms of deadwood would affect site preferences for recreation employing an online survey based on a representative sample in Bavaria, Germany (N = 1462). A choice experiment comprising different forest alternatives with varying degrees of deadwood showed that the amount of deadwood does not influence respondents' choice of recreation sites. However, deadwood quality attributes, i.e. structural variety and advanced decomposition positively impacted site choices. Latent class models revealed both observed and unobserved taste heterogeneity. Deadwood was, however, not an essential attribute for the forest site-selection, while infrastructure facilities or good paths/accessibility were more important. The results show that no significant trade-offs between forest recreation and deadwood enrichment exist. At the same time, respondents showed solid preferences for improving habitats for rare and endangered species in forests, indicating that biodiversity is significant to them. As the preferences for a mixture of standing and lying structures also coincide with conservation ecology research, we conclude that conflicts between recreationists and increased occurrence of deadwood to promote biodiversity are not that severe as often assumed by forest managers.

ATR-FTIR Study of Alaska Yellow Cedar Extractives and Relationship with Their Natural Durability

New approaches for assessing wood durability are needed to help categorize decay resistance as timber utilization shifts towards plantations or native forest regrowth that may be less durable than original native forest resources. This study evaluated attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy combined with principal component analysis (PCA) for distinguishing between groups of Alaska yellow cedar (Cupressus nootkatensis) wood for susceptibility to two decay fungi (Gloeophyllum trabeum and Rhodonia placenta) and the eastern subterranean termite (Reticulitermes flavipes). Alaska yellow cedar durability varied with test organisms, but the majority of samples were highly resistant to fungal and termite attack. Weight losses and extractives yield using sequential extractions (toluene:ethanol > ethanol > hot water) showed moderate to weak relationships. PCA analysis revealed limited ability to distinguish amongst levels of wood durability to all tested organisms. The absence of non-resistant samples may have influenced the ability of the chemometric methods to accurately categorize durability.

산림법제도의 변천과 산림전문가 양성의 체계에 관한 연구

This study considered Forest Specialists, who are nurtured by the legal system through the analysis of laws and regulations under the jurisdiction of the Korea Forest Service. In particular, the transition process of forest-related laws and laws to train forest specialists were identified. In addition, changes and characteristics regarding the cultivation of professional forestry talents according to forestry policy were investigated. As a result, it was found that Forest Specialist on policy dealt with forestry success for forestry promotion, and forestry engineers dealt with technical skills for forestry industry development. In addition, according to the revision of the laws for the sustainable use of timber, wood-structural engineers, timber grade evaluators, and timber education specialists are trained separately. Forest Specialists concerned with forest welfare policies were found to train forest experts and complete specialized training courses to provide various services for forest cultural and recreation facilities, healing forests, and forest leisure sports facilities. There is an instructor for forest leisure sports. Forest welfare experts are divided into forest education experts and forest healing instructors; forest education specialists are further divided into forest interpreters, forest guides for children, and forest trekking guides. Forest Specialists on forest protection policy were found to train arboretum and garden experts for the efficient management and exhibition of arboretums. Gardens and tree doctors and tree treatment technicians for arboretums wer also trained. A tree doctor and a tree treatment technician were found to have the necessary qualifications to run a tree hospital business, diagnosing and treating tree damage. Therefore, it is thought that the Korea Forest Service is nurturing Forest Specialists with technical capabilities for forestry promotion, forest industry development, and tree treatment; and the Forest Specialists can provide education and welfare services at culture, recreation, treatment, and conservation sites in forests.

Assessment of forest visitors’ route preferences – Impact encounters across a range of forest environments

Studies of visitors' preferences for forest environments play a central role for the understanding of recreational behaviour. The encounter of other agents, such as wildlife or other visitors, has proven important for preferences, and this is something visitors may affect themselves. Thus, this study focusses on forest visitors’ preferences for forest environments and potential encounters with other agents. 1089 respondents have been asked to consider a choice for change of direction at trail junctions, during a visit to the forest, by ranking five cards representing possible path segments. Each segment constituted a given forest environment (represented by text and a photo) and agent types and numbers (text and an icon), and the direction (text only) – relative to a preferred direction. Results show that on average respondents will detour from their preferred direction, disregarding the forest environment, to experience wildlife. At the other end of the scale, larger groups of mountain bikers or runners can make respondents detour in all forest environments, except for the most preferred ones, to avoid an encounter. Based on a latent class analysis three classes are identified with distinct preferences. 20% of the respondents are unlikely to detour no matter the possible forest environment or agent types. 30% are not affected by encountering other agents, but are to a slight but significant extent affected by the forest environment. The majority, constituting 50% of the population, is strongly influenced by forest environments and even more by potential encounters with other agents. Results largely confirm earlier studies using an ordinal scale, but in addition, we estimate the mutual strength of the preferences and thereby allowing for better guidance of how to manage for forest recreation. In our study, a large group of people state that encountering other types of visitors or wild life matters a lot, and often overrules, the diverse utility of different forest environments. This highlights the necessity of focusing on the management trade-offs between nature conservation and recreational use. One implications of our study relates to path network planning. In areas with less preferred forest environments (e.g. as present in afforestation areas), path segregation may be more important than in the more preferred (e.g. older, more consolidated) areas, where encounters with other visitors have less negative influence on visitors utility.

Vascular Plants in Sites Reserved for Construction of National Yongjibong Recreational Forest in Gimhae-city

Vascular Plants in Sites Reserved for Construction of National Yongjibong Recreational Forest in Gimhae-city

Where Has All the Carbon Gone?

Carbon is among the most abundant substances in the universe; although severely depleted on Earth, it is the primary structural element in biochemistry. Complex interactions between carbon and climate have stabilized the Earth system over geologic time. Since the modern instrumental CO2record began in the 1950s, about half of fossil fuel emissions have been sequestered in the oceans and land ecosystems. Ocean uptake of fossil CO2is governed by chemistry and circulation. Net land uptake is surprising because it implies a persistent worldwide excess of growth over decay. Land carbon sinks include ( a) CO2fertilization, ( b) nitrogen fertilization, ( c) forest regrowth following agricultural abandonment, and ( d) boreal warming. Carbon sinks in both land and oceans are threatened by warming and are likely to weaken or even reverse as emissions fall with the potential for amplification of climate change due to the release of previously stored carbon. Fossil CO2will persist for centuries and perhaps many millennia after emissions cease. ▪ About half the carbon from fossil fuel combustion is removed from the atmosphere by sink processes in the land and oceans, slowing the increase of CO2and global warming. These sinks may weaken or even reverse as climate warms and emissions fall. ▪ The net land sink for CO2requires that plants have been growing faster than they decay for many decades, causing carbon to build up in the biosphere over and above the carbon lost to deforestation, fire, and other disturbances. ▪ CO2uptake by the oceans is slow because only the surface water is in chemical contact with the air. Cold water at depth is physically isolated by its density. Deep water mixes with the surface in about 1,000 years. The deep water does not know we are here yet! ▪ After fossil fuel emissions cease, much of the extra CO2will remain in the atmosphere for many centuries or even millennia. The lifetime of excess CO2depends on total historical emissions; 10% to 40% could last until the year 40,000 AD.

Strengthening Local Governance of Secondary Forest in Peru

Natural forest regrowth is critical for restoring ecosystem services in degraded landscapes and providing forest resources. Those who control tenure and access rights to these secondary forest areas determine who benefits from economically charged off-farm opportunities such as finance for forest restoration, selling carbon credits, and receiving payment for ecosystem services. We explore multiple dimensions of secondary forest governance in Peru, where the lack of official government statistics of the extent, geography, and ownership, coupled with low state capacity, prevents the development of governance structures that could stimulate their sustainable management. In this paper, we review the challenges to secondary forest governance, and the opportunities to strengthen it, focusing on beneficial outcomes for smallholder farmers. We characterize secondary forest types, extent, and persistence in Peru, followed by a presentation of the social dimensions of their governance. We identify four entry points for government to take action: national mapping of the socio-geography of second growth forest, regularize the property rights of untitled landholders, relax forest regulations, and provide incentives, not sanctions, for secondary forest management. Overall, we recommend folding secondary forest governance into a landscape approach. In Peru, strengthening local forest governance could help to drive benefits of climate change mitigation incentives directly to local forest stewards.

Single-Track Bike Trails in the Moravian Karst as Part of Forest Recreation

Recently, cycling has become a popular recreation activity, and mountain biking provides an experience that is sought by an increasing number of people. Bike trails constructed for mountain bikers in access areas lead mostly through the forest and provide not only an extraordinary riding experience but the opportunity to admire the surrounding nature. The reason for constructing such trails from a landowner’s point of view is to help keep bikers’ movements within a defined access area and to ensure adjacent areas are left free for other forest functions. It also helps distribute groups of visitors with other interests to other parts of the forest. This is what we call “controlled recreation”. In this example, it means that if cyclists come to the locality to use the bike trails, they should ride only along the designated trails; however, they may leave these trails and ride on the surrounding land. This article studied the movements of bikers in an accessible area of the Moravian Karst and the regulation of their movements by controlled recreation. Attendance in the area was measured using automatic counters. These were placed at the entry points to the accessible area and just behind the routes where the trails branch off. The results showed that bikers mostly stayed on the formal routes and that the trails were effective, i.e., there was no uncontrolled movement of bikers into the surrounding forest stands. We also noted the time of day that cyclists were active. These results can be used to better plan work in the forest, for example, harvesting and logging. To further the suitable development of accessible areas of the forest, we also compared the usual size of trail areas in two other European countries and the increasing width of bike trails due to the transverse slope of the terrain.

Evaluation of a Structure Providing Cultural Ecosystem Services in Forest Recreation: Quantitative Text Analysis of Essays by Participants

Cultural ecosystem services are nonmaterial benefits that individuals acquire from the ecosystem, such as recreation, aesthetic enjoyment, and tourism. The quantification of cultural services is considered difficult to accurately make compared to other forest ecosystem services. Although some studies evaluate cultural services from forest recreation, “simple quantification” based on easy-to-obtain data is criticized for disregarding the local context and missing essential details. Therefore, this study evaluates a structure providing cultural services, and the local or detailed factors missed by simple quantification, while illustrating objective and statistical evidence with careful observations and a comprehension of local society. This study focuses on urban resident participation in natural resource management through recreational activities in Japanese mountain villages, using Fujiwara District, Minakami Town, Japan, as a case study, and by conducting a quantitative text analysis of 424 essays containing participants’ experiences and impressions. Using the software KH Coder, the Jaccard index is used to calculate co-occurrence relationships between frequently used words, visualizing the results in a network diagram. Additionally, several codes are added to keywords that characterize this case, and correlations between each code are examined. From the analysis, we discovered that social factors, such as interaction with comrades and locals, considerably influence participants’ positive emotions.

Land use influences stream bacterial communities in lowland tropical watersheds

Land use is known to affect water quality yet the impact it has on aquatic microbial communities in tropical systems is poorly understood. We used 16S metabarcoding to assess the impact of land use on bacterial communities in the water column of four streams in central Panama. Each stream was influenced by a common Neotropical land use: mature forest, secondary forest, silvopasture and traditional cattle pasture. Bacterial community diversity and composition were significantly influenced by nearby land uses. Streams bordered by forests had higher phylogenetic diversity (Faith’s PD) and similar community structure (based on weighted UniFrac distance), whereas the stream surrounded by traditional cattle pasture had lower diversity and unique bacterial communities. The silvopasture stream showed strong seasonal shifts, with communities similar to forested catchments during the wet seasons and cattle pasture during dry seasons. We demonstrate that natural forest regrowth and targeted management, such as maintaining and restoring riparian corridors, benefit stream-water microbiomes in tropical landscapes and can provide a rapid and efficient approach to balancing agricultural activities and water quality protection.

Social Preferences of Young Adults Regarding Urban Forest Recreation Management in Warsaw, Poland

The paper presents results of questionnaire research conducted to determine social preferences regarding leisure in Warsaw municipal forests (WMF) (Poland). The preferences pertained to frequency of visits and willingness to pay for recreational infrastructure in a forest depending on its appearance, level of development, and the respondent’s income. The data were processed using statistical analysis (ANOVA Friedman test, U Mann–Whitney test, logistic regression). The results show that the higher the development level of a forest, the more often young people choose it for leisure. Willingness to pay for a forest depends on its development level, with respondents more willing to fund forests with a higher development level. No such correlation with the respondents’ income was found. Preferences regarding the selection of a specific type of forest for leisure were dependent on per capita income of the respondents only in the case of forests at a lower level of development. A forest’s preference level affected the willingness to pay for it and varied depending on the development level.

Damage Cost/Value Clustering in Timber Harvesting Decision Making for Sustainable Forest Management

The most important factor to ensure forest regrowth strongly relies on minimizing damage as well as maintaining an adequate quantity and quality of residual stands. Currently, most of the Malaysian concessions are applying the Selective Management System (SMS). The SMS had been introduced about 40 years ago and various studies discovered that it contributes a negative impact on the forest. Thus, revision and adoption of an appropriate harvesting method are required. The main objective of this study is to propose a new method that promotes forest regrowth and reduces damages due to logging activities for Sustainable Forest Management (SFM). The two primary elements introduce in this new method are 1) to determine the minimum damage cost/value to the residual trees according to tree felling direction and 2) on the division of logging area into clusters where only certain clusters will be affected in a logging operation and the rest are conserved. The overall results of this study proven that the analysis of potential logged value, productions, damage value, and damage volume by dividing forest into clusters able to minimize damage and maintain forest regeneration.

Balancing natural forest regrowth and tree planting to ensure social fairness and compliance with environmental policies

Abstract The environmental benefits and lower implementation costs of (assisted) natural forest regrowth (NFR) compared to tree planting qualify it as a viable strategy to scale up forest restoration. However, NFR is not suitable in all places, because the potential for forest regeneration depends on the socio‐environmental context and differs greatly over space and time. Therefore, it is critical to quantify the potential contribution of NFR for reaching forest restoration targets and complying with environmental policies. Here, we quantify the socio‐environmental consequences of NFR by considering four targets differing in restored area in the Atlantic Forest (6, 8, 15 and 22 Mha). We quantified the compliance with environmental policies, expected distribution of natural and restored vegetation within the biome and social fairness (distribution of restoration efforts and costs within small, medium and large‐sized properties) of two hypothetical forest restoration scenarios. We show that large‐scale forest restoration prioritizing the areas with the highest potential for NFR (Scenario I) allows us to comply with one‐third of the current environmental debt in the Atlantic Forest. Furthermore, this scenario disproportionately burdens specific types of land use, increases socioeconomic inequalities and concentrates restoration activities in regions in which the natural vegetation cover is already high. By contrast, Scenario II—eradicating the environmental debt that results from environmental policies, then prioritizing areas with the lowest overall restoration costs until reaching the restoration targets—is socially fairer and maximizes compliance with environmental policies. Its outcomes are more homogeneously distributed among counties and small, medium and large‐sized properties from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. Despite doubling the implementation costs, the lower overall restoration costs in Scenario II result from significantly lower opportunity costs than in Scenario I. Synthesis and application. The environmental, social and economic outputs of large‐scale forest restoration in the Atlantic Forest can be maximized when NFR and tree planting are balanced (Scenario II). To achieve compliance with forest restoration commitments, we thus advocate for the site‐specific selection of the best forest restoration strategy to guarantee social fairness and compliance with environmental policies at minimum overall restoration costs.

Nature‐based Solutions to tackle climate change and restore biodiversity

Nature‐based Solutions to tackle climate change and restore biodiversity

The willingness of inhabitants in medium-sized city and the city’s surroundings settlements to pay for recreation in urban forests in Poland

The aim of the study was to determine the willingness-to-pay (WTP) in exchange for recreation, to determine the dependency between the frequency of visits and willingness of forest users to make contributions for urban forests and the appearance of the forest, as well as the sociological characteristics of the respondents. The research was carried out on the example of the medium-sized city of Tarnów, southern Poland. To this aim, a survey was conducted on a group of 309 adult respondents inhabitants of Tarnów city and city’s surroundings settlements. For statistical analysis, the Classification And Regression Trees (CART) method was used to determine the dependency between the declared contributions and the characteristics of respondents, and the Principal Components Analysis for examining the dependency between WTP and the appearance (structure) of the forest. The dependency between the frequency of visits to urban forests and the demographics was analysed by chi-square test and one-way analysis of variance. The results showed that 97% of respondents are willing to make payments for urban forests, the amount of which differed depending on their place of residence, education, and age. Also, the vast majority of respondents make their WTP contributions dependent on the appearance of the forest. This applies in particular to a multi-stratum, multi-species forest with the undergrowth and recreational infrastructure. In addition, the frequency of visits to the area is affected by gender and place of residence. The obtained results are especially important for the recreation function of urban forests including willingness of inhabitants in Tarnów city and surroundings settlements.

Effects of Different Site Conditions on the Concentration of Negative Air Ions in Mountain Forest Based on an Orthogonal Experimental Study

The negative air ions (NAI) in a forest play an important and positive role in promoting the health of people using the forest for recreation. The purpose of this study was to explore the environmental characteristics that can effectively represent high concentrations of NAI in mountain forests to help the recreational users to seek out sites with high NAI concentrations for personal health reasons. In order to achieve this goal, we selected the mountain forest of Taibai Mountain National Forest Park, Shaanxi Province, China, as the research object and adopted an orthogonal experimental design with three factors and three levels to study the effects of terrain, altitude, and forest canopy density on the forest NAI concentrations. The results show that obvious peak–valley fluctuation occurs during 6:31 a.m. to 18:30 p.m., with the highest concentration of NAI at 8:00 a.m. (Average: 163 ions/cm3) and the lowest at 16:00 p.m. (Average: 626 ions/cm3). The altitude (p < 0.01) and canopy density (p < 0.05) were found to significantly affect NAI concentrations. The combination of site conditions in the mountain forest observed to have the highest NAI concentrations was valley topography, low altitude, and high canopy density. In addition, the highest NAI concentration was between 14:00 p.m. and 16:00 p.m., under this combination, which was thus identified as the most suitable time for health-promotion activities in mountain forests. The results provide insights into the NAI concentration characteristics and variations, along with identifying important environmental factors for the selection of health-promotion activities in mountain forests.