1. L2 Concepts and Criteria for Forest Management
Dr. Han Chen Office: BB-1009F Phone:
Chapter 2, Davis et al. 2002
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FORE3215, Lecture 2

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
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3. 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
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4. 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”
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5. 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 CJFR. 8:
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6. Frequency of Fire and Forest Structure

7. 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
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8. 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)
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9. 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
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10. 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
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11. 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
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12. 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
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13. 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
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