BackgroundActively managed forestlands are this nation's most valuable resource. Under diverse and changing ownerships, these 350 million acres of land provide a variety of social, economic and ecological benefits enjoyed by nearly 300 million people.
Traditionally, society has viewed forests as one of two types: 1) commercial forests that are managed aggressively for their economic value, and 2) forest preserves. However, this dichotomy has done our forests a disservice. Growing concerns about the negative effect of intensive timber harvesting are creating a demand for foresters who can manage timberlands for ecological health. At the same time, advances in ecological science are helping to revise conventional approaches toward preserves, providing evidence that sustainable forest management that includes carefully planned harvesting in preserves can significantly enhance habitat for biodiversity. There is a clear need to manage preserves and working landscapes in a more integrated fashion and for land managers to work more broadly across disciplines. Ecological Forestry Foresters use natural disturbances and stand development processes as models for silvicultural practices in broad conceptual ways. Incorporating an understanding of natural disturbance and stand development processes more fully into silvicultural practice is the basis for an ecological forestry approach. Such an approach must include 1) understanding the importance of biological legacies created by a tree regenerating disturbance and incorporating legacy management into harvesting prescriptions; 2) recognizing the role of stand development processes, particularly individual tree mortality, in generating structural and compositional heterogeneity in stands and implementing thinning prescriptions that enhance this heterogeneity; and 3) appreciating the role of recovery periods between disturbance events in the development of stand complexity. These concepts, when incorporated into a comprehensive silvicultural approach, become the “three-legged stool” of ecological forestry. The Conservation Forestry Network CFN is a collaborative effort of six partner organizations: the Forest Guild, InterForest, Joseph W. Jones Ecological Research Center, Manomet Center for Conservation, Open Space Institute, and Northern Research Station of the U.S. Forest Service. With funding from the U.S. Forest Service Northern Research Station, CFN has helped improve forestry practice through 15 workshops in seven states across the country since 2005. Over the last five years, CFN has brought together more than 450 experts, researchers, foresters, landowners, and decision makers in workshops to demonstrate how to better use natural models in forestry to achieve ecological and social goals.
|
|
|
