Download or read book Managing Forests as Complex Adaptive Systems written by Christian C. Messier and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The emerging concepts of complexity, complex adaptive system (CAS) and resilience to forest ecology and management are linked in this new book. It explores how these concepts can be applied in various forest biomes of the world with their different ecological, economic and social settings, and history.
Download or read book Managing Forests as Complex Adaptive Systems written by Christian Messier and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-02-11 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book links the emerging concepts of complexity, complex adaptive system (CAS) and resilience to forest ecology and management. It explores how these concepts can be applied in various forest biomes of the world with their different ecological, economic and social settings, and history. Individual chapters stress different elements of these concepts based on the specific setting and expertise of the authors. Regions and authors have been selected to cover a diversity of viewpoints and emphases, from silviculture and natural forests to forest restoration, and from boreal to tropical forests. The chapters show that there is no single generally applicable approach to forest management that applies to all settings. The first set of chapters provides a global overview of how complexity, CAS and resilience theory can benefit researchers who study forest ecosystems. A second set of chapters provides guidance for managers in understanding how these concepts can help them to facilitate forest ecosystem change and renewal (adapt or self-organize) in the face of global change while still delivering the goods and services desired by humans. The book takes a broad approach by covering a variety of forest biomes and the full range of management goals from timber production to forest restoration to promote the maintenance of biodiversity, quality of water, or carbon storage.
Download or read book Forests as Complex Social and Ecological Systems written by Patrick J. Baker and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-05-17 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Professor Chadwick Dearing Oliver has made major intellectual contributions to forest science and natural resources management. Over the course of his career he has actively sought to bring research and practice together through synthesis, outreach, and capacity-building. A common thread throughout his career has been complexity and how we as a society understand and manage complex systems. His work on forest stand dynamics, landscape management, and sustainability have all focused on the emergent properties of complex ecological and/or social systems. This volume celebrates a remarkable career through a diverse group of former students and colleagues who work on a wide range of subject areas related to the management of complex natural resource systems. Over the past decade there has been considerable discussion about forests as complex adaptive systems. Advances in remote sensing, social methods, and data collection and processing have enabled more detailed characterisations of complex natural systems across spatial and temporal scales than ever before. Making sense of these data, however, requires conceptual frameworks that are robust to the complexity of the systems and their inherent dynamics, particularly in the context of global change. This volume presents a collection of cutting-edge research on natural ecosystems and their dynamics through the lens of complex adaptive systems. It includes contributions by a wide range of authors from academia, NGOs, forest industry, and governmental organisations with diverse perspectives on forests and natural resources management. Each chapter offers new insights into how these systems can be made more resilient to ensure that they provide a diversity of ecological and social values well into the future. Together they provide a robust way of thinking about the many challenges that natural ecosystems face and how we as society may best address them.
Download or read book A Critique of Silviculture written by Klaus J. Puettmann and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2012-09-26 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The discipline of silviculture is at a crossroads. Silviculturists are under increasing pressure to develop practices that sustain the full function and dynamics of forested ecosystems and maintain ecosystem diversity and resilience while still providing needed wood products. A Critique of Silviculture offers a penetrating look at the current state of the field and provides suggestions for its future development. The book includes an overview of the historical developments of silvicultural techniques and describes how these developments are best understood in their contemporary philosophical, social, and ecological contexts. It also explains how the traditional strengths of silviculture are becoming limitations as society demands a varied set of benefits from forests and as we learn more about the importance of diversity on ecosystem functions and processes. The authors go on to explain how other fields, specifically ecology and complexity science, have developed in attempts to understand the diversity of nature and the variability and heterogeneity of ecosystems. The authors suggest that ideas and approaches from these fields could offer a road map to a new philosophical and practical approach that endorses managing forests as complex adaptive systems. A Critique of Silviculture bridges a gap between silviculture and ecology that has long hindered the adoption of new ideas. It breaks the mold of disciplinary thinking by directly linking new ideas and findings in ecology and complexity science to the field of silviculture. This is a critically important book that is essential reading for anyone involved with forest ecology, forestry, silviculture, or the management of forested ecosystems.
Download or read book Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Management Options written by James M. Vose and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2013-12-05 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forest land managers face the challenges of preparing their forests for the impacts of climate change. However, climate change adds a new dimension to the task of developing and testing science-based management options to deal with the effects of stressors on forest ecosystems in the southern United States. The large spatial scale and complex interactions make traditional experimental approaches difficult. Yet, the current progression of climate change science offers new insights from recent syntheses, models, and experiments, providing enough information to start planning now for a future that will likely include an increase in disturbances and rapid changes in forest conditions. Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Management Options: A Guide for Natural Resource Managers in Southern Forest Ecosystems provides a comprehensive analysis of forest management options to guide natural resource management in the face of future climate change. Topics include potential climate change impacts on wildfire, insects, diseases, and invasives, and how these in turn might affect the values of southern forests that include timber, fiber, and carbon; water quality and quantity; species and habitats; and recreation. The book also considers southern forest carbon sequestration, vulnerability to biological threats, and migration of native tree populations due to climate change. This book utilizes the most relevant science and brings together science experts and land managers from various disciplines and regions throughout the south to combine science, models, and on-the-ground experience to develop management options. Providing a link between current management actions and future management options that would anticipate a changing climate, the authors hope to ensure a broader range of options for managing southern forests and protecting their values in the future.
Download or read book The Complex Forest written by Carol J. P. Colfer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-09-30 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Complex Forest systematically examines the theory, processes, and early outcomes of a research and management approach called adaptive collaborative management (ACM). An alternative to positivist approaches to development and conservation that assume predictability in forest management, ACM acknowledges the complexity and unpredictability inherent in any forest community and the importance of developing solutions together with the forest peoples whose lives will be most affected by the outcomes. Building on earlier work that established the importance of flexible, collaborative approaches to sustainable forest management, The Complex Forest describes the work of ACM practitioners facing a broad range of challenges in diverse settings and attempts to identify the conditions under which ACM is most effective. Case studies of ACM in 33 forest sites in 11 countries together with Colfer's systematic comparison of results at each site indicate that human and institutional capabilities have been strengthened. In Zimbabwe, for example, the number of women involved in decisionmaking soared. In Nepal, community members detected and sanctioned dishonest community elites. In Cameroon and Bolivia, learning programs resulted in better conflict management. These are early results, but a wide range of recent research supports Colfer's belief that these new capabilities will eventually contribute to higher incomes and to sustainable improvements in the health of forests and forest peoples. The Complex Forest reinforces calls for change in the way we plan conservation and development programs, away from command-and-control approaches, toward ones that require bureaucratic flexibility and responsiveness, as well as greater local participation in setting priorities and problem solving.
Download or read book Resilience and the Behavior of Large Scale Systems written by Lance H. Gunderson and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2012-06-22 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientists and researchers concerned with the behavior of large ecosystems have focused in recent years on the concept of "resilience." Traditional perspectives held that ecological systems exist close to a steady state and resilience is the ability of the system to return rapidly to that state following perturbation. However beginning with the work of C. S. Holling in the early 1970s, researchers began to look at conditions far from the steady state where instabilities can cause a system to shift into an entirely different regime of behavior, and where resilience is measured by the magnitude of disturbance that can be absorbed before the system is restructured. Resilience and the Behavior of Large-Scale Systems examines theories of resilience and change, offering readers a thorough understanding of how the properties of ecological resilience and human adaptability interact in complex, regional-scale systems. The book addresses the theoretical concepts of resilience and stability in large-scale ecosystems as well as the empirical application of those concepts in a diverse set of cases. In addition, it discusses the practical implications of the new theoretical approaches and their role in the sustainability of human-modified ecosystems. The book begins with a review of key properties of complex adaptive systems that contribute to overall resilience, including multiple equlibria, complexity, self-organization at multiple scales, and order; it also presents a set of mathematical metaphors to describe and deepen the reader's understanding of the ideas being discussed. Following the introduction are case studies that explore the biophysical dimensions of resilience in both terrestrial and aquatic systems and evaluate the propositions presented in the introductory chapters. The book concludes with a synthesis section that revisits propositions in light of the case studies, while an appendix presents a detailed account of the relationship between return times for a disturbed system and its resilienc. In addition to the editors, contributors include Stephen R. Carpenter, Carl Folke, C. S. Holling, Bengt-Owe Jansson, Donald Ludwig, Ariel Lugo, Tim R. McClanahan, Garry D. Peterson, and Brian H. Walker.
Download or read book Learning to manage a complex ecosystem written by and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Climate smart Forestry in Mountain Regions written by R. Tognetti and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book offers a cross-sectoral reference for both managers and scientists interested in climate-smart forestry, focusing on mountain regions. It provides a comprehensive analysis on forest issues, facilitating the implementation of climate objectives. This book includes structured summaries of each chapter. Funded by the EU's Horizon 2020 programme, CLIMO has brought together scientists and experts in continental and regional focus assessments through a cross-sectoral approach, facilitating the implementation of climate objectives. CLIMO has provided scientific analysis on issues including criteria and indicators, growth dynamics, management prescriptions, long-term perspectives, monitoring technologies, economic impacts, and governance tools.
Download or read book Adaptive Co Management written by Derek Armitage and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2010-10-01 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Canada and around the world, new concerns with adaptive processes, feedback learning, and flexible partnerships are reshaping environmental governance. Meanwhile, ideas about collaboration and learning are converging around the idea of adaptive co-management. This book provides a comprehensive synthesis of the core concepts, strategies, and tools in this emerging field, informed by a diverse group of researchers and practitioners with over two decades of experience. It also offers a diverse set of case studies that reveal the challenges and implications of adaptive co-management thinking.
Download or read book Adaptive Collaborative Management in Forest Landscapes written by Carol J Pierce Colfer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-11-30 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the value of Adaptive Collaborative Management for facilitating learning and collaboration with local communities and beyond, utilising detailed studies of forest landscapes and communities. Many forest management proposals are based on top-down strategies, such as the Million Tree Initiatives, Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) and REDD+, often neglecting local communities. In the context of the climate crisis, it is imperative that local peoples and communities are an integral part of all decisions relating to resource management. Rather than being seen as beneficiaries or people to be safeguarded, they should be seen as full partners, and Adaptive Collaborative Management is an approach which priorities the rights and roles of communities alongside the need to address the environmental crisis. The volume presents detailed case studies and real life examples from across the globe, promoting and prioritizing the voices of women and scholars and practitioners from the Global South who are often under-represented. Providing concrete examples of ways that a bottom-up approach can function to enhance development sustainably, via its practitioners and far beyond the locale in which they initially worked, this volume demonstrates the lasting utility of approaches like Adaptive Collaborative Management that emphasize local control, inclusiveness and local creativity in management. This book will be of great interest to students, scholars and practitioners working in the fields of conservation, forest management, community development and natural resource management and development studies more broadly.
Download or read book Re conceptualizing the Self in United States Forestry written by Qi Feng Lin and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "One of the factors affecting the long-term prospects of human societies is how the societies conceptualize and interact with the biophysical environment. This conception is grounded in how humans conceive of themselves. Seigel (2005) observed that since the seventeenth century the Western self has been discussed along or within three dimensions: the bodily or material, the relational, and the reflective dimensions. In this thesis, I consider the concept of the self as a locus for change to help us navigate the Anthropocene. The founding of the discipline forestry in the United States around 1900 is an excellent case for studying the concept of the self in relation to the environment. The concept of the self that was implicit in the thinking that led to the founding of forestry provides insights into the relationship between humans and the rest of nature that is implicit in the modern paradigm of natural resource management. The concept of the self in federal forestry practice in the United States from 1905 to 1945 was one that represented stewardship, sovereignty, and order, a response to the preceding wasteful and exploitative practices. Conservation philosophy reflected the modern Western concept of the self, including its individualistic character as well as its dualistic and utilitarian relationship to the environment. Recently, Puettmann, Coates, and Messier (2009) proposed managing forests as complex adaptive systems (Parrott and Lange 2013), which suggests that the traditional concept of the self and the thinking of the management of forests are flawed. New paradigms for conceptualizing the self in forestry are needed. The writings of the American conservationist and wildlife ecologist Aldo Leopold (1887-1948) on the relationship between humans and the environment constitute a milestone in environmental philosophy. Beginning in 1939, Leopold articulated his concepts of "land health" and a "land ethic." Leopold called for humans to consider themselves as members and plain citizens of the biotic community rather than as conquerors. In other words, Leopold espoused a concept of self that was based on aesthetics and ecological values as well as human membership in the land community. The Zhuangzi, a Daoist text that was composed by Zhuangzi (c. 375-300 BCE) and like-minded writers in China during the Warring States period (475-221 BCE), presents a different notion of the self. Since "self" is a highly reified concept in Western thought and Zhuangzi's concept of the person is inseparable from its bodily dimension, it is more fruitful to refer to Zhuangzi's concept as that of the body-person. Zhuangzi's thinking is centred on tian ("the heavenly/natural"), which emerged from dao ("the way"). Specifically, Zhuangzi calls for humans to follow tianli ("heavenly/natural pattern"), the deep patterns of natural processes in the world. However, to do this one must first cultivate one's xin ("heart-mind"), empty it of preferences and worldly concerns such that it becomes mirror-like. In this state of awareness, one is able to respond appropriately and spontaneously to whatever circumstances one encounters. Leopold's concept of the self and Zhuangzi's concept of the body-person provide alternatives to help us rethink forestry practices. Both concepts portray the self or person in which Seigel's three dimensions of the concept of self are linked together by a common principle. For Leopold, it is the ecological worldview, which makes human members of the biotic community. For Zhuangzi, all existents are generated from dao and unfold according to tianli, the heavenly/natural pattern. Directing our human inclinations and consciousness towards these common governing principles is an important major step towards rethinking the concept of self in forestry and addressing our environmental predicament." --
Download or read book Ecological Forest Management written by Jerry F. Franklin and published by Waveland Press. This book was released on 2018-03-19 with total page 688 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Ecological Silviculture written by Brian J. Palik and published by Waveland Press. This book was released on 2020-05-15 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Classical silviculture has often emphasized timber models, fundamentally based in production agriculture. This books presents silvicultural methods based in natural forest models—models that emulate natural disturbances and development processes, sustain biological legacies, and allow time to take its course in shaping stands. These methods, dubbed “ecological forestry,” have been successfully implemented by foresters for decades managing a wide variety of forestlands. Ecological silvicultural strategies protect threatened and rare species, sustain biological diversity, and provide habitat for game and non-game species, all while providing timber in profitable ways.
Download or read book Adaptive Environmental Management written by Catherine Allan and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-06-05 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adaptive management is the recommended means for continuing ecosystem management and use of natural resources, especially in the context of ‘integrated natural resource management’. Conceptually, adaptive management is simply learning from past management actions to improve future planning and management. However, adaptive management has proved difficult to achieve in practice. With a view to facilitating better practice, this new book presents lessons learned from case studies, to provide managers with ready access to relevant information. Cases are drawn from a number of disciplinary fields, including management of protected areas, watersheds and farms, rivers, forests, biodiversity and pests. Examples from Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Canada, the UK and Europe are presented at a variety of scales, from individual farms, through regional projects, to state-wide planning. While the book is designed primarily for practitioners and policy advisors in the fields of environmental and natural resource management, it will also provide a valuable reference for students and researchers with interests in environmental, natural resource and conservation management.
Download or read book Rangeland Systems written by David D. Briske and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-04-12 with total page 664 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is open access under a CC BY-NC 2.5 license. This book provides an unprecedented synthesis of the current status of scientific and management knowledge regarding global rangelands and the major challenges that confront them. It has been organized around three major themes. The first summarizes the conceptual advances that have occurred in the rangeland profession. The second addresses the implications of these conceptual advances to management and policy. The third assesses several major challenges confronting global rangelands in the 21st century. This book will compliment applied range management textbooks by describing the conceptual foundation on which the rangeland profession is based. It has been written to be accessible to a broad audience, including ecosystem managers, educators, students and policy makers. The content is founded on the collective experience, knowledge and commitment of 80 authors who have worked in rangelands throughout the world. Their collective contributions indicate that a more comprehensive framework is necessary to address the complex challenges confronting global rangelands. Rangelands represent adaptive social-ecological systems, in which societal values, organizations and capacities are of equal importance to, and interact with, those of ecological processes. A more comprehensive framework for rangeland systems may enable management agencies, and educational, research and policy making organizations to more effectively assess complex problems and develop appropriate solutions.
Download or read book Sustainable Forest Management written by John L. Innes and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-12-19 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sustainable Forest Management provides the necessary material to educate students about forestry and the contemporary role of forests in ecosystems and society. This comprehensive textbook on the concept and practice of sustainable forest management sets the standard for practice worldwide. Early chapters concentrate on conceptual aspects, relating sustainable forestry management to international policy. In particular, they consider the concept of criteria and indicators and how this has determined the practice of forest management, taken here to be the management of forested lands and of all ecosystems present on such lands. Later chapters are more practical in focus, concentrating on the management of the many values associated with forests. Overall the book provides a major new synthesis which will serve as a textbook for undergraduates of forestry as well as those from related disciplines such as ecology or geography who are taking a course in forests or natural resource management.
