Table Of ContentFOREST MANAGEMENT
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FOREST MANAGEMENT
STEVEN P. GROSSBERG
EDITOR
Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
New York
Copyright © 2009 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Grossberg, Steven P.
Forest management / Steven P. Grossberg.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-61209-697-1 (eBook)
1. Forest management. 2. Forests and forestry. I. Title.
SD373.G84 2009
634.9'2--dc22
2009002409
CONTENTS
Preface vii
Review and Research Articles
Chapter 1 A Decomposition Approach to Integrated Forest Harvest
Scheduling and Access Planning 1
David M. Nanang and Grant K. Hauer
Chapter 2 Reduced-Impact Logging and Post-Harvest Management in the
Atlantic Forest of Argentina: Alternative Approaches to Enhance
Regeneration and Growth of Canopy Trees 39
Paula I. Campanello, Lía Montti, Patricio Mac Donagh and
Guillermo Goldstein
Chapter 3 A Decision Support System Linking Forest Policy with Sustainable
Forest Management Planning in Private Forests in Ireland 61
Frank Barrett and Maarten Nieuwenhuis
Chapter 4 Ecological Restoration in Degraded Drylands: The Need to Improve
the Seedling Quality and Site Conditions in the Field 85
E. Chirino, A. Vilagrosa, J. Cortina, A. Valdecantos, D. Fuentes, R.
Trubat, V.C. Luis, J. Puértolas, S. Bautista, M.J. Baeza, J.L.
Peñuelas and V. R. Vallejo
Chapter 5 Selection of Restoration and Conservation Areas Using Species
Ecological Niche Modeling: A Case Study of the River Otter Lontra
Longicaudis Annectens in Central Mexico 159
Verónica Cirelli and Víctor Sánchez-Cordero
Chapter 6 Environmental Impacts of Caatinga Forest Management - A Study
Case 179
Frans Pareyn, Enrique Riegelhaupt and Maria Auxiliadora
Gariglio
vi Contents
Chapter 7 Forest Management within Protected Areas: The Social Production
of Nature in the Dadia Forest Reserve, Greece 203
Tasos Hovardas
Chapter 8 A Comparison of Forest Resources in Selected Jurisdictions of
North America and Europe: Some Implications for Macro-
Sustainability Assessment 223
Gordon M. Hickey
Chapter 9 Semi-Arid Zone Afforestation in Northern Israel: A Review 249
Paul Ginsberg and Nir Atzmon
Chapter 10 Olive Tree Growth in Tunisia: Types, Limitations and Influences 272
Ben Ahmed, B. Ben Rouina and M. Boukhris
Short Communications
Communication A
Rotation Age Determination for Even-Aged Forest Plantations 293
Pete Bettinger and Rongxia Li
Communication B
Moving Targets and Rolling Milestones in Forest Management 305
Sen Wang
Index 309
PREFACE
Forest management includes a range of human interventions that affect forest ecosystems.
These activities include both conservation and economic activities, such as extraction of
timber, planting and replanting of various species, cutting roads and pathways through
forests, and techniques for preventing or making outbreaks of fire.
In developed countries, the environment has increased public awareness of natural
resource policy, including forest management. As a direct result, primary concerns regarding
forest management have shifted from the extraction of timber to other forest resources
including wildlife, watershed management, and recreation. This shift in public values has also
caused many in the public to mistrust resource management professionals. This new book
presents the latest research in this field.
Chapter 1 - This chapter presents the results of a mixed-integer non-linear programming
(MINLP) model that integrates access road development with forest harvest scheduling. A
Model II forest scheduling model that maximized net present value of timber products subject
to mill capacity, multiple mill and product demands, regeneration, area, and access constraints
was specified. The model was applied to an operationally-sized Forest Management
Agreement (FMA) area in central Alberta, Canada. The resulting model had approximately
2.6 million decision variables and about 96,000 constraints, and was used to examine the
impacts of access development on harvest scheduling. The results show that the inclusion of
road access costs concentrated forest management activities to fewer locations over the
planning period compared to when road construction costs were zero. Also, positive access
costs reduced the frequency with which locations are accessed during the planning horizon.
The model provides important shadow price information on the various constraints in the
model that gives insights into future production costs or timber prices, which are valuable for
determining supply planning as well as silvicultural and road building investment decisions.
Chapter 2 - Selective logging is the most common method of timber extraction in native
tropical and subtropical forests, including the Atlantic Forest of South America. Uncontrolled
conventional logging has resulted in impoverished forests that have lost much of their
economical value and biodiversity. In poorly logged forests in sub-tropical Argentina,
bamboos colonize felling gaps and inhibit canopy tree regeneration while lianas slow the
growth rate of most canopy trees. Reduced impact logging techniques along with post-harvest
silvicultural treatments to enhance canopy tree growth and regeneration have been shown to
be effective in the Atlantic Forest eco-region, but destructive timber mining practices
nevertheless continue.
viii Steven P. Grossberg
Chapter 3 - During the last 20 years, the size of the forest estate in Ireland has increased
dramatically. Inventory and management information on the (FSC-certified) publicly-owned
forest is widely available, however details on the rapidly expanding private estate, both in
terms of inventory data and management objectives, are missing. The developed PractiSFM
Decision Support System comprises Microsoft ExcelTM based inventory and decision support
components that permit the collection and quantification of data for multiple forest resources
and facilitates the production of 10-year sustainable forest management plans. The inventory
component consists of a standardised set of protocols for observing, assessing and recording
multi-resource forest inventory data at the stand-level scale, based on local measures of
Criteria and Indicators identified in the Irish National Forest Standard. This paper describes
the PractiSFM DSS, which provides a means to integrate, tabulate, forecast, map and analyse
multi-resource inventory data through the use of interactive and visual tools. The DSS can be
used to generate planning scenario information at a forest and stand level, such as timber
volume/value assortments, area of visually or environmentally sensitive forest, area affected
by harvesting operations, changes in deer cover and food habitat, cumulative deadwood
volumes, productive man hours and operational cash flow. The outputs from the PractiSFM
system have the additional potential to facilitate the standardisation of management plan
reporting and feed into the national forest information system. The system provides practical
and efficient tools for the implementation of sustainable forest management, based on the
Irish SFM policy initiative.
Chapter 4 - Ecological restoration represents an important tool for combating land
degradation and increasing ecosystem resistance and resilience to disturbance, thus favoring
the recovery of functions and services. Degraded drylands constitute very harsh conditions for
the natural regeneration and rangeland restoration of the ecosystems. Scarcity of rainfall after
planting, inappropriate seedling quality and unfavorable hydro-physic and chemical
characteristics of the soil often affect the success of ecological restoration projects. Therefore,
there is a need to improve ecological restoration techniques in degraded drylands. In this
paper the authors analyze innovative nursery and field techniques oriented to reduce
outplanting stress on the basis of the researcher experience of the CEAM Foundation‘s Forest
Restoration Programme and the Ecosystems Management and Biodiversity group in the
University of Alicante‘s Department of Ecology though several RTD projects funded by the
Valencia Regional Government, the Government of Spain and the European Commission. In
the nursery, the main research lines are directed towards improving seedling quality,
especially its resistance to water stress, by means of the use of containers gauged to the
different root growth patterns of the species, the use of hydrogel to improve the water holding
capacity of the substrate and reduce post-planting stress, the use of drought preconditioning to
induce mechanisms for drought resistance, the use of fertilization according to field
conditions and target seedlings for restoration projects and the use of growth regulators to
control the biomass distribution within the seedlings. Other research lines are focused on
ameliorating site conditions in the field, particularly soil and microclimatic conditions, by
using: microcatchments to improve runoff harvesting and soil water availability to seedlings,
deeper planting holes according to species growth patterns, treeshelters to reduce
environmental stress, hydrogels to improve soil water-holding capacity, organic amendments
like biosolids to improve soil fertility, and biotic interactions to facilitate seedling
establishment. Then, the authors present the demonstration project on the restoration and
management of semi-arid areas affected by desertification in Albatera (Spain) as an example
Preface ix
of the implementation of these innovative techniques. This project has shown that increased
technological investment in forest restoration ensures acceptable results in seedling survival
and growth, and gradual ecosystem recovery. Finally, the challenges and opportunities for
ecological restoration in dryland are discussed on the basis of the results shown and future
climate projections.
Chapter 5 - The authors used ecological niche modeling and place prioritization
procedures to identify areas for conservation and restoration for the river otter, Lontra
longicaudis annectens Major 1897, in central Mexico. This species is highly sensible to
fluvial ecosystem degradation, and large areas of the Apatlaco-Tembembe basin fluvial
ecosystems have been highly transformed. The authors selected ecological indicators (EI)
from literature and own field work to determine variables best describing the fluvial
ecosystem degradation, relating them to the species‘ presence or absence. Field data of EI,
species records, and digital thematic information of hydrology, geomorphology and climate
were used in ResNet Place Prioritization algorithm for the selection of potential conservation
and restoration areas. The authors generated a spatial model considering a hierarchy of key
areas based on river otter‘s ecological niche requirements and habitat ad hoc conditions for
the species permanence. This allowed identifying areas to be included in landscape
management plans for conservation and restoration. The sequential integration of species´
potential distribution and place prioritization modeling allows merging biodiversity
conservation and ecological restoration strategies at different ecological scales, helping
adaptive management in land planning to be more flexible and feasible.
Chapter 6 - Caatinga is the typical semi-arid native forest of the Brazilian northeast
covering still about 40% of the total of 850.103 km2. Due to high pressure for forest fuels and
forage, sustainable forest management would be the most indicated alternative as
reforestation potentialities are limited. From the other hand, global awareness and worries
urge for efficient biodiversity conservation at different levels. This case study evaluates tree
growth and biodiversity dynamics in two commercial forest management plans (350 hectares
each) in order to assess production capacity on one hand, and the contribution of forest
management to biodiversity conservation on the other.
Forest inventory in a total of 53 plots in different age stands allowed evaluating growth
rates and tree diversity along several stages of caatinga regeneration. Growth rates were very
high in young stands and MAI ranged from 4.5 – 5.1 m3.ha-1.a-1. Original biomass, at this
rate, can be recovered in about 10 years. However, forest structure, expressed by volume
distribution per diameter class, is recovered more slowly, being necessary 15 to 20 years or
more. These results indicate that native forest management can be an excellent means for
supplying the wood fuel needs of the region.
Biodiversity studies considered different biological groups: trees, herbaceous plants,
native bees, mammals, amphibians and reptiles. Caatinga forest management did not cause
loss of tree diversity. Original dominant species maintain dominance in the regeneration
stands and new species occur. Herbaceous plant diversity was similar to the one in preserved
areas despite lower Shannon values.
The initial impact of forest management on the native bees was strong but after 9-14
years, original diversity is mainly recovered. Apparently, diversity of amphibians and reptiles
depends more on habitat diversity than on the management activities. Total diversity found in
the commercial managed areas was similar or higher than the one in preserved areas.
