Sustainability Of Forest Management Practices Research Articles

Comment on “Long-term decline of sugar maple following forest harvest, Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, New Hampshire”

Cleavitt et al. (2018, Can. J. For. Res. 48(1): 23–31, doi: 10.1139/cjfr-2017-0233 ) report a lack of sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.) regeneration in Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest (HBEF), Watershed 5 (W5), following whole-tree clearcut harvesting and purport that harvesting-induced soil calcium depletion contributed to regeneration failure of this species. In New England, clearcutting is a silvicultural strategy used to promote less tolerant species, especially birch (Betula spp.; Marquis (1969), Birch Symposium Proceedings, USDA Forest Service; Leak et al. (2014), doi: 10.2737/NRS-GTR-132 ), which is just the outcome that the authors report. While this study reports an impressive, long-term data set, given broad interest in sugar maple and sustainability of forest management practices, we feel that it is critical to more fully explore the role of nutrition on sugar maple dynamics, both prior to and during the experiment, and to more fully review the scientific record on the role of whole-tree clearcutting in nutrient-induced sugar maple dynamics.

Assessment of sustainability of forest management practices on the operational level in northwestern Russia – a case study from the Republic of Karelia

ABSTRACTThe main aim of the article is to assess the consequences of newly proposed legislative initiative on introducing intensive forest management practices in Russia. Implementation of norms and its effect on sustainable forest management practices have been analysed in this study on one enterprise operating in the Republic of Karelia. This meant modelling of forest growth, clear cuts and regeneration within 100 km radius from the mill for two alternative management scenarios with fixed demand of wood based on current norms and decreasing harvesting age to half from the current. Wood demand of the enterprise, structure and accessibility of forest resources, i.e. forest road infrastructure were taken into account in the analysis. Both forest management scenarios decreased the total growing stock significantly, and therefore considered as non-sustainable practices. In addition, forest age structure was more uneven for both scenarios at the end of the simulation period. Comparison of two alternative management practices showed that the implementation of intensive forest management in Russia requires new norms that would be based on principles of sustainable forest management.

Environmental and Financial Sustainability of Forest Management Practices

One of the guiding themes for forest management policy throughout much of North America is sustained yield. The basic premise behind this theme is that a constant or non-declining flow of services from the forest is socially desireable. Unfortunately, the act of capturing the benefits of this service (timber harvesting) often has detrimental effects on the timber-productive capacity of a forest site. This paper presents a dynamic program that is used to determine the optimal harvest system choice for a timber stand described by average piece size, stand density, a measure of site quality, and stumpage value. The harvest systems are defined by logging costs, reforesation and rehabilitation costs, and the impact of the system on the productivity of the site. An application of the model is presented for lodgepole pine in Alberta. We conclude that at high discount rates, soil conservation is not economically rational. At lower discount rates, some degree of soil conservation is desirable on the more productive sites. At lower discount rates, there also appears to be an incentive for mroe intensive forest management. Limitations on acceptable harvest practices can have a large impact on optimal rotation age and the volume harvested. There is a large opportunity cost resulting from a requirement for sustainable volume production because of the impact of harvsting on soil productivity.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

The extent of edge effects increases during post-harvesting forest succession

As human activities increase landscape fragmentation, edge effects on ecosystem properties are growing at an unprecedented rate. The influence of logging-induced edges on biodiversity can ultimately jeopardize the long-term sustainability of forest management practices. These effects are difficult to quantify, however, because temporal changes in edge influence on residual forests remain poorly understood. We examined vegetation gradients along 17 transects crossing the boundary between stands harvested 5–66years ago and old-growth boreal forests. We estimated the magnitude and distance of edge influence (MEI and DEI, respectively) in uncut old-growth forests, and investigated how these attributes of edge influence changed during the regeneration of adjacent logged stands. Analyses indicated that three types of vegetation gradients were necessary to describe the temporal changes of edge influence on vegetation in uncut forests. No temporal changes were detected for MEI during 66years of forest succession. Conversely, DEI in uncut forests ranged from 0 to 70m, and increased as the adjacent logged stands regenerated. This edge expansion through time, together with persistent differences in vegetation between logged and old-growth forests for at least 66years, raise questions as to whether or not forest management involving fast rotations between logging events can maintain biodiversity. In forest ecosystems where edge habitat widens while vegetation has still not recovered to its typical characteristics, the planning of an adequate combination of rotation time, size and perimeter/area ratio of residual forests becomes critical to achieve the objectives of sustainable management, including regional biodiversity preservation.

CONSEQÜÊNCIAS DA FRAGMENTAÇÃO DO HABITAT NA ECOLOGIA REPRODUTIVA DE ESPÉCIES ARBÓREAS EM FLORESTAS TROPICAIS, COM ÊNFASE NA AMAZÔNIA

CONSEQUENCES OF HABITAT FRAGMENTATION ON THE REPRODUCTIVE ECOLOGY OF TIMBER TREES IN TROPICAL FORESTS, WITH EMPHASIS AT THE AMAZONIA. The Amazon Forest comprises an area of 4.9 millions of km 2 , equivalent to 40% of the world tropical forests, with the greatest diversity of biodiversity on Earth. Despite its importance on the biodiversity conservation, 17% of its forest cover has been removed on the last three decades. Timber industry and agriculture activities are threatening the integrity and functionality of the Amazon forest. The ecological sustainability of forest management practices must include criteria and indicators for genetic variability maintenance and its correlated processes. Habitat fragmentation reduces continuous forest lands to small isolated areas, thus reducing the effective number of trees, the number of pollen donors, and the amount of compatible pollen deposited on the flowers pistils. This may lead to low fruit set. A decline on the pollinators’ population, increase on inbreeding and changes on the pollinator species composition is also expected. In order to guarantee the forest management sustainability, including the upholding of genetic diversity in managed forests, it is essential to contemplate information on the reproductive biology of the target species. Besides, the impact on the pollinators frequency and composition should not be disregarded.

Utility of Dynamic‐Landscape Metapopulation Models for Sustainable Forest Management

Abstract: We evaluated the utility of combining metapopulation models with landscape‐level forest‐dynamics models to assess the sustainability of forest management practices. We used the Brown Creeper (Certhia americana) in the boreal forests of northern Ontario as a case study. We selected the Brown Creeper as a potential indicator of sustainability because it is relatively common in the region but is dependent on snags and old trees for nesting and foraging; hence, it may be sensitive to timber harvesting. For the modeling we used RAMAS Landscape, a software package that integrates RAMAS GIS, population‐modeling software, and LANDIS, forest‐dynamics modeling software. Predictions about the future floristic composition and structure of the landscape under a variety of management and natural disturbance scenarios were derived using LANDIS. We modeled eight alternative forest management scenarios, ranging in intensity from no timber harvesting and a natural fire regime to intensive timber harvesting with salvage logging after fire. We predicted the response of the Brown Creeper metapopulation over a 160‐year period and used future population size and expected minimum population size to compare the sustainability of the various management scenarios. The modeling methods were easy to apply and model predictions were sensitive to the differences among management scenarios, indicating that these methods may be useful for assessing and ranking the sustainability of forest management options. Primary concerns about the method are the practical difficulties associated with incorporating fire stochasticity in prediction uncertainty and the number of model assumptions that must be made and tested with sensitivity analysis. We wrote new software to help quantify the contribution of landscape stochasticity to model prediction uncertainty.

Sustainability of forest management practices: Evaluation through a simulation model of nutrient cycling

Forest harvesting may interfere with long-term ecosystem structure and function and different harvesting methods will differ in their effects on soil fertility (e.g. whole-tree harvesting versus stem removal). In the case of thinning, effects of thinning intensity, rotation length and site quality must be assessed in order to formulate sustainable management practices. Assessment of the relative impact of these practices is difficult, however, given the long temporal scales involved. In this study, we implement a process-based model of nutrient cycling to evaluate temporal changes in ecosystem nutrient dynamics of managed and non-managed forest stands. The model was specifically designed to asses differences between two contrasting site-quality Pinus sylvestris L. stands in the western Pyrenees (Navarre, Spain) managed under two thinning intensities. The model describes the main nutrient fluxes in the stand: litterfall, decomposition, retranslocation, root uptake and management type, and it was parameterized and verified with 3 years of field data. After model verification we examined the effects of thinning intensity, thinning frequency and harvesting method (whole-tree versus stem removal) on potential nutrient losses. The results suggest that in this heterogeneous region, sustainability of forestry practices is strongly site dependent. N and P were particularly sensitive to overexploitation and in no case could whole-tree removal be recommended as it may have a strong negative effect on nutrient reserves. In relation to previous nutrient cycling models, our model offers a satisfactory compromise between simplicity, biological realism and predictability, and it proved to be a useful tool to predict short-term changes in nutrient reserves as well as to evaluate possible negative effects of applying current thinning prescriptions on long-term sustainability of managed forests in the western Pyrenees.

Ecological sustainability of forest management practices: The case of the regenerating sal forests of south-western West Bengal, India

Under the Joint Forest Management (JFM) programme in south-western West Bengal, regenerating deciduous forests are being managed for the extraction of numerous plant products, both for commercial benefits and subsistence-level use, on a large scale. However, there has been little serious evaluation of the long-term biological sustainability of forest produce extraction in these forests or the accompanying ecological impacts. On the other hand, observational evidence indicates biological impoverishment of forest ecosystems and soils as a result of the forest management practices prevalent in the region such as clearfelling, extraction of understorey vegetation and monocultural plantations. The present review brings together the available scientific information on the ecological sustainability of the forest management practices currently prevalent in south-western West Bengal in an attempt to delineate the lacunae in our knowledge regarding the issue and draw up a research strategy that can be used to design long-term management plans for the forests of this region. It was found that currently there is little or no scientific data on the ecological impacts of forest produce extraction either at the species-or at the ecosystem-level. In view of the status of current knowledge on the ecological sustainability of JFM in the study area, (1) critical areas of research, (2) generalised research strategies, and (3) ways to expand the ongoing initiatives in participatory vegetation monitoring for long-term forest monitoring, are delineated for this region, based on interventions carried out in other parts of India and the rest of the world.

Research in Non-Timber Forest Products

Summary Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) have emerged as a complex set of issues reflecting changes in society and how natural resources are regarded. These issues range from the sustainability of forest management practices to the relationship of diverse cultures and communities to public lands and their resources. Research and its relationship to this set of issues is a relatively unknown aspect of NTFPs. This paper reports on early NTFP research by scientists in the USDA Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station. It characterizes efforts over approximately five years and identifies their key elements. It also discusses the role research has and could play in addressing the problems and questions associated with NTFPs and sustainable forestry .

Optical remote-sensing techniques for the assessment of forest inventory and biophysical parameters

Forests are the most widely distributed ecosystem on the earth, affecting the lives of most humans daily, either as an economic good or an environmental regulator. As forests are a complex and widely distributed ecosystem, remote sensing provides a valuable means of monitoring them. Remote-sensing instruments allow for the collection of digital data through a range of scales in a synoptic and timely manner. Accordingly, a variety of image-processing techniques have been developed for the estimation of forest inventory and biophysical parameters from remotely sensed images. The use of remotely sensed images allows for the mapping of large areas efficiently and in a digital manner that allows for accuracy assessment and integration with geographic information systems. This article provides a summary of the image-processing methods which may be applied to remotely sensed data for the estimation of forest structural parameters while also acknowledging the various limitations that are presented. Current advancements in remote-sensor technology are increasing the information content of remotely sensed data and resulting in a need for new analysis techniques. These advances in sensor technology are occurring concurrently with changes in forest management practices, requiring detailed measurements intended to enable ecosystem-level management in a sustainable manner. This review of remote-sensing image analysis techniques, with reference to forest structural parameters, illustrates the dependence between spatial resolution to the level of detail of the parameters which may be extracted from remotely sensed imagery. As a result, the scope of a particular investigation will influence the type of imagery required and the limits to the detail of the parameters that may be estimated. The complexity of parameters that may be extracted can be increased through combinations of image-processing techniques. For example, multitemporal analysis of image radiance values or multispectral image classification maps may be analysed to undertake the assessment of such forest characteristics as area of forest disturbances, forest succession and development, or sustainability of forest management practices. Further, the combination of spectral and spatial information extraction techniques shows promise for increasing the accuracy of estimates of forest inventory and biophysical parameters.

Environmental and Financial Sustainability of Forest Management Practices

One of the guiding themes for forest management policy throughout much of North America is sustained yield. The basic premise behind this theme is that a constant or non-declining flow of services from the forest is socially desireable. Unfortunately, the act of capturing the benefits of this service (timber harvesting) often has detrimental effects on the timber-productive capacity of a forest site. This paper presents a dynamic program that is used to determine the optimal harvest system choice for a timber stand described by average piece size, stand density, a measure of site quality, and stumpage value. The harvest systems are defined by logging costs, reforesation and rehabilitation costs, and the impact of the system on the productivity of the site. An application of the model is presented for lodgepole pine in Alberta. We conclude that at high discount rates, soil conservation is not economically rational. At lower discount rates, some degree of soil conservation is desirable on the more productive sites. At lower discount rates, there also appears to be an incentive for mroe intensive forest management. Limitations on acceptable harvest practices can have a large impact on optimal rotation age and the volume harvested. There is a large opportunity cost resulting from a requirement for sustainable volume production because of the impact of harvsting on soil productivity.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)