L2 Concepts and Criteria for Forest Management Dr. Han Chen Office: BB-1009F Phone: 343-8342 Email: han.chen@lakeheadu.ca Chapter 2, Davis et al. 2002 Fore 3215 FORE3215, Lecture 2

Ecological, Economic, and Social Perspectives on Forest Management Ecological Forestry Generally analyzes forest resources from the standpoint of conserving native biodiversity and ecological productivity Natural disturbance patterns and processes as a guide Any relatively discrete event in time that disrupts ecosystem, community, or population structure and changes resources, substrate availability or the physical environment Return Interval, Severity, and Spatial Pattern Fore 3215

Ecological Forestry -- emulating disturbance process and their effects Selecting silvicultural systems: even-aged vs uneven-aged Legacy of live and dead trees left after harvest Cohorts rather than age classes Selecting the rotation age and desire age-class distribution Selecting the spatial pattern of harvests Fore 3215

Ecological Forestry Using historical range of variability (HRV) to distinguish disturbance patterns and their effects HRV is as an ecological guide for management of forest Selecting a time frame for estimating HRV is difficult and often limited by the availability of information on past landscape patterns Controversial, e.g., suggesting taking landscapes back to their “pre-Columbian conditions” Fore 3215

Fire and Age Structure Let p = the probability of fire burning any given stand in one year; 1/p is the fire circle for the forest f(x) = the frequency of age class x Van Wagner. 1978. CJFR. 8:220-227 Fore 3215

Frequency of Fire and Forest Structure

Ecological Forestry Habitat of individual species as a guide to management Focus on the “viability” of native species: Focal specie Indicator species: a) indicative of the status of a larger functional group of species, b) reflective of the status of a key habitat, or c) acting as an early warning of an anticipated stressor to ecological integrity (e.g., certain fish species in a river is indicative of water quality) Keystone species: whose effects on other ecological processes are greater than would be predicted from the abundance or biomass (e.g., the red-cockaded woodpecker creates cavities in living trees tat provide shelter for numerous other species Fore 3215

Focal species (cont’d) Ecological engineer: species who, by altering the habitat to their own needs, modify the availability of energy (food, water, or sunlight) and affect the fates and opportunity of other species (e.g., beaver) Umbrella species: species who, because of their large area requirements or use of multiple habitats encompass the habitat requirements of many other species (e.g.., deer) Link species: specie that play critical roles in the transfer of matter and energy across trophic levels or provide a critical link for energy transfer in complex food webs (e.g., prairie dogs in grassland ecosystems) Fore 3215

Economic Forestry Analyzes forest resources from the standpoint of maximizing their net benefit to humans Macroeconomics: Employment and income as a measure of benefit Microeconomics: Finding efficient solutions to forest resource problems Net present value as the arbitrator of worth Estimating the cost of alternative measures to promote biodiversity Fore 3215

Social Forestry Analyzes forest resources from the standpoint of sustaining the well-being of people communities, and society Distribution of forest benefits: communities in and around forests Community capacity to accommodate change Social acceptability Participatory democracy Fore 3215

A Comparison of Economic and Ecological Forestry Economic Forestry Ecological Forestry Focuses on inputs and outputs Focuses on conditions and processes Emphasizes what we know Emphasizes what we do not know Focuses on the relative short run (discounting) Focuses on the relative long run Seeks plans that give the maximum achievement of goals (close to edges) Seeks plans that give a midlevel achievement of goals (away from to edges) to allow for uncertainty Focuses on management goals to shape possible outcomes Focus on disturbance history to shape possible outcomes Tends to ignore catastrophic events (fires, floods) Tends to focus on catastrophic events Has faith in technological improvement Is suspicious of counting on technological improvement and progress Fore 3215

Evolving Policy for Sustainable Forests The 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro developed 64 indicators, grouped under 7 criteria Conservation of biological diversity Maintenance of productive capacity of forest ecosystems Maintenance of forest ecosystem health and vitality Conservation and maintenance of soil and water resources Maintenance of forest contribution to global carbon cycles Maintenance and enhancement of long-term multiple socioeconomic benefits to meet the needs of societies Legal, institutional, and economic framework for forest conservation and sustainable management Fore 3215

More Concepts Forest health and sustainable forest Forest health, like sustainability, has a human rather than a natural derivation An evaluation of “health” of a forest depends on the goals for the forest in question Mother Nature really does not care Adaptive management to address the uncertainties of sustainability Test well-designed alternatives to find “best” solutions NRM 3215