An Ecoregional Context for Forest Management on National Wildlife Refuges of the Upper Midwest,USA

To facilitate forest planning and management on National Wildlife Refuges, we synthesized multiple data sources to describe land ownership patterns, land cover, landscape pattern, and changes in forest composition for four ecoregions and their associated refuges of the Upper Midwest. We related observed patterns to ecological processes important for forest conservation and restoration, with specific attention to refuge patterns of importance for forest landbirds of conservation priority. The large amount of public land within the ecoregions (31–80%) suggests that opportunities exist for coarse and meso-scale approaches to conserving and restoring ecological processes affecting the refuges, particularly historical fire regimes. Forests dominate both ecoregions and refuges, but refuge forest patches are generally larger and more aggregated than in associated ecoregions. Broadleaf taxa have increased in dominance in the ecoregions and displaced fire-dependent taxa such as pine (Pinus spp.) and other coniferous species; these changes in forest composition have likely also affected refuge forests. Despite compositional changes, larger forest patches on refuges suggests that they may provide better habitat for area-sensitive forest landbirds of mature, compositionally diverse forests than surrounding lands if management continues to promote increased patch size. We reason that although fine-scale research and monitoring for species of conservation priority is important, broad scale (ecoregional) assessments provide crucial context for effective forest and wildlife management in protected areas.     

Impacts of Public Policies and Farmer Preferences on Agroforestry Practices in Kerala,India

Agroforestry systems are fundamental features of the rural landscape of the Indian state of Kerala. Yet these mixed species systems are increasingly being replaced by monocultures. This paper explores how public policies on land tenure, agriculture, forestry and tree growing on private lands have interacted with farmer preferences in shaping land use dynamics and agroforestry practices. It argues that not only is there no specific policy for agroforestry in Kerala, but also that the existing sectoral policies of land tenure, agriculture, and forestry contributed to promoting plantation crops, even among marginal farmers. Forest policies, which impose restrictions on timber extraction from farmers’ fields under the garb of protecting natural forests, have often acted as a disincentive to maintaining tree-based mixed production systems on farmlands. The paper argues that public policies interact with farmers’ preferences in determining land use practices.     

Evaluating the effects of alternative forest management plans under various physiographic settings using historical records as a reference

Using historical General Land Office record as a reference, this study employed a landscape-scale disturbance and succession model to estimate the future cumulative effects of six alternative management plans on the tree species composition for various physiographic settings for the Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri. The results indicate that over a 200-year horizon, the relative abundance of black oak and pine species groups will decrease and the relative abundance of the white oak species group will increase, regardless of management strategy. General Land Office witness tree records provide a measure of tree species composition in the period from 1800 to 1850, prior to the large-scale influx of European settlers. Compared to the tree species composition described in the General Land Office records, the six contemporary management alternatives considered all would lead to a lower abundance of pine species, a higher abundance of red/black oak species, and a slightly higher abundance of white oak species after 200 years. Impacts of management on tree species composition varied with physiographic settings. The projected relative abundance of pine differed significantly across the five physiographic classes over the first 40 years of the simulation. In the medium term (simulation years 41-100) the projected relative pine abundance differed significantly among only four physiographic classes. In the long term (simulation years 100-200) the projected relative pine abundance differed for only one physiographic class. In contrast, differences among physiographic classes in the relative abundance of black oaks and white oaks increased over time. In general, the expected long-term differences in relative tree species abundance among six proposed alternative management plans are small compared to shifts in tree species composition that have occurred from 1850 to the present.     

Woody Vegetation Composition and Structure in Peri-urban Chongming Island, China

Chongming, the world’s largest alluvial island, is located within the municipality of Shanghai, China. Recent projects have now linked peri-urban Chongming to Shanghai’s urban core and as a result will soon undergo substantial changes from urbanization. We quantitatively analyzed the structure and composition of woody vegetation across subtropical, peri-urban Chongming as a basis for sustainable management of these rapidly urbanizing subtropical ecosystems elsewhere. We used 178 permanent, random plots to statistically and spatially analyze woody plant composition and tree structure across the 1,041 km² of Chongming. A total of 2,251 woody plants were measured comprising 42 species in 37 genera. We statistically and geospatially analyzed field data according to land uses and modeled air pollution removal by trees. Average tree diameter at breast height, total height, and crown widths on transportation land uses were greater than other land uses. These same values were lowest on forest land use and greater tree cover was associated with areas of increased anthropogenic activity. Less than 20 % of the woody vegetation was exotic and a species richness index was significantly different between land uses due to legacy effects. Composition of agriculture and forest land uses were similar to residential and transportation. Tree cover across Chongming was also estimated to annually remove 1,400 tons of air pollutants. We propose that this integrated and quantitative method can be used in other subtropical, peri-urban areas in developing countries to establish baseline trends for future sustainability objectives and to monitor the effects of urbanization and climate change.     

Influence of Targets and Assessment Region Size on Perceived Conservation Priorities

We used an existing conservation opportunity area (OA) data layer for four contiguous ecological subsections within the Ozark Highlands to quantitatively evaluate the influence of conservation targets and assessment region size on conservation priorities. OAs are natural and seminatural land-cover patches that are away from roads and away from patch edges. To evaluate the influence of targets, we assigned a priority score to each OA polygon for each of five different conservation targets, including land-cover patch size, landform representation, target vertebrate richness, target breeding bird richness, and target land cover. The top-scoring OAs for each target were added to an OA selection set for that target until 50% of the study area was chosen. These five OA selection sets were overlain to quantify overlap in priorities. Only 1.6% of the study area, or 2.1% of all OA polygons, was selected by all five targets. To evaluate the influence of assessment region size, we compared results of priority ranking of OAs relative to the entire study area against a merged set of priority rankings established separately relative to each of the four subsections within the study area. When high-priority OAs were added until 25% of the region was within the selection set for each of the five targets, the sets based on the whole study area versus each subsection evaluated separately overlapped from 45.4% to 81.9%. Thus, perceived priorities of conservation assessments are strongly influenced both by the targets that are evaluated and by the size of the assessment region.     

县级林相图GIS数据库构建及其数据质量控制研究——以四川省石棉县为例

林相图是林业基本用图,是林业生产、经营、规划设计的依据资料。林相图GIS数据库是林业GIS的基础。以石棉县为例,探讨了县级林相图GIS数据库构建的技术路线和数据质量控制方法,具有推广价值和借鉴意义。     

Urbanization's impact on timber harvesting in the south central United States

The impact of urbanization on timber harvesting in the south central United States was investigated. Geo-referenced Census and Forest Inventory Analysis (FIA) data were combined using a geographic information system (GIS) in order to examine the effects of various demographic and biophysical forest inventory characteristics on timber harvesting. These effects were estimated for intermediate and final harvests using a multinomial logit model. The probability for both types of harvests decreased with increasing population density, decreasing forest size, and decreasing distance to urban areas; however, the reduction in intermediate harvests was greater for each variable. Harvesting rates decreased by as much as 19% as population densities increased or distance to urban areas decreased. The results indicated that active forest management is curtailed far beyond the urban boundary. In order to model the impact of urbanization adequately, timber supply projections must also account for its impact on harvesting frequencies in surrounding areas.     

Simulating Spatial and Temporal Context of Forest Management Using Hypothetical Landscapes

/ Spatially explicit models that combine remote sensing with geographic information systems (GIS) offer great promise to land managers because they consider the arrangement of landscape elements in time and space. Their visual and geographic nature facilitate the comparison of alternative landscape designs. Among various activities associated with forest management, none cause greater concern than the impacts of timber harvesting on the composition, structure, and function of landscape ecosystems. A timber harvest allocation model (HARVEST) was used to simulate different intensities of timber harvest on 23,592-ha hypothetical landscapes with varying sizes of timber production areas and different initial stand age distributions. Our objectives were to: (1) determine the relative effects of the size of timber production areas, harvest intensity, method used to extract timber, and past timber harvest activity on the production of forest interior and edge; and (2) evaluate how past management (in the form of different initial stand age distributions) constrains future timber production options. Our simulations indicated that the total area of forest interior and the amount of forest edge were primarily influenced by the intensity of timber harvest and the size of openings created by harvest. The size of the largest block of interior forest was influenced most by the size of timber harvests, but the intensity of harvest was also significant, and the size of nontimber production areas was important when harvests were numerous and widely dispersed within timber management areas, as is often the case in managed forests. Stand age-class distributions produced by past harvest activity limited the amount of timber production primarily when group selection was used, but also limited clear-cutting when recent harvest levels were high.KEY WORDS: Simulation modeling; Timber harvest; Historical context; Spatial context; Landscape pattern; Forest interior; Forest edge     

Forest Insect Pest Management and Forest Management in China: An Overview

According to the Seventh National Forest Inventory (2004–2008), China’s forests cover an area of 195.45 million ha, or 20.36% of the total land area. China has the most rapidly increasing forest resources in the world. However, China is also a country with serious forest pest problems. There are more than 8,000 species of potential forest pests in China, including insects, plant diseases, rodents and lagomorphs, and hazardous plants. Among them, 300 species are considered as economically or ecologically important, and half of these are serious pests, including 86 species of insects. Forest management and utilization have a considerable influence on the stability and sustainability of forest ecosystems. At the national level, forestry policies always play a major role in forest resource management and forest health protection. In this paper, we present a comprehensive overview of both achievements and challenges in forest management and insect pest control in China. First, we summarize the current status of forest resources and their pests in China. Second, we address the theories, policies, practices and major national actions on forestry and forest insect pest management, including the Engineering Pest Management of China, the National Key Forestry Programs, the Classified Forest Management system, and the Collective Forest Tenure Reform. We analyze and discuss three representative plantations—Eucalyptus, poplar and Masson pine plantations—with respect to their insect diversity, pest problems and pest management measures.     

Preliminary comparison of landscape pattern-normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) relationships to Central Plains stream conditions

We explored relationships of water quality parameters with landscape pattern metrics (LPMs), land use-land cover (LULC) proportions, and the advanced very high resolution radiometer (AVHRR) normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) or NDVI-derived metrics. Stream sites (271) in Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri were sampled for water quality parameters, the index of biotic integrity, and a habitat index in either 1994 or 1995. Although a combination of LPMs (interspersion and juxtaposition index, patch density, and percent forest) within Ozark Highlands watersheds explained >60% of the variation in levels of nitrite-nitrate nitrogen and conductivity, in most cases the LPMs were not significantly correlated with the stream data. Several problems using landscape pattern metrics were noted: small watersheds having only one or two patches, collinearity with LULC data, and counterintuitive or inconsistent results that resulted from basic differences in land use-land cover patterns among ecoregions or from other factors determining water quality. The amount of variation explained in water quality parameters using multiple regression models that combined LULC and LPMs was generally lower than that from NDVI or vegetation phenology metrics derived from time-series NDVI data. A comparison of LPMs and NDVI indicated that NDVI had greater promise for monitoring landscapes for stream conditions within the study area.     

Silvicultural management in maintaining biodiversity and resistance of forests in Europe-boreal zone: case Finland

The majority of untouched natural boreal forests have been regenerated through large catastrophes, occurring by intervals between 50 and 100 years. Storm and fire will open the landscape, result in a huge amount of dead or dying trees and let the pioneer tree species germinate. These processes are the guideline for Finnish forest management today.The main focus by maintaining the biodiversity in Finnish boreal forest zone is directed to managed forests. Nature-orientated silviculture on stand level is practised. The site type classification, a reflection of the modern concept of biodiversity and developed by Cajander early in 1900s, on the basis of natural vegetation composition of the site, has the central role by choosing tree species, regeneration methods and thinning procedure, and reflects also on the site productivity. The small size of stands, the abundance of natural seedlings in planted stands and the popularity of mixed stands have a positive impact on biodiversity of forests. The protection of small-sized valuable habitats in commercially managed stands, the leaving of retention trees standing and lying in the forest in all phases of the rotation, are activities made for biodiversity. Many insects and fungi are adapted to catastrophes and so they can survive in single stems left on regeneration areas. Maintaining the biodiversity in multifunctional forests is also supported by the new forest legislation and by the criteria of Finnish Forest Certification System.     

State Forest Practice Regulatory Programs: An Approach to Implementing Ecosystem Management on Private Forest Lands in the United States

/ Implemented in the context of a long history ofintense public debate, forestry practices applied on private forest land areregulated in some form by 38 states. State regulatory activities can involvemany agencies implementing numerous regulatory laws, a single forestry agencyadministering a comprehensive regulatory program, or a combination of thetwo. Regulatory programs are designed to protect resources such as soils,water, wildlife, and scenic beauty. Program administration often involvesrule promulgation, harvest plan reviews, coordination of interagency reviews,and pre- and postharvest on-site inspections. Forest practice rules usuallyfocus on reforestation, forest roads, harvest procedures, and wildlifehabitat protection. Emerging regulatory trends include growth of multiagencyregulatory authority and associated jurisdictional conflicts, increasedtendencies to narrowly specify standards in statutes and rules, emergence ofcontingent regulations, growing sensitivity to processes enabling theadoption of new forest practice technologies and an ability to addresscumulative effects, interest in collaborative rule-making stemming fromheightened concern over legalization of administration processes, and growingconcern over the constitutional foundations for regulatory programs and thegovernment and private sector cost of implementing such programs.KEY WORDS: Ecosystem management; Forestry practices; Private landowners;Regulatory programs; State government     

Application of China’s National Forest Continuous Inventory Database

The maintenance of a timely, reliable and accurate spatial database on current forest ecosystem conditions and changes is essential to characterize and assess forest resources and support sustainable forest management. Information for such a database can be obtained only through a continuous forest inventory. The National Forest Continuous Inventory (NFCI) is the first level of China’s three-tiered inventory system. The NFCI is administered by the State Forestry Administration; data are acquired by five inventory institutions around the country. Several important components of the database include land type, forest classification and ageclass/ age-group. The NFCI database in China is constructed based on 5-year inventory periods, resulting in some of the data not being timely when reports are issued. To address this problem, a forest growth simulation model has been developed to update the database for years between the periodic inventories. In order to aid in forest plan design and management, a three-dimensional virtual reality system of forest landscapes for selected units in the database (compartment or sub-compartment) has also been developed based on Virtual Reality Modeling Language. In addition, a transparent internet publishing system for a spatial database based on open source WebGIS (UMN Map Server) has been designed and utilized to enhance public understanding and encourage free participation of interested parties in the development, implementation, and planning of sustainable forest management.     

Relationships Between Major Ownerships, Forest Aboveground Biomass Distributions, and Landscape Dynamics in the New England Region of USA

This study utilizes remote sensing derived forest aboveground biomass (AGB) estimates and ownership information obtained from the Protected Areas Database (PAD), combining landscape analyses and GIS techniques to demonstrate how different ownerships (public, regulated private, and other private) relate to the spatial distribution of AGB in New England states of the USA. “Regulated private” lands were dominated by lands in Maine covered by a Land Use Regulatory Commission. The AGB means between all pairs of the identified ownership categories were significantly different (P < 0.05). Mean AGB observed in public lands (156 Mg/ha) was 43% higher than that in regulated private lands (109 Mg/ha), or 30% higher than that of private lands as a whole. Seventy-seven percent of the regional forests (or about 9,300 km²) with AGB >200 Mg/ha were located outside the area designated in the PAD and concentrated in western MA, southern VT, southwestern NH, and northwestern CT. While relatively unfragmented and high-AGB forests (>200 Mg/ha) accounted for about 8% of total forested land, they were unevenly proportioned among the three major ownership groups across the region: 19.6% of the public land, 0.8% of the regulated private land, and 11.0% of the other private land. Mean disturbance rates (in absolute value) between 1992 and 2001 were 16, 66, and 19 percent, respectively, on public, regulated private, and other private land. This indicates that management practices from different ownerships have a strong impact on dynamic changes of landscape structures and AGB distributions. Our results may provide insight information for policy makers on issues regarding forest carbon management, conservation biology, and biodiversity studies at regional level.     

Structure of a forested urban park: Implications for strategic management

Informed management of urban parks can provide optimal conditions for tree establishment and growth and thus maximize the ecological and aesthetic benefits that trees provide. This study assesses the structure, and its implications for function, of the urban forest in Allan Gardens, a 6.1 ha downtown park in the City of Toronto, Canada, using the Street Tree Resource Analysis Tool for Urban Forest Managers (STRATUM). Our goal is to present a framework for collection and analysis of baseline data that can inform a management strategy that would serve to protect and enhance this significant natural asset. We found that Allan Garden’s tree population, while species rich (43), is dominated by maple (Acer spp.) (48% of all park trees), making it reliant on very few species for the majority of its ecological and aesthetic benefits and raising disease and pest-related concerns. Age profiles (using size as a proxy) showed a dominance of older trees with an inadequate number of individuals in the young to early middle age cohort necessary for short- to medium-term replacement. Because leaf area represents the single-most important contributor to urban tree benefits modelling, we calculated it separately for every park tree, using hemispheric photography, to document current canopy condition. These empirical measurements were lower than estimates produced by STRATUM, especially when trees were in decline and lacked full canopies, highlighting the importance of individual tree condition in determining leaf area and hence overall forest benefits. Stewardship of natural spaces within cities demands access to accurate and timely resource-specific data. Our work provides an uncomplicated approach to the acquisition and interpretation of these data in the context of a forested urban park.     

Using Canonical Correlation Analysis to Identify Environmental Attitude Groups: Considerations for National Forest Planning in the Southwestern U.S.

As public land management agencies pursue region-specific resource management plans, with meaningful consideration of public attitudes and values, there is a need to characterize the complex mix of environmental attitudes in a diverse population. The contribution of this investigation is to make use of a unique household, mail/internet survey data set collected in 2007 in the Southwestern United States (Region 3 of the U.S. Forest Service). With over 5,800 survey responses to a set of 25 Public Land Value statements, canonical correlation analysis is able to identify 7 statistically distinct environmental attitudinal groups. We also examine the effect of expected changes in regional demographics on overall environmental attitudes, which may help guide in the development of socially acceptable long-term forest management policies. Results show significant support for conservationist management policies and passive environmental values, as well as a greater role for stakeholder groups in generating consensus for current and future forest management policies.     

How farmers develop local ecological knowledge for on-farm tree management: The perspectives of some farming communities of Ghana

Scientific insights into what it means to manage on-farm trees by local farmers, is an essential step towards documenting local ecological knowledge for sustainable landscape management. A study was therefore conducted in the Kumawu Forest District in the Ashanti Region of Ghana to assess how farmers conceptualise on-farm tree management and develop local knowledge for it. Using a case study approach, data were collected through informal interviews and focus group discussions with 120 farmers drawn from 15 communities who were involved in the management of three cropping systems; cocoa, maize and cassava-cocoyam-plantain mix. It was observed that the farmers regard on-farm tree management as a continuous process which occurs in three phases of the farming cycle; land preparation, crop cultivation and fallow management. For each of the three phases, farmers are guided by specific principles that ensure enough light penetration in-between tree crowns in the land preparation phase, suitable spacing between trees and crops in the crop cultivation phase and adequate tree regeneration in the fallow phase. The decisions made during the selection of tree species, spacing of trees adjudged suitable for any particular cropping system and recruitment of saplings prior to the fallow phase of farming constitute tree management. Farmers develop tree management knowledge by studying the physical characteristics of species, matching them to ecological functions they could perform and how they are likely to respond to treatments meant to control or enhance their development. Species are then subjected to trial and recommended or otherwise.     

Assessing Land-Use Impacts on Natural Resources

/ Much information is available on changes that occur in natural resources from both spatially-explicit data on environmental conditions and models of the interactions of these conditions and resources with human activities. The strategy for assessing land-use impacts on natural resources developed in this paper provides a framework for using relevant data and models to address questions of how management practices can promote both use and protection of resources. This assessment strategy integrates spatially explicit environmental data using geographic information systems (GIS) with computer models that simulate changes in land cover in response to land-use impacts. The computer models also simulate susceptibility of species to changes in habitat suitability and landscape patterns. The approach is applied to management of limestone barrens on the Oak Ridge Reservation in East Tennessee. Potential limestone barrens habitats are identified by overlaying appropriate soils, geology, slope, and land-use/land-cover conditions. Their validity is tested against known sites containing rare species that occur in these habitats. The location of habitats at risk in the aftermath of human activities is determined by using an available area model that identifies the size and proximity of sites that particular types of species can no longer use as habitat. The resulting risk map can be used in land management planning. The approach uses readily available in situ and remotely sensed data and is applicable to a wide range of locations and land-use scenarios. This approach can be refined based on needs identified by land managers and on the sensitivity of the results to the resolution of available resource information.KEY WORDS: Land management; Assessment; Habitat characterization; Limestone barrens; Ecological modeling; Geographic information systems     

Assessing the Effects of Management Alternatives on Habitat Suitability in a Forested Landscape of Northeastern China

Forest management often has cumulative, long-lasting effects on wildlife habitat suitability and the effects may be impractical to evaluate using landscape-scale field experiments. To understand such effects, we linked a spatially explicit landscape disturbance and succession model (LANDIS) with habitat suitability index (HSI) models to assess the effects of management alternatives on habitat suitability in a forested landscape of northeastern China. LANDIS was applied to simulate future forest landscape changes under four management alternatives (no cutting, clearcutting, selective cutting I and II) over a 200-year horizon. The simulation outputs were linked with HSI models for three wildlife species, the red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris), the red deer (Cervus elaphus) and the hazel grouse (Bonasa bonasia). These species are chosen because they represent numerous species that have distinct habitat requirements in our study area. We assessed their habitat suitability based on the mean HSI values, which is a measure of the average habitat quality. Our simulation results showed that no one management scenario was the best for all species and various forest management scenarios would lead to conflicting wildlife habitat outcomes. How to choose a scenario is dependent on the trade-off of economical, ecological and social goals. Our modeling effort could provide decision makers with relative comparisons among management scenarios from the perspective of biodiversity conservation. The general simulation results were expected based on our knowledge of forest management and habitat relationships of the species, which confirmed that the coupled modeling approach correctly simulated the assumed relationships between the wildlife, forest composition, age structure, and spatial configuration of habitat. However, several emergent results revealed the unexpected outcomes that a management scenario may lead to.