Book Description

Decision Methods for Forest Resource Management focuses on decision making for forests that are managed for both ecological and economic objectives. The essential modern decision methods used in the scientific management of forests are described using basic algebra, computer spreadsheets, and numerous examples and applications. Balanced treatment is given throughout the book to the ecological and economic impacts of alternative management decisions in both even-aged and uneven-aged forests.

*In-depth coverage of both ecological and economic issues
*Hands-on examples with Excel spreadsheets; electronic versions available on the authors' website
*Many related exercises with solutions
*Instructor's Manual available upon request ... Read more

Book Description

The stability of rainforest margins has been identified as a critical factor in the preservation of tropical forests, e.g., in Southeast Asia, one of the world?s most extensive rainforest regions. This book contains a selection of contributions presented at an international symposium on 'Land Use, Nature Conservation and the Stability of Rainforest Margins in Southeast Asia,' in Bogor, Indonesia, October 2002. It highlights the critical issue of rainforest preservation from an interdisciplinary perspective, comprising input from scientists in socio-economic, biological, geographical, agrarian and forestry disciplines. The contributions are based on recent empirical research, with a special focus on Indonesia - a country with one of the highest and, at the same time, most endangered stocks of rainforest resources on earth. ... Read more

Book Description

Having surged past the six billion mark, the human population of thetwenty-first century is making overwhelming demands on the earth and its forests.Although economic and political considerations once dominated the management offorests and land, in today's crowded world environmental concerns are rapidly emergingas dominant. This book, drawn from experience with the World Commission on Forestsand Sustainable Development, presents a concise, accessible view of the current status offorests globally, of demands on them, and of their importance in maintaining a fullyfunctional human habitat. The book also presents a major challenge in planning for landuse in a full world where defense of the public interest becomes more and more difficultand demanding.Opening with an examination of forests and the effects of humanactivities on them, the book then considers the relationship of forests to global warming,agriculture, biotic impoverishment, water resources, and climate. Later chapters discussthe global wood supply, plantation forestry, and forests as a source of energy. The finalchapters call for local and global planners to weigh the spiraling competitive demands forforest resources and to redefine what is in the public interest in the context of forests. ... Read more

Book Description

Provides the economic background for making and understanding both public and private forest management decisions. Treating forestry as part of our changing economic system, while still recognizing its biological foundations, this book examines the economic problems that arise when managing forests and how to approach them intelligently. Provides an analytic framework (an investment project approach) useful to both public and private management, and applies it to the financial and economic problems peculiar to forestry. Also covered are the broad range of social problems associated with forest management. Special attention is given to the non-market determined values--recreation, aesthetics, etc. New information on the structure of U.S. wood products industries is provided, as well as a treatment of the role of forests and foresters in foreign trade, particularly with respect to development in the Third World. Discusses estimating values for non-market products, consumer surplus, and new approaches to public forest project analysis. ... Read more

Book Description

Unplanned deforestation, which is occurring at unsustainable rates in many parts of the world, can cause significant hardships for rural communities by destroying critical stocks of fuel, fodder, food, and building materials. It can also have profound regional and global consequences by contributing to biodiversity loss, erosion, floods, lowered water tables, and climate change.

People and Forests explores the complex interactions between local communities and their forests. It focuses on the rules by which communities govern and manage their forest resources. As part of the International Forestry Resources and Institutions research program, each of the contributors employs the same systematic, comparative, and interdisciplinary methods to examine why some people use their forests sustainably while others do not. The case studies come from fieldwork in Bolivia, Ecuador, India, Nepal, and Uganda.

People and Forests offers policymakers a sophisticated view of local forest management from which to develop policy options and offers biophysical and social scientists a better understanding of the linkages between residents, local institutions, and forests.

Contributors: Arun Agrawal, Abwoli Y. Banana, C. Dustin Becker, Clark C. Gibson, William Gombya-Ssembajjwe, Rosario Leon, Margaret A. McKean, Elinor Ostrom, Charles M. Schweik, George Varughese, Mary Beth Wertime. ... Read more

Book Description

The North American Forests: Geography, Ecology, and Silviculture describes where, why, and how the many kinds of trees found on this continent grow in silvical associations - called forest cover types. Thirteen chapters describe more than 100 forest cover types, involving several times that many species. Diverse woodlands discussed include: o The Arctic tundra o Florida's tropics o The Atlantic's coastal pond pines o The Pacific's Monterey pines o The summits of Englemann spruce o Sea-Level swamps of baldcypress The text acts as a singular guidebook for specialists and students in natural resource disciplines examining the geography, ecology, and silvicultural practices for sustaining North American forests; students in curriculum's involving regional silviculture; and persons examining the goods and services from this varied, fascinating renewable resource. Benefiting from the author's five decades of practicing forestry, the reader will trek into virtually every "neck of the woods" - perusing exceptional field notes and photographs of the continent's forests. Features o Offers a summary of forests in North America, ecological positions, and best management approaches for the benefit of mankind o Contains a readable language for both college students and professionals o Provides information covering the forests of Canada and the US o Lists "Further Readings" and "Subjects for Discussion and Essay" at the end of each chapter o Includes more than 100 photographs Audience o Foresters o Ecologists o Natural Resource Managers o Forestry Students Contents Foreword Preface The Continent's Forests Conifer Forests of the North Broadleaf Forests of the North, Including Mid-Continent Pine Forests of the South Other Conifer Forests of the South Upland Broadleaf Forests of the South Broadleaf Forests of Southern Wetlands Mixed Conifer-Broadleaf Forests of the East Pine Forests of the West Spruce and Fir Forests of the Wests Other Conifer Forests of the West Broadleaf Forests of the West Tropical Forests of Hawaii, South Florida, and Puerto Rico Appendix Glossary Scientific Names of Trees Mentioned in the Text Index Catalog no. SL1760 August 1998, c. 4448 pp., 6x9 ISBN: 1-5744-4176-0 $69.95 ... Read more

Book Description

Trees and forests are large and complex, but even something as difficult as the amount of wood they contain can be measured with quite unsophisticated equipment. Everyone, from professional foresters to the layperson, who works with forests and needs to measure them no matter where in the world, will appreciate this book. It summarises modern forest measurement techniques and describes why forests are measured, how to measure them, and the basis of the science behind these techniques. Professor Phil West has been a forest scientist for over 30 years. His research speciality is the mathematical modelling of forest growth behaviour. He is presently a forestry consultant and teaches forest measurement in the forestry school of Southern Cross University in northern New South Wales, Australia. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Thorough review of basics
A well structured book which explains in a straightforward fashion the measurement of individual trees, tree stands and entire forests through inventory. It does so with the minimum of mathematics, but has enough so that professional practicioners will be able to determine their results fully. It suits well its audience, from the student to the scientist to the farm forester. ... Read more

Book Description

Margaret Elley Felt's autobiographical Gyppo Logger, originally published in 1963, tells a story almost universally overlooked in the history of the logging industry: the emergence of family-based, independent contract or "gyppo" loggers in the post-World War II timber economy, and the crucial role of women within that economy. For seven years Margaret Felt was her husband's partner in their logging business--driving truck, keeping the wage rolls, and jawboning her way into more credit at the supply stores. "Gyppo Logger demonstrates how gyppo wives remade the formerly masculine terrain of logging through their unpaid but vital economic activities in both private and public forums. And it was, arguably, the success of these family businesses that facilitated the dramatic and rapid physical redesign of Northwest forests"-- Robert E. Walls ... Read more

Book Description

In Mountains of Memory, seasoned wilderness dweller Don Scheese charts a long season of watching for and fighting fires in Idaho's River of No Return Wilderness the largest federal wilderness area in the mainland United States. An inspiring tale of self-discovery, Mountains of Memory paints a complex portrait of the natural, institutional, and historical forces that have shaped the great forested landscapes of the American West.

A student of nature writing as well as a fire lookout with over a decade of experience, Scheese recounts his life at the top of the world, along with daring adventures such as backpacking and mountaineering in the Bighorn Crags and kayaking down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. All the while, he touches upon the mysterious and powerful realities of the wilderness around him—stunning dawns visible within the glass cage perched on a 9,000-foot mountain, stirring flashes of lightning visible all around the dark landscape as the radio crackles with reports of strikes observed and fires spotted, long-awaited trips down the mountain to civilization for cold beer and hot pizza.

In the tradition of Edward Abbey and Gary Snyder, Don Scheese offers readers a meditation on the meaning and value of wilderness at the beginning of the twenty-first century. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description

During the past twenty-five years, North American forestry has received increasingly vigorous scrutiny. Critics including the environmentalists, environmental scientists, representatives of public interest groups, and many individual citizens have expressed concerns about forestry's basic assumptions and methods, as well as its practical outcomes. Criticism has centered on such issues as the exploitation of forests for timber production, the reduction and fragmentation of old-growth habitats, the destruction of biodiversity, the degradation of grasslands through grazing practices, lack of government attention to recreation facilities, silvicultural methods like clearcutting and the use of herbicides and pesticides, the exportation of industrial forestry techniques to other parts of the world, and the use of public monies to provide services for private resouce companies, as in the creation of logging roads.

This rising tide of public scrutiny has led many foresters to suspect that their "contract" with society to manage forests using their best professional judgment had been undermined. Some of these professionals, as well as some of their critics, have begun to reexamine their old beliefs and to look for new ways of practicing forestry. Part of this reflective process has entailed new directions in environmental ethics and environmental philosophy.

This reader brings together some of the new thinking in this area. Here students of the applied environmental and natural resource sciences, as well as the interested general reader, will discover a rich sampling of writings in environmental ethics and philosophy as they apply to forestry. Readings focus on basic ethical systems in forestry and forest management, philosophical issues in forestry ethics, codes of ethics in forestry and related natural resource sciences such as fisheries science and wildlife biology, Aldo Leopold's land ethic in forestry, ethical advocacy and whistleblowing in government resource agencies, the ethics of new forestry, ecoforestry, and public debate in forestry, as well as ethical issues in global forestry such as the responsibilities of forest corporations, environmentalists, and individual wood consumers.

This volume contains materials from the founders of forestry ethics, such as Bernhard Fernow, Giford Pinchot, John Muir, and Aldo Leopold; from such organizations as the Society of American Foresters, the Wildlife Society, the American Fisheries Society, Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, and the Ecoforesters group, in addition to writings by a variety of well-known environmental philosophers and foresters, including Holmes Rolston, Robin Attfield, Lawrence Johnson, Michael McDonald, Paul Wood, James E. Coufal, Raymond Craig, Kristin Shrader-Frechette, Jeff DeBonis, Jim L. Bowyer, Alasdair Gunn, Goug Gaigle, Alan G. McQuillan, Stephanie Kaza, Alan Dregson, Duncan Taylor, and Kathleen Dean Moore. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A Wonderful Collection
As a professional philosopher and a forester-in-training I was pleased to come across this new volume. I had been looking to integrate my interest inforestry, the accessibility of the forest near where I teach, and concrete issues in land managment into my Environmental Ethics class. This book fitsthe bill. Moving from the ambiguous beginnings of forestry in America reflected in the work of Pinchot and Leopold and Muir through systematicreflections on ethics and forestry to a broad sampling of contemporary debates, this book is at once a compendium of good philosophy and goodpolicy debate. I plan on building my course around this text this coming semester. ... Read more

Book Description

Uses a mechanistic perspective to describe how forests grow and respond to intentional manipulations and natural disturbances.Synthesizes the latest information from physiology, ecology and silviculture and compares patterns in different regions. Emphasizes the constant change of all forests and shows that similar development patterns are occurring in forests inNorth American and beyond. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

It's a good book for forest studies
This is a good book for forest studies. They reviewed so many papers (more than 2000 papers) in forest dynamics. It's a good tool if you want to find out more references quickly and easily for your researches. ... Read more

Book Description

Recent advances in remote-sensing technology and the processing of remote-sensing data through geographic information systems (GIS) present ecologists and resource managers with a tremendously valuable tool - but only if they are able to understand its capabilities and capture its potential.

Remote Sensing and GIS in Ecosystem Management identifies and articulates current and emerging information needs of those involved with the management of forest ecosystems. It explores the potential of remote-sensing/GIS technologies to address those needs, examining:

• the need for landscape-scale analysis to support forest ecosystem research and management
• current challenges in the development of remote-sensing/GIS applications
• case studies of different forest regions in the United States
• the potential for further development or declassification of military and aerospace remote-sensing/GIS technologies

Book Description

"Smith's book is an entirely credible and comprehensive plan for restructuring an entire industrial sector toward ecological imperatives. Its scope and attention to detail will lead to widespread acceptance of the challenge and the practical initiatives required for success." -- Paul Hawken, author, The Ecology of Commerce

The problems recyclers face with wastepaper are connected to the issues addressed by forest advocates, as well as to the difficulties confronted by those involved with industrial pollution from the paper industry. In this richly detailed study, Maureen Smith shows how industrial and environmental analysis can be synthesized to clarify these complex problems and produce solutions. Smith outlines the basic structural characteristics of the U.S. pulp and paper industry and its relationship to the larger forest products sector, as well as its patterns of domestic and global fiber resource use. She then reviews the core technologies employed in virgin pulp production, with an emphasis on their environmental impacts, the role of technological innovation, and the relationships between fiber choices and pollution prevention. Building on this base she reveals structural barriers within the industry that have impeded positive change and shows how these barriers are reinforced by the traditional isolation of environmental policy domains. The study includes a comparative analysis of how organochlorine pollution from pulp mills has been addressed in the United States, Europe, and Canada (and why the United States has seen the slowest rate of progress); an assessment of commodity trade patterns in the industry and how they are linked to resource demand; an examination of the momentum building around annual plant fiber use and the diverse interests it reflects; and a review of recent developments in paper recycling within the context of historical trends in fiber utilization. A case study of the controversial environmental review process of the largest recycled pulp and paper mill ever proposed ties together earlier elements of the book and forms the basis for the conclusions. In closing, Smith argues convincingly against narrowly focused attempts to "fix" the problems associated with the industry, and offers practical guidance on new frameworks and approaches for industrial restructuring. She highlights the need for regional perspectives that integrate environmental, social, and economic objectives. Urban and Industrial Environment series ... Read more