Tropical forests are an undervalued asset in meeting the greatest global challenges of our time—averting climate change and promoting development. Despite their importance, tropical forests and their ecosystems are being destroyed at a high and even increasing rate in most forest-rich countries. The good news is that the science, economics, and politics are aligned to support a major international effort over the next five years to reverse tropical deforestation. Why Forests? Why Now? synthesizes the latest evidence on the importance of tropical forests in a way that is accessible to anyone interested in climate change and development and to readers already familiar with the problem of deforestation. It makes the case to decisionmakers in rich countries that rewarding developing countries for protecting their forests is urgent, affordable, and achievable.

Although global rates of deforestation have started to decrease, they remain alarmingly high in many tropical countries. In light of this challenge, the growing importance of sustainable forest management (SFM) has been highlighted as a means for improving sustainability across the sector. Achieving sustainable management of tropical forests summarises and reviews the rich body of research on tropical forests and how this research can be utilised to make sustainable management of tropical forests a standard implementable strategy for the future. The book features expert discussions on the economic, political and environmental contexts needed for SFM to operate successfully, including coverage of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With its distinguished editors and international array of expert authors, Achieving sustainable management of tropical forests will be a standard reference for researchers in tropical forest science, international and national organisations responsible for protection and responsible stewardship of tropical forests, as well as the commercial sector harvesting and using tropical forest products.

A combination of broad disciplinary coverage and scientific excellence, the Encyclopedia of Forest Sciences will be an indispensable addition to the library of anyone interested in forests, forestry and forest sciences. Packed with valuable insights from experts all over the world, this remarkable set not only summarizes recent advances in forest science techniques, but also thoroughly covers the basic information vital to comprehensive understanding of the important elements of forestry. The Encyclopedia of Forest Sciences also covers relevant biology and ecology, different types of forestry (e.g. tropical forestry and dryland forestry), scientific names of trees and shrubs, and the applied, economic, and social aspects of forest management. Valuable key features further enhance the utility of this Encyclopedia as an exceptional reference tool. Also available online via ScienceDirect - featuring extensive browsing, searching, and internal cross-referencing between articles in the work, plus dynamic linking to journal articles and abstract databases, making navigation flexible and easy. For more information, pricing options and availability visit www.info.sciencedirect.com. Edited and written by a distinguished group of editors and contributors Well-organized encyclopedic format provides concise, readable entries, easy searches, and thorough cross-references Illustrative tables, figures, and photographs in every entry, produced in full color Comprehensive glossary defines new and important terms Complete, up-to-date coverage of over 60 areas of forest sciences - sure to be of interest to scientists, students, and professionals alike! Editor-in-Chief is the past president of the International Union of Forestry Research Organizations, the oldest international collaborative forestry research organization with over 15,000 scientists from 100 countries

The goal of this book is to provide a current overview of the impacts of climate change on tropical forests, to investigate past, present, and future climatic influences on the ecosystems with the highest biodiversity on the planet.Tropical Rainforest Responses to Climatic Change will be the first book to examine how tropical rain forest ecology is altered by climate change, rather than simply seeing how plant communities were altered. Shifting the emphasis onto ecological processes e.g. how diversity is structured by climate and the subsequent impact on tropical forest ecology, provides the reader with a more comprehensive coverage. A major theme of this book that emerges progressively is the interaction between humans, climate and forest ecology. While numerous books have appeared dealing with forest fragmentation and conservation, none have explicitly explored the long term occupation of tropical systems, the influence of fire and the future climatic effects of deforestation, coupled with anthropogenic emissions. Incorporating modelling of past and future systems paves the way for a discussion of conservation from a climatic perspective, rather than the usual plea to stop logging.

In Tropical Forest Ecology, Egbert G. Leigh, Jr., one of the world's foremost tropical ecologists, introduces readers to the tropical forest and describes the intricate web of interdependence among the great diversity of tropical plants and animals. Focusing on the tropical forest of Barro Colorado Island, Panama, Leigh shows what Barro Colorado can tell us about other tropical forests--and what tropical forests can tell us about Barro Colorado. This book considers three essential questions for understanding the ecological organization of tropical forests. How do they stay green with their abundance of herbivores? Why do they have such a diversity of plants and animals? And what role does mutualism play in the ecology of tropical forests? Beautifully written and abundantly illustrated, Tropical Forest Ecology will certainly appeal to a wide variety of scientists in the fields of evolution, tropical biology, botany, zoology, and natural history.

Though seasonally dry tropical forests are equally as important to global biodiversity as tropical rainforests, and are one of the most representative and highly endangered ecosystems in Latin America, knowledge about them remains limited because of the relative paucity of attention paid to them by scientists and researchers and a lack of published information on the subject. Seasonally Dry Tropical Forests seeks to address this shortcoming by bringing together a range of experts in diverse fields including biology, ecology, biogeography, and biogeochemistry, to review, synthesize, and explain the current state of our collective knowledge on the ecology and conservation of seasonally dry tropical forests. The book offers a synthetic and cross-disciplinary review of recent work with an expansive scope, including sections on distribution, diversity, ecosystem function, and human impacts. Throughout, contributors emphasize conservation issues, particularly emerging threats and promising solutions, with key chapters on climate change, fragmentation, restoration, ecosystem services, and sustainable use. Seasonally dry tropical forests are extremely rich in biodiversity, and are seriously threatened. They represent scientific terrain that is poorly explored, and there is an urgent need for increased understanding of the system's basic ecology. Seasonally Dry Tropical Forests represents an important step in bringing together the most current scientific information about this vital ecosystem and disseminating it to the scientific and conservation communities.