Search

Although stakeholders' participation in forest management helps overcome problems and conflicts that prevent sustainable solutions, different approaches and nomenclature for similar contents in the literature hinder theoretical progress on the topic. This study organises existing information through a bibliometric analysis of scientific papers from the last 30 years (1991–2021) on sustainable forest management, focusing on the stakeholders' participation. Results demonstrate that stakeholders' participation in sustainable forest management gained relevance from 2017 onwards. Case studies are predominant (66%) and six major trends were identified. The first emphasises a systemic approach to participation. The second updates the community management discussion. The third studies historical problems related to the use of resources, rights, and services. The fourth focuses on regional assessments and studies. The fifth concerns assessment, decision-making, and planning, including issues related to certifications and policies. The sixth discusses innovation related to adaptation, climate change, equity, and resilience. The studies included in this last classification are problem-solving-oriented and seek new forest management. Although important, the role of innovation in stakeholders' participation in sustainable forest management is overlooked, which constitutes an avenue for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In commenting on our review about barriers to climate change adaptation and mitigation (Williamson and Nelson 2017, Can. J. For Res. 47(12): 1567–1576, doi:10.1139/cjfr-2017-0252), Wellstead et al. (2018, Can. J. For. Res. 48(10), doi:10.1139/cjfr-2017-0465) argue that the "functionalist assumptions" underlying barriers analysis in general and our paper in particular are problematic. They also argue that barriers analysis — a method widely employed both in scholarly climate change adaptation research and in national and international climate change assessments — should be replaced by approaches that remain untested in the context of climate change adaptation research, particularly in forestry adaptation and mitigation research. We believe that neither the scholarly research on adaptation and mitigation barriers nor our review have characteristics of functionalism or imply functionalist assumptions. Moreover, we disagree that barriers analysis can be replaced by the methodologies that they propose because these latter approaches address different aspects and features of processes supporting movement toward comprehensive and integrated adaptation and mitigation in forest management. We do agree that there are knowledge gaps relative to examinations and explanations of causal mechanisms to explain decision-making and policy process outcomes that have already occurred, and we encourage research to address these gaps. Ultimately, this aspect of social science research is complementary to, not a substitute for, barriers research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mexican temperate forests, at the southernmost end of the distribution range of this ecosystem, are the world's centre of diversity of pine and oak, with 55 and 161 species, respectively. Such forests are threatened by land-use change, unsustainable forest management practices, and climate change; these threats reduce their diversity, alter the distribution ranges of species, modify disturbance regimes, and reduce ecosystem adaptability. This paper briefly reviews ( i) the ecology of the Mexican temperate forests, ( ii) the ecological basis for the unique diversity of pine and oak species, ( iii) the main disturbances as well as the main drivers of global changes affecting these forests, in particular climate change, and ( iv) the social, economic, and cultural factors to be considered in proposing a new forest management approach. It proposes a new conceptual framework to manage Mexican temperate forests that are in line with ( i) their natural dynamics, ( ii) the rapidly changing and uncertain global environmental, social, and economic conditions, and ( iii) the complex adaptive system approach. This new forest management combines functional zoning, multispecies plantations, and sylvicultural interventions to increase the adaptive capacity of forests as a way to balance the increasing need for timber products with the need for other ecosystem services facing rapidly changing and uncertain future environmental, social, and economic conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Novel ecosystems occur when new combinations of species appear within a particular biome. They typically result from direct human activity, environmental change, or the impacts of introduced species. In this paper, we argue that considering commercial tree plantations as novel ecosystems has the potential to help policy makers, resource managers, and conservation biologists better deal with the challenges and opportunities associated with managing plantations for multiple purposes at both the stand and landscape scales. We outline five inter-related issues associated with managing tree plantations, which are arguably the largest form of terrestrial novel ecosystem worldwide. This is to ensure that these areas contribute significantly to critical ecosystem services, including biodiversity conservation, in addition to their wood production role. We suggest that viewing tree plantations as novel socioecological systems may free managers from a narrow stand-based perspective and having to compare them with natural forest stands. This can help promote the development of management principles that better integrate plantations into the larger landscape so that their benefits are maximized and their potential negative ecological effects are minimized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is affecting Canada's boreal zone, which includes most of the country's managed forests. The impacts of climate change in this zone are expected to be pervasive and will require adaptation of Canada's forest management system. This paper reviews potential climate change adaptation actions and strategies for the forest management system, considering current and projected climate change impacts and their related vulnerabilities. These impacts and vulnerabilities include regional increases in disturbance rates, regional changes in forest productivity, increased variability in timber supply, decreased socioeconomic resilience, and increased severity of safety and health issues for forest communities. Potential climate change adaptation actions of the forest management system are categorized as those that reduce nonclimatic stressors, those that reduce sensitivity to climate change, or those that maintain or enhance adaptive capacity in the biophysical and human subsystems of the forest management system. Efficient adaptation of the forest management system will revolve around the inclusion of risk management in planning processes, the selection of robust, diversified, and no-regret adaptation actions, and the adoption of an adaptive management framework. Monitoring is highlighted as a no-regret action that is central to the implementation of adaptive forest management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural disturbance emulation (NDE) has been proposed as a general approach to ecologically sustainable forest management. We reviewed the concepts, theories, and strategies related to NDE in boreal forest management. We also reviewed publications that discussed NDE in the boreal forest in general and those that specifically compared NDE-based management with conventional even-aged management. The papers generally focused on northern North America and landscape-scale wildfire as the main disturbance factor, whereas information from Eurasia was exclusively theoretical. Within this limited scope, NDE was generally found to have a positive effect on biodiversity in terms of forest structure and species diversity when compared with conventional even-aged management. Studies on timber supply and social implications of NDE were so few that they preclude generalizations. We conclude that the ecological and economic performance of NDE as a management approach still remains poorly examined. To advance the development of NDE, particular attention should be given to (1) augmenting the knowledge base on natural range of variability of unmanaged forest ecosystems and evaluating the validity of this information in a changing climate, (2) fostering multidisciplinary research with better integration of ecological theory to both integrative and analytical research on NDE, and (3) better integration of socioeconomic concerns, adaptive management schemes, and international collaboration into NDE initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this paper is to evaluate whether future climate change would trigger an increase in the fire activity of the Waswanipi area, central Quebec. First, we used regression analyses to model the historical (1973–2002) link between weather conditions and fire activity. Then, we calculated Fire Weather Index system components using 1961–2100 daily weather variables from the Canadian Regional Climate Model for the A2 climate change scenario. We tested linear trends in 1961–2100 fire activity and calculated rates of change in fire activity between 1975–2005, 2030–2060, and 2070–2100. Our results suggest that the August fire risk would double (+110%) for 2100, while the May fire risk would slightly decrease (–20%), moving the fire season peak later in the season. Future climate change would trigger weather conditions more favourable to forest fires and a slight increase in regional fire activity (+7%). While considering this long-term increase, interannual variations of fire activity remain a major challenge for the development of sustainable forest management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]