Fundamental changes have occurred in all aspects of forestry over the last 50 years, including the underlying science, societal expectations of forests and their management, and the evolution of a globalized economy. This textbook is an effort to comprehensively integrate this new knowledge of forest ecosystems and human concerns and needs into a management philosophy that is applicable to the vast majority of global forest lands. Ecological forest management (EFM) is focused on policies and practices that maintain the integrity of forest ecosystems while achieving environmental, economic, and cultural goals of human societies. EFM uses natural ecological models as its basis contrasting it with modern production forestry, which is based on agronomic models and constrained by required return-on-investment. Sections of the book consider: 1) Basic concepts related to forest ecosystems and silviculture based on natural models; 2) Social and political foundations of forestry, including law, economics, and social acceptability; 3) Important current topics including wildfire, biological diversity, and climate change; and 4) Forest planning in an uncertain world from small privately-owned lands to large public ownerships. The book concludes with an overview of how EFM can contribute to resolving major 21st century issues in forestry, including sustaining forest dependent societies.

How to use this review; Methods; Concepts; Lessons learned; Impacts of participatory monitoring; Conclusions: looking back, looking ahead; Matrix table of case studies, methods and tools.

First Published in 2012. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Towards Forest Sustainability is a collection of practical essays by some of the world’s leading forest ecologists and managers from the United States of America, Canada, Finland, Sweden, Australia and New Zealand. The authors describe the changes that have taken place in forest management – highlighting what worked, what didn’t, and the lessons that have been learned. This unique set of essays documents the drivers of the change in the logging industry and the resulting outcomes. It provides real-world insights from an international perspective into government policy, industry concerns, and conservation and biodiversity issues.

"This review looks at the Nation's legal, institutional, and economic capacity to promote forest conservation and sustainable resource management. It focuses on 20 indicators of Criterion Seven of the so-called Montreal Process and involves an extensive search and synthesis of information from a variety of sources. It identifies ways to fill information gaps and improve the usefulness of several indicators. It concludes that there is substantial information about the application of such capacities, although that application is widely dispersed among agencies and private interests; which in turn has led to differing interpretations of the indicators. Individual chapters identify a need to further develop the conceptual foundation on which many of the indicators are predicated. While many uncertainties in the type and accuracy of information are brought to light, the review clearly indicates that legal, institutional, and economic capacities to promote sustainability are large and widely available in both the public and private sectors."--P. vi.

The southern forest resource assessment provides a comprehensive analysis of the history, status, and likely future of forests in the Southern United States. Twenty-three chapters address questions regarding social/economic systems, terrestrial ecosystems, water and aquatic ecosystems, forest health, and timber management; 2 additional chapters provide a background on history and fire. Each chapter surveys pertinent literature and data, accesses conditions, identifies research needs, and examines the implications for southern forests and the benefits they provide.