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Approximately 85% of the global forest estate is neither formally protected nor in areas dedicated to intensive wood production (e.g., plantations). Given the spatial extent of unprotected forests, finding management approaches that will sustain their multiple environmental, economic, and cultural values and prevent their conversion to other uses is imperative. The major global challenge of native forest management is further demonstrated by ongoing steep declines in forest biodiversity and carbon stocks. Here, we suggest that an essential part of such management-supplementing the protection of large reserves and sensitive areas within forest landscapes (e.g., aquatic features)-is the adoption of the retention approach in forests where logging occurs. This ecological approach to harvesting provides for permanent retention of important selected structures (e.g., trees and decayed logs) to provide for continuity of ecosystem structure, function, and species composition in the postharvest forest. The retention approach supports the integration of environmental, economic, and cultural values and is broadly applicable to tropical, temperate, and boreal forests, adaptable to different management objectives, and appropriate in different societal settings. The widespread adoption of the retention approach would be one of the most significant changes in management practice since the onset of modern high-yield forestry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Madagascar is a top global conservation priority for high rates of deforestation and endemism. Deforestation has been extensive, but impacts of forest loss on biodiversity have not been well quantified, especially for nonvertebrates. We use generalized dissimilarity modeling (GDM) as a basis for estimating forest biodiversity remaining at different points in time. We predict that 9.1% of species in Madagascar have been committed to extinction from deforestation between 1950 and 2000. This quantity is higher than losses expected from random deforestation of the same total area, indicating that deforestation has been biased towards environmentally and biologically distinct areas. In contrast to traditional area-based methods, these techniques allow one to estimate biodiversity loss based on the location of deforestation and thus can inform land-use policies that aim to minimize biodiversity impacts of deforestation or development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]