scholarly journals Managing Forests and Water for People under a Changing Environment

Forests ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 331
Author(s):  
Ge Sun ◽  
Kevin Bishop ◽  
Silvio Ferraz ◽  
Julia Jones

The Earth has entered the Anthropocene epoch and forest managers are facing unprecedented challenges to meet multiple ecosystem service demands from forests. Understanding the complex forest-water relations under a changing environment must add a human dimension, and this is essential in the move towards sustainable forest management in the 21st century. This Special Issue contains 10 papers presented at a joint international forest and water conference in Chile in 2018. These studies provide global examples on new advancements in sciences in forest ecohydrology, watershed management, and ecosystem service assessment under various geographical and socioeconomic settings.

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-96
Author(s):  
Yohanes Victor Lasi Usbobo

The implementation of todays forest management that based on formal-scientific knowledge and technical knowledge seems to fail to protect the forest from deforestation and the environmental damage. Decolonialisation of western knowledge could give an opportunity to identify and find the knowledge and practices of indigenous people in sustainable forest management. Forest management based on the indigenous knowledge and practices is believed easy to be accepted by the indigenous community due to the knowledge and practice is known and ‘lived’ by them. The Atoni Pah Meto from West Timor has their own customary law in forest management that is knows as Bunuk. In the installation of Bunuk, there is a concencus among the community members to protect and preserve the forest through the vow to the supreme one, the ruler of the earth and the ancestors, thus, bunuk is becoming a le’u (sacred). Thus, the Atoni Meto will not break the bunuk due to the secredness. Adapting the bunuk to the modern forest management in the Atoni Meto areas could be one of the best options in protecting and preserving the forest.


Forests ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 578 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefanie Linser ◽  
Bernhard Wolfslehner ◽  
Simon Bridge ◽  
David Gritten ◽  
Steven Johnson ◽  
...  

Growing concern about forest degradation and loss, combined with the political impetus supplied by the Earth Summit in 1992, led to the establishment of eleven intergovernmental, regional, and international forest-related processes focused on the use of criteria and indicators (C&I) for sustainable forest management (SFM). Up to 171 countries have participated in these processes to apply C&I frameworks as a tool for data collection, monitoring, assessment, and reporting on SFM and on achieving various forest-related UN Sustainable Development Goals. Based on an expert survey and literature analysis we identify six interlinked impact domains of C&I efforts: (1) enhanced discourse and understanding of SFM; (2) shaped and focused engagement of science in SFM; (3) improved monitoring and reporting on SFM to facilitate transparency and evidence-based decision-making; (4) strengthened forest management practices; (5) facilitated assessment of progress towards SFM goals; and (6) improved forest-related dialog and communication. We conclude that the 25-year history of C&I work in forestry has had significant positive impacts, though challenges do remain for the implementation of C&I and progress towards SFM. The work should be continued and carried over to other sectors to advance sustainability goals more broadly.


2008 ◽  
Vol 84 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-220
Author(s):  
H W Harshaw

Understanding recreation behaviour can help forest managers identify public uses of forests and gauge the extent of recreation use. This paper documents recreation behaviour in nine forest-dependent communities in British Columbia and examines three questions: (1) is outdoor recreation relevant to local residents?; (2) what are the characteristics of outdoor recreation participation?; and (3) are local residents satisfied with outdoor recreation forest management outcomes and land-use planning processes? Involvement in recreation activities was varied and longstanding. Non-motorized and motorized recreation played important roles as people’s main connection to forests. Knowing about recreationists’ satisfaction with land-use planning outcomes can help forest managers assess their success in meeting land-use objectives, and may help alleviate uncertainties in forest planning and management by reducing conflict, improving quality-of-life, and contributing to the social license of forestry activities. Key words: forest recreation; sustainable forest management; recreation participation


2002 ◽  
Vol 78 (5) ◽  
pp. 613-617 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis LaPierre

Society has grappled with the concept of managing forests sustainably for several decades. As one of the most widespread of the earth’s ecosystems, and as a renewable resource providing a wide range of consumptive and non-consumptive benefits to society, forests have been at the centre of many policy discussions. While much progress was made at the Earth Summit in 1992 and since that time, there are few concrete examples illustrating the principles of sustainable forest management (SFM). Public participation in forest management is based on the hypothesis that if those whose daily lives are affected by the operation of a forest management system are involved in the decisions controlling the system, efforts can be made to protect the health of ecosystems and meet economic needs at the same time. At the same time, since ecological, social and economic conditions vary from place to place, there must be a wide range of participatory approaches to sustainable forest management. Canada’s Model Forest Program was developed to provide public participation in decisions about how managing the forests supported by the most up-to-date science and technology. Within each model forest there exists a partnership consisting of a broad range of interests working within a neutral forum that is respectful of individual interests and united in the difficult task of addressing sustainable forest management. The strength of the Program lies in the fact that each partner has a voice in the overall decision-making within the model forest. Access to shared information and the learning process fostered through participation at individual and organizational levels are important factors motivating participation and fostering capacity-building. Model forests are showing that the inclusive partnership approach, although time-consuming, leads to better and more sustainable decisions. Key words: sustainable forest management, model forest, integrated resource management, public participation, partnerships, Canada


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 83
Author(s):  
Timothy Thrippleton ◽  
Clemens Blattert ◽  
Reinhard Mey ◽  
Jürgen Zell ◽  
Esther Thürig ◽  
...  

Forest management is becoming increasingly complex due to increasing demands in ecosystem service provisioning and future climate change impacts. For a sustainable forest management, scientifically well-founded decision support is therefore urgently required. Within the project SessFor, a decision support system for strategic planning at the forest enterprise level is being developed, based on the climate sensitive forest model SwissStandSim and initialized from forest inventory data. The system is currently applied to the forest enterprise Wagenrain (440 ha), located in the Swiss Plateau region. Indicators for biodiversity and ecosystem service provisioning (timber production, recreation value and carbon sequestration) are calculated for different management strategies and evaluated using a multi-criteria decision analysis. Preliminary results demonstrate the suitability of the system to evaluate ecosystem service provisioning under different management strategies and to identify the best management strategy, based on criteria defined by the forest manager. Furthermore, results show how the system can be used to assess developments for time-scales of 50–100 years under different climate change scenarios. In the ongoing project, the system will be applied to other case study regions, including mountain forests, which are of key importance in Switzerland and other alpine areas.


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