Timber sourcing is shifting from extraction from natural forests to forms of cultivation that are increasingly agricultural in nature. This book takes a multidisciplinary approach to examine the socio-political, biophysical and discursive dimensions of this divergence of wood production from forests. This analysis challenges the historical integration of wood production and forest ecosystem management exemplified by the institutions of forestry with their inherent wood/forest connection. This has significant implications for how wood and forest socio-ecological systems confront change and challenge ideas about how to achieve sustainability. Historically, the institutions of stewardship forestry were founded on ideals of sustainable systems in long-term equilibrium. However, these occur within rapidly evolving social and technological contexts that constantly challenge the maintenance of any equilibrium. This creates considerable tension within wood and forest socio-ecological systems and their institutions and governance. Moving beyond adaptation to transformation, however, requires a willingness to consider post-forestry conditions, such as integration of emerging wood cultivation systems into agricultural and landscape approaches, and increasing management of extensive forest ecosystems for non-wood values in the absence of wood production. This book includes four case studies: a global modelling of shifts in wood production and three national case studies (Australia, Indonesia and New Zealand), each analysing shifts in resilience in wood and forest socio-ecological systems using a different disciplinary approach. This book will be of interest to advanced students, researchers and professionals in forestry, land use, conservation, rural studies and geography.

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

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.

Trees have been around for more than 370 million years, and today there are about 80 thousand species of them, occupying 3.5 billion hectares worldwide, including 250 million ha of commercial plantations. While forests can provide tremendous environmental, social, and economic benefits to nations, they also affect the hydrologic cycle in different ways. As the demand for water grows and local precipitation patterns change due to global warming, plantation forestry has encountered an increasing number of water-related conflicts worldwide. This document provides a country-by-country summary of the current state of knowledge on the relationship between forest management and water resources. Based on available research publications, the Editor-in-Chief of this document contacted local scientists from countries where the impact of forest management on water resources is an issue, inviting them to submit a chapter.

This book aims to provide information about Fourier transform to those needing to use infrared spectroscopy, by explaining the fundamental aspects of the Fourier transform, and techniques for analyzing infrared data obtained for a wide number of materials. It summarizes the theory, instrumentation, methodology, techniques and application of FTIR spectroscopy, and improves the performance and quality of FTIR spectrophotometers.