Protection Of Forest Resources Research Articles

Formaldehyde-free bio-composites based on Pleurotus ostreatus substrate and corn straw waste

Corn straw-based board has great potential for the protection of forest resources, waste recycling, and sustainable economic development. However, corn stalk-based board has poor mechanical properties due to its short fiber length and poor water resistance because of the presence of numerous hydrophilic hydroxyl functional groups in its structure. Natural mycelium originating from waste Pleurotus ostreatus substrate is a hydrophobic bio-adhesive. In the present study, formaldehyde-free corn stalk/P. ostreatus substrate bio-composites were prepared using the hot-pressing technique without the addition of any chemical adhesive. The mechanical properties and water resistance of the prepared bio-composites were excellent. The highest internal bonding strength (IBS) of 2.16 MPa and the minimum thickness swelling (TS) of 18.3% were observed, which are beyond the national standards for particleboard in China. These bio-composites were prepared using a simple, green, and convenient manufacturing method to promote their popularization and application. The method may, therefore, be used as a novel technical measure to resolve the problem of overuse of forestry resources and waste disposal.

The Role of Local Governments in Supporting Social Forestry Implementation in Indonesia: A Social Network Analysis and Evidence from Eastern Indonesia

Social forestry has become an integral part of Indonesia's efforts to balance economic development, conservation of natural resources, and the well-being of local communities. The Jokowi administration has made significant efforts to promote this initiative, including allocating 12.7 million hectares of state forest areas and recognizing it as an instrument to address tenure issues in forest areas through the Omnibus Law on Job Creation with getting support from various regulations by relevant ministries. However, social forestry support is needed down to the local government/regional levels (provincial, regency, and village levels). This study aims to analyze the local government’s support for implementing social forestry. We employ Social Network Analysis to identify local government entities and their relationships in implementation processes. Additionally, document analysis is used to assess the extent of local government support through their working documents. The study shows that local government support for the implementation is still limited, with its execution primarily concentrated within a few agencies. Social forestry has not yet fully become a strategy for achieving community well-being around forests, enhancing local economies, or protecting forest resources. Furthermore, stakeholders' understanding of social forestry, resource availability, and local government policies to support it remains limited. Improvements in these three aspects are necessary to ensure successful implementation at the regional levels.

Legal terminology in environmental and land law: theoretical-legal analysis

The article examines the peculiarities of the formation of legal terminology in the field of environmental and land law and proves the feasibility of its improvement in connection with the adaptation of the norms of national law to the law of the European Union. The article states that today in Ukraine there is significant environmental pollution, climate change, land deterioration, which significantly worsened in connection with the military aggression of the Russian Federation and caused a particularly dangerous ecological situation in the country. The article proves that the implementation of the principles of the right of citizens to a safe environment, ensuring human safety, protection and rational use of land, forest, water and subsoil resources is not possible without a clear definition of legal prescriptions enshrined in the law. The article states that one of the important aspects of the language of law is legal terminology, which makes it possible to formulate the content of a legal document. The article defines the concepts of “terminology”, “terminology”, “legal terminology”. It is noted that it is not appropriate to equate the concepts of “terminology” and “terminological system”. It has been investigated that despite the presence of established terminology in environmental law, the presence of terms in need of improvement is observed in this field, namely: “ecological law” and “environmental law”. It has been proved that for the purpose of further codification of environmental law, it seems appropriate to use the term “environmental law” as an established term of EU legislation. It has been analyzed that today the language of the law in the field of land relations is gaining importance, which is due to the formation of the land market in Ukraine and the need to adapt the norms of land law to EU law. It is noted that in land law there is a problem of identifying the terms: “land”, “land plot”. It was noted that the legal terms related to the formation of the land market in Ukraine need improvement and detailing. It was concluded that legal terminology in the field of environmental and land law is one of the important aspects of the development of the language of law. The issue of improving legal terminology in the field of environmental and land law is one of the necessary steps that will contribute to the unification and harmonization of the legal norms of the specified fields in the context of adapting the norms of national law to EU law.

ASSESSMENT OF FOREST DISTURBANCES USING REMOTE SENSING: CASE OF KALIWA RIVER FOREST RESERVE (KRFR), PHILIPPINES

Abstract. The Kaliwa River Forest Reserve (KRFR) is located in the southwestern part of the Sierra Madre Mountain Range, Philippines. KRFR is one of the most important forest reserves in the country that is adjacent to urban areas and is very much affected by various forest disturbances. Forest disturbances can be caused by either anthropogenic or natural phenomena (e.g., typhoons, drought, and pathogen outbreaks) and may have negative effects on the forest structure and function. The study used the Normalized Difference Moisture Index (NDMI) in detecting forest disturbances for the period of 2010, 2015, and 2020. Results showed that the deforestation rate has significantly decreased from 6.22% in 2010 to 3.40% in 2020. The National Greening Program (NGP) and intensified forest protection activities of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) may have contributed to the observed decreasing trend in deforestation rate. However, forest disturbance in the closed and open forest areas of KRFR gradually increased from 0.11% to 0.40%. Based on the accuracy assessment, the NDMI performed well in determining forest disturbances with mean values of 0.91 and 0.93 for completeness and correctness, respectively. The main contributor to forest disturbances in KRFR was mainly anthropogenic factors such as kaingin, illegal logging, urban sprawl, and upland farming. Outputs of this study can aid in the formulation of policies for better forest resource management, rehabilitation, and protection in the protected area.

Assessing forest cover changes in Dak Lak province (Central Highlands of Vietnam) from multi-temporal Landsat data and machine learning techniques

Dak Lak is a province in the Central Highlands region of Vietnam, with a large area of forests and forestry land. However, the forest cover has changed dramatically in recent times due to the influence of human activities and climate change. This article presents the results of assessing forest cover changes in Dak Lak province from Landsat satellite image data for the period 2000 – 2020. Three Landsat satellite image scenes, including Landsat 5 TM images taken in March 2000 and February 2010 and Landsat 8 OLI image taken in February 2020 are used to classify forest cover. Three common machine learning techniques, including Random Forest (RF), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Classification and Regression Tree (CART) and the traditional maximum likelihood classification algorithm are used to classify forest cover in the study area, thereby choosing the method with the highest accuracy. The results show that the RF algorithm has the highest accuracy in classifying forest cover from multi-temporal Landsat images by comparing the overall accuracy value and the Kappa coefficient. The obtained results are used to build forest cover change maps in the period 2000 - 2010, 2010 - 2020 and 2000 - 2020. The results received in the study provide information to help managers in monitoring and protecting forest resources.

Beyond Ostrom: Randomized experiment of the impact of individualized tree rights on forest management in Ethiopia

We argue that while community forest management is effective in protecting forest resources, as argued by Ostrom, such management may fail to provide the proper incentives to nurture such resources because the benefits of forest management are collectively shared. This study proposes a mixed private and community management system characterized by communal protection of community-owned forest areas and individual management of individually owned trees as a desirable arrangement for timber forest management in developing countries. By conducting a randomized experiment in Ethiopia, we found that the mixed management system significantly stimulated intensive forest management activities, including pruning, guarding, and watering. Furthermore, more timber trees and forest products were extracted from the treated areas, which are byproducts of tree management (e.g., thinned trees and pruned branches). In contrast, the extracted volumes of non-timber forest products unrelated to tree management (fodder and honey) did not change with the intervention.

Mechanical soil disturbance in a pine savanna has multiyear effects on plant species composition

AbstractSoil disturbance threatens native perennial grasslands and savannas worldwide, including pine savannas of the North American Coastal Plain. Disk harrows are used in the region to plow linear features for firebreaks to contain prescribed fires, to manage game and other wildlife, and to reduce wildfire hazard to protect forest resources. However, the long‐term response of vegetation to these disturbances has not been well investigated. Our aim was to compare vegetation changes over time (0–9 years) following repeated disturbance by disking and a single disturbance by disking for firebreaks with undisturbed vegetation within a native pine savanna. We hypothesized that (1) a single disking event has multiyear effects on plant species composition and abundance because of the loss of perennial, dispersal‐limited species, but that partial survival of propagules allows the recovery to be more complete than following repeated disturbance, and (2) post‐disturbance changes are determined by species' life‐history characteristics resulting in a successional trajectory toward the undisturbed community. We established 10 plots within a repeated‐disturbance firebreak and a single‐disturbance firebreak, and in undisturbed vegetation (n = 30). We identified plant species within the plots six times over nine years, categorized plant species by life span, seed bank persistence, and dispersal mechanism, and assessed changes in the plant community using ordination. Changes in species composition in both repeated and single disturbance treatments showed a pattern consistent with succession toward the undisturbed plant community, but vegetation in neither disturbance treatment matched undisturbed treatment conditions within the nine years of study. Repeated‐disturbance plots progressed from a high occurrence of annuals to species with persistent seed banks and wind‐dispersed species. Single‐disturbance plots were more strongly associated with perennials, species lacking a persistent seed bank, and species dispersed by vertebrate consumption, but not to the same degree as undisturbed plots, although differences decreased slightly over time. Our results relating to narrow mechanical soil disturbances in pine savanna vegetation are consistent with studies concluding that similar but larger scale disturbances have long‐term degradational effects on the plant community. Therefore, conservation management plans should consider the possible negative long‐term effects of soil disturbance on native perennial herbaceous plant communities.

Fire-PPYOLOE: An Efficient Forest Fire Detector for Real-Time Wild Forest Fire Monitoring

Forest fire has the characteristics of sudden and destructive, which threatens safety of people’s life and property. Automatic detection and early warning of forest fire in the early stage is very important for protecting forest resources and reducing disaster losses. Unmanned forest fire monitoring is one popular way of forest fire automatic detection. However, the actual forest environment is complex and diverse, and the vision image is affected by various factors easily such as geographical location, seasons, cloudy weather, day and night, etc. In this paper, we propose a novel fire detection method called Fire-PPYOLOE. We design a new backbone and neck structure leveraging large kernel convolution to capture a large arrange area of reception field based on the existing fast and accurate object detection model PP-YOLOE. In addition, our model maintains the high-speed performance of the single-stage detection model and reduces model parameters by using CSPNet significantly. Extensive experiments are conducted to show the effectiveness of Fire-PPYOLOE from the views of detection accuracy and speed. The results show that our Fire-PPYOLOE is able to detect the smoke- and flame-like objects because it can learn features around the object to be detected. It can provide real-time forest fire prevention and early detection.

Early-Stage Pine Wilt Disease Detection via Multi-Feature Fusion in UAV Imagery

Pine wilt disease (PWD) is a highly contagious and devastating forest disease. The timely detection of pine trees infected with PWD in the early stage is of great significance to effectively control the spread of PWD and protect forest resources. However, in the spatial domain, the features of early-stage PWD are not distinctly evident, leading to numerous missed detections and false positives when directly using spatial-domain images. However, we found that frequency domain information can more clearly express the characteristics of early-stage PWD. In this paper, we propose a detection method based on deep learning for early-stage PWD by comprehensively utilizing the features in the frequency domain and the spatial domain. An attention mechanism is introduced to further enhance the frequency domain features. Employing two deformable convolutions to fuse the features in both domains, we aim to fully capture semantic and spatial information. To substantiate the proposed method, this study employs UAVs to capture images of early-stage pine trees infected with PWD at Dahuofang Experimental Forest in Fushun, Liaoning Province. A dataset of early infected pine trees affected by PWD is curated to facilitate future research on the detection of early-stage infestations in pine trees. The results on the early-stage PWD dataset indicate that, compared to Faster R-CNN, DETR and YOLOv5, the best-performing method improves the average precision (AP) by 17.7%, 6.2% and 6.0%, and the F1 scores by 14.6%, 3.9% and 5.0%, respectively. The study provides technical support for early-stage PWD tree counting and localization in the field in forest areas and lays the foundation for the early control of pine wood nematode disease.

Stability Analysis of Fixed Points in Forest Biomass Depletion Model

The main focus of this article is to present a model that explains the depletion in forest biomass due to population size , population pressure , and industrialization . This research explores the complex relationship between forest biomass, population growth, and industrialization. The model generates four fixed points that are all non-negative, and they are known as and . The article proceeds to analyze the stability of these fixed points in the context of forest biomass depletion. It is discovered that the fixed points and are saddle points and not stable, while the fixed point is stable if it meets certain conditions. The article concludes by carrying out numerical simulations to determine the equilibrium point of the model, which shows that forest resource biomass stability declines as population size, population pressure, and industrialization increase. The simulations reveal that population growth results in a depletion in forest resource biomass, while the opposite is true for the positive impact that forest resource biomass on population levels. Consequently, it is essential to regulate population density and industrialization to manage population growth and protect forest resources.

СПЕЦИФИЧЕСКИЕ ОСОБЕННОСТИ, ОПРЕДЕЛЯЮЩИЕ УСТОЙЧИВОЕ И РАЦИОНАЛЬНОЕ ЛЕСОПОЛЬЗОВАНИЕ В РОССИЙСКОЙ ФЕДЕРАЦИИ

Sustainable development of enterprises and rational forest management in the Russian Federation are distinguished by a number of specific features that are determined by the national, geographical and economic conditions of the country. Rich forest resources, which represent an important natural wealth of Russia, provide the potential for the development of the timber industry sector and create opportunities for rational forest management. Russia also has a unique natural environment, including diverse ecosystems and rare species of animals and plants. The rational and sustainable use of forests is becoming a priority for maintaining the biological diversity and environmental sustainability of the country. In general, the sustainable development of enterprises and rational forest management in the Russian Federation is a complex and multifaceted process that requires a harmonious interaction of economic, environmental, social and technological aspects. It is necessary to take into account the specifics of the country's natural, geographical and cultural characteristics, as well as comply with international standards and norms in the field of protection and sustainable use of forest resources. 
 The need to incorporate the entire set of existing specific features defining sustainable and rational forest management arose quite a long time ago, which led to the author's approach to this topic.
 The article considers the systematized list of specific features proposed by the author that determine the sustainable development of the subjects of the forest complex and rational forest management in the Russian Federation.

Forest Management in Ukraine Under War Conditions

Attention is drawn to scientifically based theoretical and practical approaches to the implementation of the concept of sustainable forest management and, accordingly, to ensuring the principles of sustainable forestry aimed at the adequate protection, use, and regeneration of forest resources in Ukraine during Russia's war against Ukraine. The main socio-economic and ecological aspects that influence the implementation of the concept of sustainable forest management at the national and regional level in the current conditions of Russia's military aggression against Ukraine are considered. The changes in the forest sector in the conditions of war are reflected, which must be considered from the point of view of understanding the principles of sustainable development, sustainable forestry, and the concept of sustainable forest management. It is proposed to develop and implement a theoretical, methodological, and practical approach to the implementation of the concept of sustainable forest management in Ukraine which would take into account the regional differences regarding the organisation and development of forestry in Ukraine.

Возрастная динамика нормальных древостоев ольхи серой в таежной зоне северо-востока европейской части России

In order to organize, plan and conduct forest management on a scientific basis in stands with predominance and participation of gray alder (Alnus incana (L.) Moench), formed in the conditions of the taiga zone, reliable data on the structure, growth and productivity of stands are needed. At present, there is an urgent need to develop growth progress tables for gray alder stands, as the areas occupied by this species have significantly increased as a result of abandoned agricultural lands overgrowth. The development of a unified system of regulatory and reference materials for accounting the number, assessment of the condition and volume of use of stands of gray alder in the European North of Russia is an important and urgent task. Growth progress tables for normal gray alder stands located in the taiga zone of the north-east of the European part of Russia have not been developed by anyone before. The purpose of this research is to study the age dynamics of normal gray alder stands to compile growth progress tables. We used 193 model trees of gray alder, as well as data from 175 sample plots. As a research result for the growth progress tables with relative stands density of 1.0 we obtained the equations for determining the average height, diameter, and stands stock by bonity classes. On the basis of the obtained equations, the tables of growth progress of normal stands by bonity classes were developed. The proposed tables will contribute to improving the accuracy of forest inventory, will give the opportunity to objectively assess the forest resources of the most represented stands, to forecast their growth when performing a set of works on the protection, conservation, and reproduction of forest resources, improving the ecological functions of the forest, as well as to control management in stands. For citation: Tretyakov S.V., Koptev S.V., Karaban A.A., Paramonov A.A., Davydov A.V. Age Dynamics of Normal Gray Alder Stands in the Taiga Zone of the North-East of the European Part of Russia. Lesnoy Zhurnal = Russian Forestry Journal, 2023, no. 6, pp. 70–80. (In Russ.). https://doi.org/10.37482/0536-1036-2023-6-70-80

Efficiency evaluation and nonlinear multi-objective optimization of forestry industry transformation in the Heilongjiang state-owned forest region

With the deepening of the concept of sustainable development of the whole society, protecting forest resources has become a crucial task of the current society. The present forestry industrial structure of Heilongjiang state-owned forest areas has undergone significant changes, and the transformation of the forestry industry has become increasingly prominent. How to deepen the forestry industry transformation and improve its efficiency has become an important research direction in forest areas. This work first analyzes the data envelopment method, and further designs the evaluation method of forestry transformation efficiency in forest areas. Then, the evaluation index system of forestry industry transformation efficiency in Heilongjiang state-owned forest areas is built. The relevant nonlinear multi-objective optimization (MOO) constraints are designed. Relevant data are quoted to evaluate the efficiency of the forestry industry transformation in the Heilongjiang state-owned forest areas. The results show that: (1) During 2015–2021, the average value of the scale, technical, and comprehensive production efficiencies of Heilongjiang state-owned forest areas were 0.765, 0.53, and 0.399, all of which were less than 1. And they were in a relatively ineffective state. (2) The overall industrial transformation of state-owned forest areas was optimistic. The technical efficiency decreased slightly in 2017, while the pure technical efficiency was greater than 1 in 2016 and 2018. The efficiency value increased to the peak by the end of 2021. (3) In the transformation of the forestry industry in state-owned forest areas, the influence of the industrial economy and resource protection subsystems was the first and backward, and the contribution of the social development subsystem was in the middle. (4) In the MOO problem, the forest area should be planned according to the proportion of public welfare, multi-functional, and commercial forests: 35.2%, 38.8%, and 26%, respectively. This work provides an essential reference for protecting forest resources and contributes to the transformation and development of the social forestry industry.

An attention-based dual-encoding network for fire flame detection using optical remote sensing

Automatic extraction of flame area plays an important role in forest fire detection, which can accurately understand the spatial distribution and development trend of forest fire, so as to effectively realize the protection of forest resources. However, due to the instability and spread of fires, and the complexity of the background, accurate early fire detection is extremely challenging. At the same time, the image pixel proportion of the flame area in early stage is much smaller than that in the background, which causes a serious class imbalance problem. With the fast development of deep learning, some achievements have been made in flame extraction, but there are still some deficiencies in the existing networks, such as limited feature representation, poor feature capturing ability on micro objects, insufficiency processing of local features, etc. This paper proposes an attention-based dual-encoding segmentation network, abbreviated as ADE-Net, for pixelwise early fire detection. To realize strong feature representation, a dual-encoding path, consisting of semantic units and spatial units, is introduced to extract richer features, and an attention fusion module (AFM) is introduced to fully integrate spatial and semantic information and achieve effective feature aggregation. In addition, faced with the class imbalance problem, a multi-attention fusion (MAF) module is introduced to obtain more discriminating features to make the segmentation network to focus on the key pixel areas. Furthermore, a feature enhancement module, named attention-guided enhancement (AGE) module, is proposed to enrich the feature representation of local feature maps. Finally, to realize better multi-scale global feature extraction and fusion, a global context fusion (GCF) module is proposed into the bottleneck layer for multi-scale feature enhancement. Experimental results show that the proposed ADE-Net has a good early fire detection ability from remote sensing images, and it has obtained a competitive advantage compared with advanced segmentation models.

Theoretical preconditions for the development of accounting in forestry enterprises on the challenges of sustainable development

Purpose. The purpose of the article is the formation of theoretical principles of accounting in forestry enterprises on the challenges of the concept of sustainable development, in terms of defining the directions of improving the information support system of rational forestry for the purpose of preservation, reproduction and use of forest resources at the micro and macro levels of the economy. Results. Based on the results of the study, it is established that to ensure the functioning of domestic forestry enterprises on the principles of sustainable development, a necessary condition is to take into account economic, environmental and social goals in management. For this purpose, the directions of economic operations on forest use (harvesting and processing of forest products, reproduction of forest resources) are identified, which can be used as a basis for clarifying the composition of accounting objects specific to forest enterprises for further development of their organizational and methodological support. It is proved that forest resources and losses caused to the environment due to irrational forest use should be reflected in accounting, which will allow forming information support for forest resources management at the microeconomic level. Scientific novelty. The lack of a developed management mechanism that would ensure the conservation, reproduction and rational use of forest resources leads to the loss of national wealth. The evolution of the modern world market economy necessitates the interaction of society and nature, which is based on the postulates of the theory of sustainable development. For forestry, it is the observance of the balance of economic interests of the subjects of forest relations and the protection of forest resources. The above necessitated the delineation of areas for improving the information system of rational forest use in order to preserve, reproduce and use forest resources at the micro and macro levels of the economy. Practical value. The main results of the study can be used: at the microeconomic level (forestry enterprises) – to develop a management mechanism that would ensure the conservation, reproduction and rational use of forest resources; improvement of the system of information support of rational forest use in terms of development of organizational and methodological support of accounting of objects specific to forestry; at the macroeconomic level – to prevent the loss of a component of the country’s national wealth – forest resources; control over the availability and condition of forest resources, which is a component of economic security of the state.

Understanding the impact of interprovincial trade on forest resources in China

Intensified interprovincial trade causes timber flows between regions in China, exacerbating the contradiction between economic development and forest conservation. To understand the impacts of interprovincial trade on forest resource depletion in China, this study developed a timber-extended multiregional input–output model to quantify the virtual timber harvest volume (THV) of each province. A forest stress index (FSI) is also developed to reflect the pressure of forest resource protection in different regions and evaluate the impacts of interprovincial trade on forest stress at national and provincial scales. The results showed that provinces within main forest zones (e.g., Guangxi, Guangdong, and Fujian) presented higher production-based THV than consumption-based THV while the opposite was true for provinces in the rest of the country (ROC) (e.g., Shanghai, Shandong, and Jiangsu). Interprovincial trade in China resulted in 36.86 million m3 of virtual timber flow annually (2008–2017 average), approximately 16.80% of the country's total production-based THV. During the study period, trade activities continuously reduced China's FSI, but ROC provinces mitigated their forest stress at the cost of increasing the burden on provinces in forest zones. Additionally, distant trade tended to have a stronger effect on provincial forest stress compared with trade between adjacent provinces. The findings identified the critical regions and trade routes that directly or indirectly drove forest degradation and revealed the effects of interprovincial trade on forest stress. Furthermore, this study proposed potential policy measures to promote the sustainable management of forest resources in China.

An Alternative Method for Dating of Wildfire Occurrence from Tree-Ring Cores: A Case Study in Northeastern Asia

The tree-ring fire scar stands as a pivotal proxy for reconstructing historical wildfire occurrences, providing invaluable context for comprehending contemporary wildfire activities during the Anthropocene era. Precise identification of fire scars often necessitates sampling complete tree disks. Yet, stringent forest resource protection policies limit such collection in certain regions, thus curtailing the application of tree-ring-based fire reconstruction. While current methods based on tree-ring cores can ascertain the age range of fire events, pinpointing the exact year remains challenging. In this study, we propose a novel approach for detecting fire occurrence years by recognizing abrupt shifts in the tree-ring geometric center (TRGC). This method entails extracting a minimum of three tree-ring cores from the uninjured side of the tree and in proximity to the fire scar. We validated this method’s efficacy using samples from Transbaikal of Russia, in northeastern Asia, where fire years have already been documented. Our results show that this method accurately identified the fire year in nine fire scars with a 67 percent probability of exact agreement with the actual fire year. It is noteworthy that this method particularly excels in cases of trees with a single fire scar. We recommend employing the traditional method of collecting tree-ring cores near the fire scar to establish the age range of the fire scar. Subsequently, within this determined range, we suggest detecting the shifts in the TRGC to accurately pinpoint the exact year of the fire scar.

Dynamic Change of Forest Ecological Benefit of the Natural Forest Protection Project in the Upper Reaches of Yangtze River

The Natural Forest Protection Project (NFPP) is an ecological restoration project aimed at safeguarding natural forests, and is one of China’s six main forestry initiatives. The upper reaches of the Yangtze River represent the main distribution area of natural forests in China, and are an important area for the implementation of the NFPP. A systematic assessment of forest ecosystem changes in the upper Yangtze River region before and after implementation of the NFPP is of great scientific significance for the improvement of the project implementation effect, regional ecological protection, and further protection and restoration of natural forest resources. This study uses the NFPP area in the Yangtze River’s upper reaches as the study area; the data are primarily derived from the 1998 and 2020 forest resources category II survey data, long-term monitoring data from forest ecological stations, and public social data published by authoritative Chinese organizations. Based on the above data, we used the full index system of forest ecosystem services, continuous observation, and inventory system with the distributed measurement method to analyze the dynamic changes in forest ecosystem services in the study area in terms of three aspects: physical quality, value quality, and dominant function. The results of the study show that: (1) over the studied time scale, compared to the 1998 baseline, the physical quantities (soil erosion control, water regulation, and PM10 retention) and value of each service function of the forest ecosystem in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River project area in 2020 showed a significant increasing trend; (2) at the spatial scale, changes in forest ecosystem service functions in the upper reaches of Yangtze River under the NFPP showed significant spatial heterogeneity from 1998 to 2020; (3) in 2020, the total value of forest ecosystem services in the study area was 3,261,161,000,000 yuan/a, of which the functional value of biodiversity conservation was 1,294,426,000,000 yuan/a and the functional value of water conservation was 841,069,000,000 yuan/a, indicating that the forest ecosystem of the study area plays an important role as a “green gene pool” and “green water reservoir”; (4) the forest ecosystem service functions of the NFPP in the upper reaches of Yangtze River are intricately tied to forest resource features such as forest area, forest volume, age-group structure of arbor forest, etc., which influence the physical quantity and value of each forest ecosystem service function to varying degrees. In addition to illustrating the amazing efficiency of the natural forest preservation initiative, this study provides a scientific foundation for future natural forest resource conservation and restoration. It can serve as a reference for the project’s subsequent development as well to provide scientific foundations and guidance for the development of the natural forest protection and restoration program and to promote the protection and restoration of more natural forest resources.

A Spatiotemporal Survey of Tikjda Forest Dynamics Over A 34-Year Period by Aerial Photographs

Abstract Obtaining accurate forest cover information and dynamics of land occupation, through time, such as the spatial extent and pattern of disturbance and recovery is essential knowledge and assistance for forest managers and a crucial basis for the protection and conservation of current forest resources. Because most recent researches have focused on forest field survey and monitoring, a land classification containing information on forest cover dynamics is critically needed. Over the last decades, advances in remote sensing technology have enabled an accurate classification of different land covers from several sensors and remotely sensed data. We presently retained Tikjda forest (Djurdjura southerner, Algeria) as a case study to investigate the possibility of aerial photos classification and to analyze the historical dynamics of the area using a change detection analysis of multi-temporal data. To classify the study area’s main cover types, we used photographs collected over a period of 34 years (i.e., from 1983 to 2017). The results revealed that in 2017, Tikjda forest was composed of forest areas (24.1%), degraded areas (49.7%), and barren areas (26.2%). Throughout the investigated period, the analysis revealed a notable increase in barren areas (+9.8%), and degraded areas (+14.4%), While forest areas experienced a significant decrease (−24.2%). Moreover, the results confirm the potential of aerial photographs for an accurate classification of forests.