Plantation forests often have a negative image. They are typically assumed to be poor substitutes for natural forests, particularly in terms of biodiversity conservation, carbon storage, provision of clean drinking water and other non-timber goods and services. Often they are monocultures that do not appear to invite people for recreation and other direct uses. Yet as this book clearly shows, they can play a vital role in the provision of ecosystem services, when compared to agriculture and other forms of land use or when natural forests have been degraded. This is the first book to examine explicitly the non-timber goods and services provided by plantation forests, including soil, water and biodiversity conservation, as well as carbon sequestration and the provision of local livelihoods. The authors show that, if we require a higher provision of ecosystem goods and services from both temperate and tropical plantations, new approaches to their management are required. These include policies, methods for valuing the services, the practices of small landholders, landscape approaches to optimise delivery of goods and services, and technical issues about how to achieve suitable solutions at the scale of forest stands. While providing original theoretical insights, the book also gives guidance for plantation managers, policy-makers, conservation practitioners and community advocates, who seek to promote or strengthen the multiple-use of forest plantations for improved benefits for society. Published with CIFOR

The Management of Industrial Forest Plantations. Theoretical Foundations and Applications provides a synthesis of current knowledge about industrial forestry management planning processes. It covers components of the forest supply chain ranging from modelling techniques to management planning approaches and information and communication technology support. It may provide effective support to education, research and outreach activities that focus on forest industrial plantations management. It may contribute further to support forest managers when developing industrial plantations management plans. The book includes the discussion of applications in 26 Management Planning in Actions boxes. These applications highlight the linkage between theory and practice and the contribution of models, methods and management planning approaches to the efficiency and the effectiveness of industrial plantations management planning.

Bamboo is well known for supporting people’s livelihoods, and is widely used in landscape restoration programs while providing a wide range of ecosystem goods and services. However, while marketable goods from bamboo such as shoots for food and timber for construction, flooring and furniture are well known, the ecosystem services (ES) supply from bamboo is not, due to limited research. To date, very few studies highlight the role of bamboo forests in providing multiple ES that have local and global value. Lack of an appropriate framework and tools is considered a barrier to assessing the ES from bamboo forests. Therefore, this study attempts to develop an easy-to-apply framework to assess ES from bamboo and test them in three countries in Asia and Africa – Nepal, Indonesia and Ethiopia – in order to understand the relative supply capacity of the key ES from bamboo forests. The literature related to ES and assessment frameworks was reviewed so as to design an appropriate assessment framework for bamboo forests. This study offers an easy-to-apply framework that can be used widely. The research shows that the ES supply capacity of bamboo forests is higher than for industrial planted forest while it is lower than for the natural forests in all case study sites. The ES assessment from bamboo forests poses several challenges: defining and classifying ES, limited data, and complex relationships in trade-offs and synergies of ES that should be kept in mind while designing the framework.

1 Plantation forests and biodiversity: Oxymoron or opportunity? Forests form the natural vegetation over much of the Earth’s land, and they are critical for the survival of innumerable organisms. The ongoing loss of natural forests, which in some regions may have taken many millennia to develop, is one of the main reasons for the decline of biodiversity. Preventing the further destruction of forests and protecting species and ecosystems within forests have become central issues for environmental agencies, forest managers, and gove- ments. In this di?cult task science has an important role in informing policy and management as to how to go about this. So how do industrial and other pl- tation forests ?t into this? Plantation forests, comprised of rows of planted trees that may be destined for pulp or sawmills after only a few years of growth, appear to have little to c- tribute to the conservation of biodiversity. Yet there is more to this than meets the eye (of the casual observer), and there are indeed numerous opportunities, and often untapped potential, for biodiversity conservation in plantation forestry. With plantation forests expanding at a rate of approximately three million hectares per year, it is crucial to understand how plantations can make a positive contribution to biodiversity conservation and how the potentially negative impacts of this land use can be minimised. That is the topic of this book.

A brief history of plantations. Environmental issues. Plantations and biodiversity. Water matters. Plantations and the soil. Pests: plantations' achilles' heel? Genetically modified trees: opportunity or treath? Plantations and global warming. Social issues. Employement: a contested balance sheet. Land tenure and conflict. Economic issues. Spiralling demand. Incentives and subsidies. Economies of scale. Costing the earth.

Over the last two decades, the topic of forest ecosystem services has attracted the attention of researchers, land managers, and policy makers around the globe. The services rendered by forest ecosystems range from intrinsic to anthropocentric benefits that are typically grouped as provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural. The research efforts, assessments, and attempts to manage forest ecosystems for their sustained services are now widely published in scientific literature. This volume focuses on broad-scale aspects of forest ecosystem services, beyond individual stands to large landscapes. In doing so, it illustrates the conceptual and practical opportunities as well as challenges involved with planning for forest ecosystem services across landscapes, regions, and nations. The goal here is to broaden the scope of land use planning through the adoption of a landscape-scale approach. Even though this approach is complex and involves multiple ecological, social, cultural, economic, and political dimensions, the landscape perspective appears to offer the best opportunity for a sustained provision of forest ecosystem services.

This volume, with contributions from leading international experts, reports on the need to produce high quality food whilst satisfying environmental concerns. Including material on natural products, modes of action and metabolism, it covers all the key areas in pesticide chemistry and related activities. The contents outline the developments that have taken place in approaches to crop protection and our ability to develop complex, environmentally acceptable strategies for weed, pest and disease control.

This guide showcases the increasing interest in ecosystem services, discusses the motivations for valuations of FES (forest ecosystem services) at the State level, and places this work in the context of economic accounting. Readers may be interested in this report to expand their understanding of approaches used and value forest ecosystem services. However, the intended target audience for this report is State forestry officials charged with requesting, selecting, guiding, and evaluating the results of FES assessments in their states. Foresters, construction officials utilizing forest based products, educators, instructors and students in the fields of environmental science and forestry, environmentalists, and investors in the forest products category may also be interested in this work. Check out our Environment & Nature resources collection here:https://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/environment-nature Trees & Forests collection here:https://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/environment-nature Water Management collection here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/water-management

This fact-filled guide explores forests from the equator to the frozen poles, the depths of the rainforest to the mountain forests at high altitudes. It also demonstrates the many benefits that forests provide us with, discusses the negative impacts that humans unfortunately have on forests and explains how good management can help protect and conserve forests and forest biodiversity. At the end of the guide, inspiring examples of youth-led initiatives and an easy-to-follow action plan will help young people develop their own forest conservation activities and projects.

Nearly three years ago, world leaders agreed to the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – the central framework for guiding development policies throughout the world. This edition of The State of the World’s Forests is aimed at enhancing our understanding of how forests and their sustainable management contribute to achieving several of the SDGs. Time is running out for the world’s forests: we need to work across sectors, bring stakeholders together, and take urgent action. The State of the World’s Forests 2018 identifies actions that can be taken to increase the contributions of forests and trees that are necessary to accelerate progress towards the SDGs. It is now critical that steps be taken to work more effectively with the private sector, and the informal forest sector must be transformed in order to bring broader economic, social and environmental benefits. Seventy years ago, when FAO completed its first assessment of the world’s forest resources, the major concern was whether there would be enough timber to supply global demand; now we recognize the greater global relevance of our forests and trees. For the first time, The State of the World’s Forests 2018 provides an assessment of the contribution of forests and trees to our landscapes and livelihoods. The purpose of this publication is to provide a much wider audience with an understanding of why forests and trees matter for people, the planet and posterity.