Forest Management Processes Research Articles

CARBON STOCK AND DYNAMICS IN NATURAL REGENERATION IN MANAGED FOREST IN THE CENTRAL AMAZON

Around 2% of the living biomass above ground is found in the natural regeneration of tree species. Despite being a relatively low value, diagnosing the lower stratum of the forest is important in the current context of climate change. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of forest management on the carbon stock and dynamics of natural regeneration 20 years after logging in a forest in the Central Amazon. Data collection was carried out in three Annual Production Units (APU) that received exploration in the years 1996, 1997 and 1998. Data from continuous forest inventories carried out in 41 sampling units were used, with four measurement periods: a pre-exploratory and three other post-forest exploration. The carbon stock was estimated in trees with a diameter at breast height between 5 and 15 cm and the Annual Periodic Increment in carbon (APIc) and the carbon entry and mortality rates were calculated. The carbon stock ranged from 10.80 ± 1.27 Mg ha-1 to 14.86 ± 0.81 Mg ha-1. The APIc ranged from 0.18 ± 0.03 Mg ha-1 year-1 to 0.59 ± 0.25 Mg ha-1 year-1, with an entry rate of 0.00% to 3.26% and mortality between 3.35% and 13.84%. The carbon stock and APIc were not significantly influenced by the forestry management applied to the forest, with only time as a determining factor in its dynamics. Considering natural regeneration, it is concluded that the managed forest is capable of recovering the carbon stock lost during the forest management process.

Assessment of Rural Communities’ Access to Forest Resources and Degree of Community Dependence: A Case of Itale Forest Reserve

This study assessed rural communities’ access to forest resources and degree of community dependence. The study was conducted in two villages (Itale and Iwala) in Ileje District. The exploratory survey design used a structured questionnaire to capture both quantitative and qualitative information from sampled households. We administered a structured questionnaire with both closed and open-ended questions to households and key informants. Data collection also included focus group discussions, wealth ranking, transect walks, field observation, and preference ranking. The study employed systematic, random, and purposive sampling to select a sample of 94 household heads and 18 key informants. The results revealed that access to forest resources was denied to rural communities by 95.5% while 4.5% access was granted for community development activities only. Communities’ dependence on forest resources varied across forest resource types, whereby dependence over firewood was 91.2%, while thatch grass dependence was 23.6%. The degree of community dependence on forest resources revealed that 57.0% of the respondents depend on forest resources for their livelihood. It is recommended that local communities should be involved in monitoring and sustainable forest management processes, as it was noted that they were not integrated into the management system.

Empowerment or marginalization: a debate in community forestry in Nepal

The impact of community forestry program in Nepal is debated around the potentials for empowerment and risk of marginalization. This article draws some evidences of both scenarios. Evidences in the filed show that community forest management process can be a forum for all users including women, poor and 'lower' castes on the one hand, and equally it can be a vehicle for theelite group of people to legitimize their interests by the unconscious consent of the users, on the other. This articles concludes with a recommendation for monitoring policy implementation and democratizing the Forest User Groups at local level in a way that enables the poor and marginalized to articulate their interests and needs to the decision making process of the forest resourcemanagement.

LOCAL ECOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE AND IT’S BENEFIT TO CONSERVATION PROGRAMS IN INDONESIA

Conservation efforts in Indonesia in the last decade have been using many strategies to integrate Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK). Recognition of the role of local communities and indigenous peoples is part of efforts to mitigate climate change and the current biodiversity crisis. The mapping of the contribution of local ecological knowledge in forest management approaches for biodiversity conservation is very important. This study aims to describes the contribution of local ecological knowledge (LEK) adaptation in conservation programs in Indonesia. This research method uses a qualitative approach with an ethnoecological strategy. The research locations were in three local communities in Indonesia, namely: the Nusa Lembongan community in Bali, the Tobelo community in Halmahera, Maluku, and the Urang Kanekes/Bedouin community in Lebak, West Java. Local ecological knowledge contributes to resilience in the face of climate change, and how indigenous peoples ensure harmony between social capital, the forest environment, and forest use can be of particular concern to face the challenge of achieving zero hunger. This is related to forest ecosystems managed by indigenous peoples showing better results in sustainability based on environmental and social sustainability principles. This study shows that forest management processes based on local ecological knowledge (LEK) can be an alternative approach to biodiversity conservation. Local ecological knowledge shows an emphasis on the ongoing process of experience-based knowledge in communities that utilize the environment. The contribution of studies on LEK adaptation as dynamic knowledge can be used as a more flexible conservation approach and evaluation of forest conservation programs in Indonesia in relating to ecosystem adaptation. The finding of this study was important to LEK integration into the conservation program so it will become more adaptive and flexible to the changes. Understanding the dynamic characterization of LEK has benefit to conservation program that is based on community and participatory.

Advances in remote sensing for sustainable forest management: monitoring and protecting natural resources

Remote sensing has emerged as a powerful tool for the monitoring and management of forests, contributing to the sustainable utilization and protection of natural resources. This paper presents a review of recent advances in remote sensing techniques and technologies for forest management, highlighting their role in monitoring and protecting forests. The integration of remote sensing with other geospatial methods enhances the accuracy and efficiency of data acquisition, aiding in the assessment of forest cover, biomass estimation, disturbance detection, and biodiversity monitoring. Furthermore, the potential of remote sensing for supporting decision-making processes in sustainable forest management is explored, emphasizing its versatility, cost-effectiveness, and ability to provide invaluable insights at both local and global scales. The paper concludes by discussing current challenges and future opportunities in remote sensing applications for sustainable forest management.

Modelling the impact of forest management and CO2-fertilisation on growth and demography in a Sitka spruce plantation

Afforestation and reforestation to meet ‘Net Zero’ emissions targets are considered a necessary policy by many countries. Their potential benefits are usually assessed through forest carbon and growth models. The implementation of vegetation demography gives scope to represent forest management and other size-dependent processes within land surface models (LSMs). In this paper, we evaluate the impact of including management within an LSM that represents demography, using both in-situ and reanalysis climate drivers at a mature, upland Sitka spruce plantation in Northumberland, UK. We compare historical simulations with fixed and variable CO2 concentrations, and with and without tree thinning implemented. Simulations are evaluated against the observed vegetation structure and carbon fluxes. Including thinning and the impact of increasing CO2 concentration (‘CO2 fertilisation’) gave more realistic estimates of stand-structure and physical characteristics. Historical CO2 fertilisation had a noticeable effect on the Gross Primary Productivity seasonal–diurnal cycle and contributed to approximately 7% higher stand biomass by 2018. The net effect of both processes resulted in a decrease of tree density and biomass, but an increase in tree height and leaf area index.

Semi-FCMNet: Semi-Supervised Learning for Forest Cover Mapping from Satellite Imagery via Ensemble Self-Training and Perturbation

Forest cover mapping is of paramount importance for environmental monitoring, biodiversity assessment, and forest resource management. In the realm of forest cover mapping, significant advancements have been made by leveraging fully supervised semantic segmentation models. However, the process of acquiring a substantial quantity of pixel-level labelled data is prone to time-consuming and labour-intensive procedures. To address this issue, this paper proposes a novel semi-supervised-learning-based semantic segmentation framework that leverages limited labelled and numerous unlabelled data, integrating multi-level perturbations and model ensembles. Our framework incorporates a multi-level perturbation module that integrates input-level, feature-level, and model-level perturbations. This module aids in effectively emphasising salient features from remote sensing (RS) images during different training stages and facilitates the stability of model learning, thereby effectively preventing overfitting. We also propose an ensemble-voting-based label generation strategy that enhances the reliability of model-generated labels, achieving smooth label predictions for challenging boundary regions. Additionally, we designed an adaptive loss function that dynamically adjusts the focus on poorly learned categories and dynamically adapts the attention towards labels generated during both the student and teacher stages. The proposed framework was comprehensively evaluated using two satellite RS datasets, showcasing its competitive performance in semi-supervised forest-cover-mapping scenarios. Notably, the method outperforms the fully supervised approach by 1–3% across diverse partitions, as quantified by metrics including mIoU, accuracy, and mPrecision. Furthermore, it exhibits superiority over other state-of-the-art semi-supervised methods. These results indicate the practical significance of our solution in various domains, including environmental monitoring, forest management, and conservation decision-making processes.

A Chronicle of Indonesia’s Forest Management: A Long Step towards Environmental Sustainability and Community Welfare

Indonesia is the largest archipelagic country in the world, with 17,000 islands of varying sizes and elevations, from lowlands to very high mountains, stretching more than 5000 km eastward from Sabang in Aceh to Merauke in Papua. Although occupying only 1.3% of the world’s land area, Indonesia possesses the third-largest rainforest and the second-highest level of biodiversity, with very high species diversity and endemism. However, during the last two decades, Indonesia has been known as a country with a high level of deforestation, a producer of smoke from burning forests and land, and a producer of carbon emissions. The aim of this paper is to review the environmental history and the long process of Indonesian forest management towards achieving environmental sustainability and community welfare. To do this, we analyze the milestones of Indonesian forest management history, present and future challenges, and provide strategic recommendations toward a viable Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) system. Our review showed that the history of forestry management in Indonesia has evolved through a long process, especially related to contestation over the control of natural resources and supporting policies and regulations. During the process, many efforts have been applied to reduce the deforestation rate, such as a moratorium on permitting primary natural forest and peat land, land rehabilitation and soil conservation, environmental protection, and other significant regulations. Therefore, these efforts should be maintained and improved continuously in the future due to their significant positive impacts on a variety of forest areas toward the achievement of viable SFM. Finally, we conclude that the Indonesian government has struggled to formulate sustainable forest management policies that balance economic, ecological, and social needs, among others, through developing and implementing social forestry instruments, developing and implementing human resource capacity, increasing community literacy, strengthening forest governance by eliminating ambiguity and overlapping regulations, simplification of bureaucracy, revitalization of traditional wisdom, and fair law enforcement.

AI-Accelerated Decision Making in Forest Management

This paper is a continuation of the research on the application of artificial intelligence in counting trees with the use of methods for the automatic analysis of photogrammetric data in forests of the continental region. This paper is devoted to the AI application in accelerating decision making processes in forest management. It also discusses how RGB imagery from drones could replace aerial and satellite hyperspectral imagery and automatically detect unhealthy and dead trees. Experimental research was conducted to verify whether Faster R-CNN can automatically detect and classify snag and trees weakened by diseases on aerial RGB data, enabling a quick response to forest-threatening factors. The research is based on photogrammetric data taken in areas of forest districts subordinate to the Regional Directorate of State Forests in Zielona Góra. Non-metric imagery data was collected from drones and small airplanes with a photogrammetric container and postprocessed with respect to the photogrammetric constraints. The results show that in specific cases aerial and satellite hyperspectral imagery can be replaced by RGB orthomosaics in order to decrease the time needed for forestry treatments.

The modern concept of public forest functions

Forest, as one of the most complex and most important natural ecosystems, is characterized by numerous and very important characteristics that have permanently or current significance for human society, for life on earth and therefore we consider forest complexes as spatial functional components. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have jointly published a report entitled The State of the World’s Forests (SOFO 2020). From the functional aspect, forests have been defined as: areas of certain way and type of use, as well as roles in providing appropriate ecological conditions, primarly that forests supply the planet with water, that they are the key to combating climate change and biodiversity conservation, to provide more than 86 million jobs and support the existence of 880 million people worldwide. The Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe (MCPFE), a top-level policy initiative for the development of processes for the protection and sustainable management of forests since 1993, places urgent demands on forestry theory and practice and sector related to forestry planning. The explicit view (MCPFE) was that when planning and setting priorities, imponderable values of forests are given equal importance as values that produce financial effects. Therefore, when adopting planning settings related to forest valuation, cost-benefit analysis is necessary, where the benefits of forest complexes are an important input, especially in the closer zones of urban areas when it comes to social functions. Then in the process of planning forest management as an urban resource, the participation and influence of the local population is very important, because the goal is to recognize their participation and needs as primary, to harmonize with other plans, policies and finally with specific activities in the forest management process. The forest rarely has a single function. There are several, the same or different functional values. In that case, they can be either parallel functions, when the needs are stimulated by the same forest management measures, or opposite fonctions, when different procedures of harmonization with the goals and methods of forest management are required for their performance.

Asset Analysis and Sustainable Strategies for Forest Management: a Case Study of the Organic Forest Farmer Group and the Citarum Watershed Upstream Farmer Group

Forestry is one of the sectors that is of concern to the government, especially in management methods that are still not good so that many passive and poorly managed lands are found. Management becomes increasingly uncontrolled when the land area is very large and controlled by individuals and the government. The Hutani Farmer group or an organization that cares about the destruction of forest land can be a group that can play a local role in maintaining forest land more optimally in its management. This study aims to analyze forest assets that are a source of income in forest areas, strategies and stages of the forest asset management process, analyze product products that are output in asset management, analyze environmental and economic quality improvements on the impact of asset management and analyze environmental management related to support for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG's). The object of research is on the management of organic forest land in megamendung and the Citarum watershed forest area in Bandung, with qualitative research methods analyzed using content analysis. Data collection was obtained from interviews of resource persons in this case forest land managers and questionnaire results as well as processed data from internal reports of the management. The results showed that forest land management requires existing forest assets in the form of trees and land as well as the existence of competent Human Resources. The main assets owned are also processed through strategies and stages in the form of agroforesty strategies and cultivation stages in the form of land zoning so as to produce outputs / products in the form of wood and non-timber which have an impact on creating better forest land for ecology, both land improvement and air quality from the results of planting existing tree species, another impact is the addition of economy for the actors in the form of vegetables and fruits and product yields. wood from several trees that can be randomly harvested. This sustainable asset management contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG's), especially in the Environment pillar and the Economic Pillar. Suggestions and implications in general so that farmer groups can maximize their HR assets to be able to form strong governance, further research can be carried out on other forest farmer groups, conduct research on downstream activities that are greater than each output produced.

Forest management institutions and actor-centered conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa: Contemporary realities and future avenues for research and policy

The rapid transformation of forest landscapes in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been a key trigger to social conflicts among forest management actors. This development has a governance undertone with institutions playing a central role in shaping the dynamics. This Special Issue synthesizes nine published articles which address questions on the perceptions, attitudes and transaction costs linked to forest management institutions, institutional bricolage and the interaction between state-facilitated (formal) and community-facilitated (informal) institutions. The Special Issue also provides empirical evidence on gendered perspectives in institutional change processes, partnership reforms in forestland systems, institutional coordination and the (un)intended outcomes of decentralized forest management. The contributions to this Special Issue provide a glimpse on the separate treatise of actors and institutions, and on manifest social conflicts in forestry settings in SSA. The synthesis led to the definition of the following future lines for research and policy: Firstly, future studies should reemphasize the links between forestry and social conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa. Secondly, fostering the “marriage” between actors and institutions will ensure a holistic appreciation of forest use and management processes. Thirdly, the literature on the links between pandemics and forest-linked institutional change in sub-Saharan Africa is still scanty. Fourthly, studies to uncover the governance of forced migrants and their role in shaping forest use and management institutions are required. Finally, there is a need for multi-country studies, employing mixed-methods approaches to analyze actor-institutions dynamics in forest use and management in sub-Saharan Africa.

Policy on Forest Land Use Change for Oil Palm Plantations in Lamandau Regency, Central Kalimantan Province, Indonesia

The conversion of forest functions has often occurred in Indonesia with the background of regional development, tourism and plantation business. The various impacts of this forest conversion can be categorized into environmental impacts, namely hydrology, erosion and sedimentation, fires, extinction of flora and fauna, and impacts on the socio-economic community around the forest. The aim of this research is to analyze the policy of forest conversion into oil palm plantations in Lamandau Regency, Central Kalimantan Province. The research was conducted using the socio-legal method with a qualitative approach which is expected to find hidden meanings behind the objects and subjects to be studied. The data in this study were obtained through observation, interviews, document interpretation (text), and personal experience. The results showed that the policy of the Lamandau Regency Regional Regulation was in accordance with the Forestry Law No. 41 of 1999 Article 48 paragraph (5). The policy is to ensure the best possible forest protection. To ensure sustainability, communities with their local wisdom are involved in forest protection efforts through the provision of assistance, services, technical assistance, education, training and socialization about forest management processes. As suggestions, State Forest Company in Lamandau Regency is expected to increase socialization to palm oil companies and communities around the Lamandau forest area regarding policies related to forest protection. For forest village communities, in order to maintain the sustainability of production forests in Lamandau Regency, they are expected to be more concerned about natural resources in production forests.

Fine scale variability in Green Vegetation Fraction Over the Southern Great Plains using Sentinel-2 satellite: A case study

We estimate the green vegetation fraction (GVF) at high spatial resolution (10 m) by applying a new method based on image histogram equalization and utilizing images with multiple spectral bands from Sentinel-2 satellite observations. True color and multi-spectral images at 10 m resolution are used over 50 × 50 km2 domain centered on the US Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) site over the Southern Great Plains to recognize green pixels and estimate the vegetation fraction. The GVF retrieved from several spectral bands is compared with Sentinel-2 true color images, Sentinel-3, MODIS vegetation products, and observations from the US DOE research aircraft on selected days from the Holistic Interactions of Shallow Clouds, Aerosols, and Land-Ecosystems (HI-SCALE) campaign. Unlike MODIS or Sentinel-3, our approach to retrieve the GVF is independent of absolute reflectance or photosynthetic response. Spatial patterns in vegetation distribution are similar in all three satellite approaches, however MODIS underestimates the vegetation cover by about 10% compared to the Sentinel-2, -3 retrievals over the study domain. The largest contrast in MODIS and Sentinel-2, -3 is found when the GVF is less than 0.2 or greater than 0.9, likely as a result of different retrieval approaches and spectral bands used to estimate the vegetation products. The NDVI retrieved from MODIS is also underestimated compared to the aircraft observations suggesting that MODIS underestimates both NDVI and GVF. In the past, various satellite observations have been used to retrieve the vegetation fraction at medium (0.25–0.50 km) and coarser resolutions (15 km) but our approach is extended to a much higher (10 m) resolution. Our analysis from Sentinel-2 shows large spatial variability in GVF and a clear disparity with estimates from MODIS and Sentinel-3 satellites. The new approach to estimate GVF has the potential to increase spatial accuracy and precision of surface properties relevant for crop and forest management, surface and energy balance processes, and land surface parameterizations in atmospheric models.

ROLE OF WOMEN IN SUSTAINABLE AGROFORESTRY

As the third largest forest owner in the world, farm activities in the forest land (known as agroforestry) may found in any forest land in Indonesia. Especially when we look at the history of forest management since the days of pre-colonial, colonial, and independence. The need of agricultural land is also one factor that increasing loss of forest land. At the meanwhile issues on forest and agricultural services for the whole ecosystem are become more important. The dynamic process in forest and agriculture management can also be seen in community involvement in the management, both men and women. Women, “the guard of mother nature”, are able to perform forest management with agricultural activities in it. Maintenance ecosystem function and food needs of mankind is resolved. Women of just a middleman or even just the role of ‘cheerleaders’ in the distribution of timber forest products in Pelluso (1992), become key players in the forest management and other activities (agriculture) in it. Study in Soreang (2008) and Clanjur (2012-2014), present the evidence. How women, after the ‘missing’ of their male partner, are able to maintain forest. Not just to maintain the ecological functions, but also the social, economic, and cultural function of forest. These are also the picture of sustainable practice of agroforestry conducted by women.

Understory biomass measurement in a dense plantation forest based on drone-SfM data by a manual low-flying drone under the canopy

Forest is an important part of the environmental system, which has a significant impact on soil hydrological characteristics and forest landscapes, because these processes are influenced by forest management and understory vegetation. Quantitative understory vegetation biomass (UVB) measurement and estimation are vital processes in forest ecology and environmental management. However, these estimations are difficult to make on a large scale especially dense planted forest. Here, we applied catchment-scale Structure from Motion and a manually operated ultralow-flying drone under the canopy of a dense planted (2000 stems/ha) Japanese cedar/cypress plantation forest to reconstruct the understory. An understory drone survey was performed over a 1.1-ha sub-catchment to generate a canopy height model based on dense point cloud data. A biomass survey of three 16-m2 harvesting plots was conducted to compute understory vegetation volume data based on point clouds. Combined with harvested biomass data in the field, quantitative models were developed between the understory vegetation volume and biomass. Subsequently, the models were used to map spatial understory vegetation biomass distribution in the sub-catchments. Aerial photos taken by the ultralow-flying drones under the canopy yielded a high-resolution catchment-scale understory with point cloud density >10/cm2. Strong cubic model coefficients of determination (R2 = 0.75) predicted the understory vegetation biomass based on the canopy height model. The mean understory vegetation biomass was 0.82 kg/m2 and dominated by low ferns. In the present study, we successfully reconstructed the multilayered forest structure and generated understory vegetation biomass distribution models. This results also will be essential to evaluate the erosion and evapotranspiration in dense plantation forests and future environmental management.

Socio-ecological patterns of citizens science programs: The case of forestry observations in 3 central Mexico states

Citizen science programs have been used to identify and address socio-environmental issues. Environmental participatory monitoring has been particularly effective in providing useful information for forest management and decision-making processes directed at formulating policy. However, recent studies have identified a recurrent participation pattern: citizen science appears to concentrate on affluent municipalities while excluding highly marginalized regions. For this research, a non-parametric analysis of the distribution of observations collected via iNaturalist, a citizens science app for participatory monitoring, is presented. Spearman correlations and a Kruskal-Wallis test were conducted for plant species observations in three states of central Mexico. Results suggest that participatory monitoring patterns are influenced by the marginalization degree of municipalities. Percentage of natural protected areas and forested surface per municipality were also analyzed as variables useful to explain the spatial concentration of participation. Evidence shows that, contrary to observed patterns of exclusion, marginalized municipalities with a designated natural protected area concentrate more participation. Participatory monitoring via citizen science programs is discussed as a valuable tool for developing countries challenged with restricted budgets for environmental management.

Operations research to develop optimization processes in forest management:Field determination of multivariate models

The most widely used technique in operations research is linear programming, and one of the most widely used algorithms in thisfield is simplex method. The management of forest ecosystems is an ideal field to implement optimization models, since clear goalsmust normally be met, and the available resources are usually limited. The aspects involved are complex, several routes of actioncan be taken, and it is important in order to make the best decision. The simplex method, once objective function and restrictions areestablished, allows to consider all the possibilities, and make the decision that provides the greatest advantages. Undoubtedly, awrong decision can cause damage to forest ecosystem and economic losses, so a tool that helps in this work will always be a greatally. Once the problem has been formulated in mathematical terms, software or programming languages specialized are usuallyrequired, which can be a problem if access to computer equipment and internet connectivity is not the most appropriate. Mobiledevices such as cell phones, tablets, and programmable calculators have become small computers at an affordable price, withincreasingly powerful processors and a good amount of memory. This, coupled with availability of applications of simplex method,or even the ability to program it directly on these devices, makes it possible to have in the palm of hand tools that previouslyrequired very sophisticated computers. This work reviews the options currently available to run simplex method, both analyticallyand graphically, on portable devices. This topic is of interest to both professional and student of forestry sector.

Impact of protected areas and co-management on forest cover: A case study from Teknaf Wildlife Sanctuary, Bangladesh

Deforestation is a matter of serious global concern. Establishing protected areas (PAs), which cover nearly 15% of the world’s surface, is one of the leading approaches to forest conservation. The recent global expansion of PAs has led to the inclusion of local communities in the forest management process, an approach referred to as “co-management.” PAs under co-management are expected to conserve biodiversity while providing support to local communities. This trend for forest co-management has shown mixed results, and a better understanding of its impact on forests and people is required. This study attempts to explore the forest-cover change in a PA of Bangladesh—the Teknaf Wildlife Sanctuary (TWS). Remote sensing will be used to assess the land-cover change, followed by a household survey to define the impact of local settlements responsible for this change. To analyze the impact of PA and co-management on forest cover, satellite images from 1989, 2007, 2009, and 2015 were considered due to the availability of quality images. The study found that from 1989 to 2015, the region saw a 46% decrease in forest cover compared to 64% inside the PA boundary; deforestation occurred more inside the PA than outside. Moreover, after the implementation of a co-management approach, the rate of deforestation increased inside the PA. Besides the forest conversion, the tree coverage shifted from the core forest area toward the settlement area, causing serious negative impacts on biodiversity. The household survey listed 57,404 households in the region, among which 5195 were situated inside the PA. Co-management in PAs was intended to involve local communities in forest management, but this study showed that the local community is causing more deforestation and shifting the tree coverage towards the forest boundaries. The creation of a large, multi-use buffer zone to ensure the long-term tenure of the core forest area could be a viable option. Such buffer zones can provide effective security and enhance local people’s livelihoods.

Employing artificial neural network for effective biomass prediction: An alternative approach

Wood products and energy production originating from harnessing the tree biomass require optimizing the forest management process so as to ensure the sustainability of the forest ecosystems. This optimization can also act as a preventive factor towards limiting the consequences of climate change given it is a contributing factor for maintaining healthy ecosystems. To that end, the need to develop methodologies that enable accurate prediction of biomass is more than evident. Nonlinear seemingly unrelated regressions, Dirichlet regressions, and the Levenberg-Marquardt artificial neural network (LMANN) modeling techniques have been applied for whole tree (above and below ground) biomass prediction as well as its components. We conducted a comparative analysis of these approaches using destructively sampled black pine (Pinus nigra Arnold.) trees. Results showed that the LMANN models are flexible and fit tree biomass data with the highest accuracy. Inherent deviations of the biomass data from regression assumptions further support the use of LMANN models as a reliable and promising alternative to the other modeling approaches.