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This paper presents an economic assessment of two different policies – both implying an increased demand for forest ecosystem services – and how these could affect the competition for forest raw materials. A forest sector trade model is updated to a new base year (2016), and then employed to analyze the consequences of a more intense use of bioenergy and increased forest conservation in Sweden. These scenarios are assessed individually and in combination. A particularly interesting market impact is that bioenergy promotion and forest conservation tend to have opposite effects on forest industry by-product prices. Moreover, combining the two policies mitigates the forest industry by-product price increase compared to the case where only the bioenergy-promoting policy is implemented. Namely, the energy using sector (heat and power) is less negatively affected in terms of increased feedstock prices if bioenergy demand targets are accompanied by increased forest conservation. This effect is due to increasing pulpwood prices, which reduces pulp, paper and board production, and in turn mitigates the competition for the associated by-products. Overall, the paper illustrates the complexity of the forest raw material market, and the importance of considering demand and supply responses within and between sectors in energy and forest policy decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents abstracts of articles published in the October 2003 issue of "Journal of Japanese Forest Society." "Prediction model of the occurrence probability of bark-stripping by sika deer in plantation forests in Kumamoto Prefecture," by Tomoki Inoue, Junji Miyajima, and Takuhiko Murakami; "The relationships between density of Japanese hare and forest vegetation in the fome range of a pair of Golden Eagles on Mt. Akita-Komagatake," by Seiya Abe, Makoto Nashimoto, and Hitohito Yatake; "Change in the annual discharge after clear-cutting a 70-year-old mixed plantation of sugi and hinoki in a Tertiary formation area," by Eiichi Maita, Masakazu Suzuki, and Takehiko Ohta.

This paper examines the implications of climate crisis governance for rural communities in the Amazon of Peru. It draws the attention to the shared political economy behind the resistance of diverse rural populations particularly, Indigenous and Colono communities. Based on an analysis of two local conservation interventions in the region of San Martín—one involving indigenous communities and the other peasant settlers—this study argues that narrow authorized knowledge obscures the wider historical and agrarian macro context of uneven institutional and ecological arrangements that lead to the reproduction of injustices related to the land, the underlying causes of deforestation, and the authoritarian relationships of these local communities with the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At less than one percent of Malaysia's total population, the Orang Asli (Peninsular Malaysia's Indigenous Peoples) lack political clout; state nonrecognition of their land rights constitutes a fundamental reason for the economic and social ills faced by their communities. This article examines the protection of Semai Orang Asli customary territories from a cultural heritage perspective. Drawing on a study of traditional place-names and oral history, it describes how forests, other than existing as the Semai ancestral domain, continue to be the lifeblood of Semai culture and economic production. The paper examines state-owned forest reserves and the role these play in Semai cultural continuity, including traditional livelihoods such as agroforestry and swidden agriculture. Forest reserves are on the frontier of resource extraction and forest conservation in Malaysia; however, because these comprise the customary territories of Orang Asli, they also signify the frontier of forest-dependent Indigeneity. The paper weaves a narrative of Semai forest dependence, and concludes with a discussion of the prospects for a World Heritage Cultural Landscape (WHCL) designation as a possible avenue for protecting Semai customary territories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing the supply of forest ecosystem services in the tropics is on the agenda of most developing countries' forest policies and most importantly in Kenya which is a low forest cover country. Evidence from past empirical impact assessments show numerous limitations in these assessments such as complexities within local forest communities and challenges in accessing relevant ecosystem services and household income data for impact assessments. This paper attempts to address some of these limitations by estimating joint ecosystem services and household livelihood outcomes at the same time. A survey protocol was designed, pre-tested and implemented with 370 households in two (2) out of the ten (10) forest ecological conservancies in Kenya and with secondary data on selected ecosystem services outcomes. Propensity score matching estimates of the treatment effects of the treated from participation in conservation association show a significant income loss (−57600.11) for households participating in a conservation association with a positive effect on erosion control (3.49) and biodiversity conservation outcomes (0.071) in the Nzoia catchment area. The paper concludes recommending the introduction of a payment scheme with CBCAs household members in reforestation and afforestation programs in the Basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Logging is essential to provide society with fuel, building materials, furniture and myriad other needs. At the same time, the ecosystem must be conserved so that the resources are sustainable. This paper considers the impact of forestry activities on forest vegetation and soil indicators: mean height, mean diameter, mean age, tree stock, plant density, soil density, thickness and porosity. The authors analyse the effect of five types of forest machinery operating three extraction (skidding) procedures: butt-first, top-end first, and untrimmed trees. Butt-first skidding using the Amkodor 2242B wheeled tractor was found to have a minimal effect on plant valuation indices; the least damage to soil attributes was inflicted by crawler tractors skidding untrimmed trees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Venezuelan economic crisis, combined with the creation of the Orinoco Mining Arc (OMA), has pushed thousands of people to work in wildcat mines in the Venezuelan Guayana. Even though attempts have been made to control illegal mining in the past, the absence of planning and lack of concrete economic alternatives have made these efforts unsuccessful. Spatial planning could play an important role in developing a rural regional strategy aimed at making other livelihood options available. This is a challenging endeavour, however, because the Venezuelan Guayana is the largest and least populated region of the country, with most of its surface covered by fragile forests rich in ecological and cultural diversity. Moreover, data to inform decision-making are unavailable or severely limited. This paper presents an approach that attempts to overcome those obstacles and seeks to identify which are the peripheral remote areas where resource extraction and its negative externalities are most present, conflicting with the preservation of the forest, its biodiversity and the livelihoods of Indigenous populations. The conclusions presented here might assist spatial planners and policymakers who seek to explore territorial approaches for rural development and inform decision-making in peripheral regions where data are scarce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virungas National Park, Rwanda, is a pristine wild environment abutting some of the most fertile agricultural land in Africa. Climate and altitude provide ideal conditions for many valuable crops there. In this paper, Human Wildlife Conflict (HWC) is highlighted in an excerpt from a fieldwork diary. Various elements that contribute to a wider understanding of challenges faced by various groups, including wildlife are explored through the perspective of global economic and political forces. The paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach from a perspective firmly grounded in conservation biology. It addresses a need for dialogue across fields and disciplines in order to contribute to more robust and effective strategies for both rain forest conservation and the well-being of precarious agricultural, hunter-gatherer and wildlife communities. Human agency in the face of monolithic business models, of 'primitive' versus 'modern' binaries, and the sustainability of conservation models that exclude such perspectives are outlined and explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across Southeast Asia's extractive frontier, Indigenous people increasingly negotiate an influx of nonstate actors pushing partnerships and projects to steer livelihoods away from extractivism and toward forest conservation. Yet, NGOs and their donors often struggle to grasp Indigenous peoples' changing needs and expectations that may prioritize sustaining an income, often via the promises extractive industries propose, over preserving fragmented forests for posterity. This paper examines three interventions by conservation NGOs in East Kalimantan, Indonesia, which leveraged custom (adat) and "alternative" livelihoods through territorial practices to dissuade a Dayak Modang community from releasing ancestral lands for palm oil plantations and coal mines. Drawing on the state's definition of adat to demarcate Modang territory, NGOs and some Modang engaged in counter-mapping and livelihood initiatives as hopeful expressions of indigeneity and making a living through acts of territorialization. We explore how NGO territorial practices unfolded as simplified spatial expressions that leveraged adat identity, enclosures, and livelihoods, neglecting the contemporary realities of living in a fragmented forest frontier. Although NGO-Modang strategies temporarily slowed dispossession and deforestation, their misaligned livelihood and conservation programs may have reinforced social differentiation between and across Dayak and migrant groups to ultimately facilitate extraction's expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the 'input–output analysis' technique to investigate why the Joint Forest Management program in India has expanded while the uptake of the Community-based Forest Management program in the Philippines has been relatively slow. The forward linkage of the forestry sector with downstream industries in the Philippines was found to be weak when compared with India. In contrast, the wood and wood-products industry in the Philippines has strong forward linkage in contrast to that of India. These findings indicate that further research into the supply chain of forest products in the Philippines is needed. Such research may then inform policy to bridge the gap between industrial demand for timber and national forestry production. The paper suggests that while rights-based institutional reforms are essential for promoting community forestry, the long-term success of community forestry may depend on the performance of the forestry sector within the context of the whole economy. An additional finding is that input–output analysis may provide important insights concerning the economic context for the uptake and long-term sustainability of community forestry programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This co-authored paper offers Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal perspectives on the emergence of urban/nature/child pedagogies in a project to reclaim remnant woodlands. Set in the context of indigenous issues explored in a special edition of the journal on land based education, the paper engages critically with a claim by a group of ecologists, that as urbanisation increases globally indigenous languages and knowledges are being lost in parallel with the loss of species.1 The paper analyses children's multimodal images and texts in the book, Because Eco-systems Matter, produced as an outcome of the project. In identifying possibilities for alternative storylines to those of loss and moral failure, the paper concludes that pedagogies incorporating contemporary hybrid Aboriginal forms of language and representation offer all children the possibility of re-imagining a traditional past into a contemporary present/future. In this present/future their learning and actions have the potential to name and change their worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The basic component of any society's knowledge system is undoubtedly its indigenous knowledge. This consists of skills, experiences and insights which the people apply to maintain and improve their lives. Indigenous patterns of behaviour are well known for not only being relevant for preserving local forest resources but also for enriching livelihood systems. Adopting participatory rural appraisal research methods consisting of transects, trend analyses, seasonal calendars, institutional analyses and direct observations, this paper discusses how increased privatisation of forestlands and resources within forest-dependent communities of Cross River, Nigeria is evolving into well-developed alienating structures of neoliberal markets, thereby incapacitating local populations in adapting to environmental changes and resulting stressors of extreme events. This issue is also complicated by their cultural ability to tackle challenges of external adaptation and internal integration that confront them. Hence, actions and policies of forest conservation within forest-dependent communities of Cross River need to be more directed at promoting indigenous knowledge systems that brace common meaning for forests. Indigenous educational systems should also be strengthened in ways that help community people begin to think historically about alternative outcomes, and how they are agents and victims of history and their forestlands and resources are no longer for the public good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Markets for ecosystem services are gaining the interest of both entrepreneurs and environmentalists as a way to further environmental protection and conservation goals while turning a profit for investors and land managers. The Panama Canal Watershed is currently struggling with the effects of land use change on its water quality and quantity. This paper examines two types of land management in the Panama Canal Watershed (large-scale reforestation with native species and smallholders' agroforestry projects) to analyze the supply side of a possible market for watershed services. Forest cover provides the following watershed services: (1) regulates water flow by controlling flooding and peak flows, and possibly increasing dry season flows; and (2) improves water quality by increasing dissolved oxygen levels and reducing erosion, sedimentation, pathogens, eutrophication, and chemical contaminant loading. Based on the research presented in this paper, large-scale reforestation may not be desirable in the Panama Canal Watershed unless decreased water yield is an acceptable outcome or improved dry season flows can he shown. Consequently, this paper concludes that efforts to develop markets for watershed services in the Panama Canal Watershed should focus on smallholders and water quality improvement, at least until scientists agree that increasing forest cover increases dry season water yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically examines the local community benefits associated with intensively managed industrial roundwood plantations (IMPIRs). It is based on a review of existing literature. I focus on three issues: natural resource access and control, job creation, and the effects of creating forest reserves as a corollary of establishing industrial roundwood plantations. The cases reviewed here indicate that IMPIRs often bring about land ownership concentration, loss of customary rights of resource access, rural displacement, and socioeconomic decline in neighboring communities. Beneficiaries include large rural landowners who sell or lease their land to forestry companies, and people who are able to find jobs in the forestry sector. IMPIRs do not appear to provide enough quality .jobs to stimulate community development, and rarely benefit people who are already politically and economically marginalized. The paper concludes by suggesting ways in which plantation forestry can become more integrated with surrounding communities to increase local benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reconciling conservation with rural development often constitutes a socio-environmental dilemma, in which ecotourism plays the part of either the panacea or the ‘poverty trap’ for local populations. Features of the local context, such as social heterogeneity, opportunities for education and jobs, and images of rural and urban life, provide a more nuanced understanding of this polarised debate. In this analysis of a youth ecotourism project, we consider that youth face distinct daily struggles and have aspirations in life that differ from those of the older generation. Therefore, the opportunities/constraints in and around protected areas influence and affect them in particular ways. In this paper, we address the gap in the literature on the position of young people living in peri-urban areas nearby conservation units, as we believe that these factors may shed some lights on the importance of intangible outcomes of sustainable development/conservation projects. Based on data from the peri-urban ‘forest town’ Curuçá on the Amazonian Atlantic coast of Brazil, we discuss how young people, involved in an ecotourism project in the Marine Extractive Reserve Mãe Grande de Curuçá, perceive their roles when it comes to conservation and development, education, jobs and their aspirations for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazil's Atlantic Forest is a biodiversity hotspot. Efforts to restore the forest must address the tradeoffs facing family farmers. In this paper, we combine literature review and empirical analysis to evaluate the ways in which an agroecological practice – Management Intensive Grazing (MIG) – can contribute to sustainable intensification in southern Brazil. Our results show that farmers adopting MIG obtained, in general, better economic and environmental performance, but did not completely renounce the use of external inputs. Forest cover appears to have increased since the promotion of MIG and agroecology in the region and pasture area decreased, therefore, benefiting forest conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What role have the processes and institutions of international development played in creating and propagating ideas around the world? This paper demonstrates that networks of development-focused civil society institutions can form global epistemic bridges even where communication technology, global markets, infrastructure, or state services do not reach. Given the penetration of these ‘civil society knowledge networks’ throughout the world, it is crucial to understand how these networks form, and how they create and spread ideas, mediating between global discourses and local needs. This paper builds on a multi-sited case study of one such civil society knowledge network, which includes an international foundation, its partner non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Kenya, and one village where these NGOs run a forest conservation project. The case study provides a closely textured analysis of the mechanisms of knowledge production and consumption in the network, including personality politics, language, technology, political connections and the power dynamics of knowledge flows. It demonstrates the ways remoteness and disconnection are overcome through the epistemic reach of institutional networks involved in development interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the failure of forest conservation policy in the uplands of Vietnam. A case study conducted in an upland village located in the buffer zone of the Ba Vi National Park shows that conservation policy has failed because it emphasises biodiversity conservation at the expense of local livelihoods. In addition, local officials colluded with National Park authorities to monopolise access to the land which they then used to marginalise villagers. The implementation of forest conservation policy has produced patron-client relationships in the village. Forest land has become an instrument for local officials to derive personal gain and a means to control villagers. Villagers resisted both the local officials' land grabs and the government's conservation policy. The Park became a site of conflict between villagers, local officials, and the government. This paper suggests that unless local interests are included in the design and implementation of policy forest conservation is unlikely to succeed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polylepis: forests are the world's highest forests in terms of elevation and host a unique biodiversity of plants and animals. Unfortunately, these forests are rapidly disappearing due to human impact and are one of the most threatened ecosystems of South America. This paper deals with liverwort diversity in Polylepis forests of Ecuador. Liverworts are very diverse in tropical forests and are sensitive indicators of changes in humidity conditions. By comparing species richness, species composition and composition of functional groups of liverworts in dry and humid Polylepis forest, we explore how liverwort diversity of Polylepis forests is affected by climatic conditions differing in humidity. We inventoried liverwort diversity in Polylepis pauta forest of Lagunas de Mojanda reserve characterized by a relatively dry climate and in the páramo of Papallacta with a humid climate. In each site, we sampled liverworts on 10 P. pauta trees and surrounding soil. Species richness was highest in the humid forest and species composition in the two sites differed significantly. The two sites also had very different patterns of functional groups, with smooth mats dominating the liverwort flora of Mojanda while rough mats prevailed at Papallacta. This underscores the importance of bryophyte life forms as climate indicators in tropical forests. A phytogeographic comparison of the two sites showed a higher number of northern Andean taxa in the humid forest. The greater representation of species with restricted ranges in humid Polylepis forest shows the importance of these forests for conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the displacement of the semi-nomadic pastoral community of the Van Gujjars from the Protected Area of Rajaji National Park, displacement falling under the rubric of 'development-induced displacement'. The study carried out was based on qualitative data collection. Primary data was collected through interviews that were semi-structured. Purposive sampling was used to approach the three sets of respondents, viz. government officials, 'experts' from the Wildlife Institute of India and NGOs and the tribal community of the Van Gujjars. Data analysis puts forth a very ambiguous argument for the establishment of Protected Areas. The rehabilitation of the Van Gujjars is justified by those who argue that their way of life is unsustainable. By coming forward to put forth a proposal for a community management plan entailing their active participation, it validates the fact that they (Van Gujjars) too have a stake in the preservation of the forests and its wildlife and, thus, should have a say in crucial matters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest management regimes have evolved worldwide over time in a quest to protect and conserve forests. This paper analyzed local communities' perspectives on the existing management regime for the Chobe Forest Reserve, Botswana. The study draws from a combination of triangulated data sources comprising household survey and focus group discussions. A total of 183 respondents from three communities were randomly sampled for the household survey, complemented with focus group discussions. Descriptive and inferential statistics and thematic analyses were used for analyzing data. Communities' perspectives were expressed through three central aspects underpinning the management regime: (1) level of satisfaction on state forest management regime, (2) willingness to partake in conservation activities, and (3) consultation and involvement in decision-making. Generally, the satisfaction scores showed that communities were ambivalent on the performance of the Chobe Forest Reserve management regime. Moreover, focus group discussants argued for inclusiveness of management approaches. This manifests from the locals' exclusion in the management and conservation of the forest, resulting in the formulation of regulations which infringes on the locals' right to access and use of forest resources for livelihood sustenance. This calls for a swift shift away from the longstanding tradition of local community exclusion but to inclusive participatory approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the geomorphological mapping at a 1:100,000 scale of fluvial deposits in the middle Tocantins River. The region preserves an important sedimentary archive of environmental changes of the Amazon and Cerrado biomes. Yet, the region is under influence of diverse anthropogenic activities, including planned or operational hydropower plants, and detailed geomorphological mapping is lacking. The mapping combined interpretation of surface geomorphic features, morphometric analysis, and field surveys. Three main geomorphic units were defined: (i) fluvial plain, (ii) fluvial terraces, and (iii) paleo-alluvial fans. The detailed mapping survey allowed a hierarchical organization of geomorphological units as well as their relative chronology of formation. Our results improve the understanding on the complex geomorphological processes which shape the current fluvial landscape. Specifically, improving the understanding of the Tocantins River floodplains is crucial to support conservation of flooded forests, sustainable use of natural resources and minimize socio-economic losses and damages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper exploits World Development Indicators and IUCN Red-List data to empirically assess the socio-economic and environmental drivers of conservation efforts. In addition to spatial spillovers, our results first indicate that forest cover, income level along with good political institutions positively drive protected area (PA), while human population growth conflicts with nature conservation efforts. Second, indicators of biodiversity (species richness and extinction risk) are found to be non-significant predictors of PA share, suggesting that species-rich countries are not predominantly the ones sheltering the largest PA share. Although species-poor forests matter as well, in addition to ecosystem-centered approaches, our results encourage conservation practitioners to further account for species richness and extinction risks in global conservation policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large-scale deforestation in the upper catchments of the Brahmaputra River represents a key anthropogenic factor at work in the landslides and floods that regularly impact upon Northeast India. For this reason, the conservation of forests in Arunachal Pradesh is of regional significance. Based upon fieldwork conducted with clans of the Nyishi tribe inhabiting the remote uplands of Arunachal Pradesh in 2002-2003, this paper argues that 'spirits', or uyu, are at the heart of local perceptions of forests. Drawing upon recent ecological models that stress the centrality of uncertainty, indeterminacy and surprise to the modelling of ecological dynamics, and the need to be sensitive to the interaction of structural features of human agency across a range of scales, this paper argues that the character and activity of such spirits not only reflect the susceptibility of the landscape to human disturbance, but also the uncertainties underpinning human economic interactions with a fragile and capricious mountain ecosystem. Through spirits, the human extraction of forest-related resources during hunting and shifting cultivation manifests as forms of exchange between humans and spirits. From within this cosmology, the rapid depopulation of many villages in upland Arunachal Pradesh in the present day, and the regeneration of forests around such villages, manifest as an increase of spirit-wealth. The paper concludes that in upland Arunachal Pradesh attention to 'spirits', or uyu, may indeed serve to foreground uncertainty, indeterminacy, surprise and other key ecological dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I describe and analyze the effects of construction of the Boquete­Cerro Punta ecological road, and conclude that the road project will not fulfill its stated purposes. Thus the continued construction of the road demonstrates the government's lack of commitment to sustainable development and conservation in the Chiriqui region and refusal to accommodate the goals and concerns of the public in a participatory political process. This paper uses as its ‘lens’ a remote, rural road in western Panama to observe and analyze the conflict between conservation and development. An unsatisfactory end result—in this case road construction—is not the only source of dismay. The overall political process itself has elicited broad dissatisfaction in many sectors of society. Throughout this paper, I illuminate the importance of unified development and conservation goals, the benefits of transparency, and the perils of unilateral decision-making. I conclude with two sets of recommendations. I suggest alternative government projects more practically suited to fulfill the goals of sustainable development and conservation in the region and recommend bottom-up and top-down strategies for achieving greater participation in the political process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using historical and contemporary perspectives from Nova Scotia, this paper makes the case that forest recreation, particularly residual supply in the working forest landscape, is best understood in the context of conservation practices and recreation home development. By examining Nova Scotia's land tenure system, forest practices, and forest recreation demand and other resource management concerns, inferences are drawn regarding the critical nature of residual forest recreation provision and the need for government intervention. Overall, this paper provides a generalized conceptual framework useful for analysing residual forest recreation provision in other jurisdictions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the potential of forest and environmental conservation films to shift public perception towards sustainability issues and provoke political change. Topics discussed are the importance of changing human mindset to achieve sustainability, the influence of films on public perception and behavior, and the need for further research to fully understand the relationship between environmental films and pro-environmental behavior.

Understanding forest health is of great importance for the conservation of the integrity of forest ecosystems. The monitoring of forest health is, therefore, indispensable for the long-term conservation of forests and their sustainable management. In this regard, evaluating the amount and quality of dead wood is of utmost interest as they are favorable indicators of biodiversity. Apparently, remote sensing-based Machine Learning (ML) techniques have proven to be more efficient and sustainable with unprecedented accuracy in forest inventory. However, the application of these techniques is still in its infancy with respect to dead wood mapping. This study, for the first time, automatically categorizing individual coniferous trees (Norway spruce) into five decay stages (live, declining, dead, loose bark, and clean) from combined Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) point clouds and color infrared (CIR) images using three different ML methods − 3D point cloud-based deep learning (KPConv), Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), and Random Forest (RF). First, CIR colorized point clouds are created by fusing the ALS point clouds and color infrared images. Then, individual tree segmentation is conducted, after which the results are further projected onto four orthogonal planes. Finally, the classification is conducted on the two datasets (3D multispectral point clouds and 2D projected images) based on the three ML algorithms. All models achieved promising results, reaching overall accuracy (OA) of up to 88.8%, 88.4% and 85.9% for KPConv, CNN and RF, respectively. The experimental results reveal that color information, 3D coordinates, and intensity of point clouds have significant impact on the promising classification performance. The performance of our models, therefore, shows the significance of machine/deep learning for individual tree decay stages classification and landscape-wide assessment of the dead wood amount and quality by using modern airborne remote sensing techniques. The proposed method can contribute as an important and reliable tool for monitoring biodiversity in forest ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Species-specific timber volume estimates are required to support forest planning and conservation. We evaluated whether additional predictors from a Sentinel-2 time series can improve airborne laser scanning (ALS)-based estimation of species-specific timber volumes. Furthermore, we determined the satellite image dates that provided the greatest improvement in accuracy. The Sentinel-2 time series was constructed to cover 1 March–30 November time-period, with a focus on late spring and early summer. The estimation was done using the k Most Similar Neighbor method and predictors extracted from the ALS data and Sentinel-2 images. Our best model included both ALS and Sentinel-2 time-series predictors, and the relative root mean square error (RMSE) values for pine, spruce and deciduous timber volumes were 40.8%, 57.0% and 51.3%, respectively (mean 49.7%). All deciduous trees were treated as one species. When bands from an individual image were used instead of the time series, the best result was obtained with an image from September where the respective relative RMSE values were 42.2% (deciduous), 58.4% (pine) and 60.6% (spruce) with a mean value of 53.7%. A fusion of a Sentinel-2 time-series and ALS data can improve species-specific estimation results compared to the use of individual Sentinel-2 images or ALS only. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plant diversity is one of the fundamental cornerstones for human well-being and sustainable development in countries where household livelihoods are highly dependent on land resources. Given their vulnerability to the impacts of climate change and increasing threat to plant diversity sustainability efforts to conserve plant diversity through ex-situ strategies like plant nurseries management are crucial for those countries. We surveyed 70 roadside plant nurseries across Kampala District, to understand their contribution to plant conservation and human livelihoods in the face of global change. One hundred and nine species representing 55 families including exotics and indigenous were recorded. The most frequent indigenous species were Musanga cecropioides, Elaeis guinensis, Maesopsis eminii, and the endangered Encephalartos hildebrandtii. Over 94% of the respondents depended on plant nursery business for their economic needs. Over 92% of the respondents lacked the technical capacity to manage plant nurseries for conservation and as a business. Yet with proper management, the plant nurseries can enhance plant conservation, urban forestry development, and act as green businesses. Hence, contributing to livelihood improvement of the low-income urban households; and achieving assisted plant migration as an adaptation strategy for plant conservation in the face of global change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) has since 1970 functioned as an innovative, interdisciplinary planning tool for actions of the federal government. However, elements of NEPA have also entered state and local environmental planning regulations and processes over the years. The concept of interdisciplinary evaluation of alternatives established under NEPA for federal actions has thereby influenced planning of many non-federal development actions under state and local regulatory jurisdiction as well. The following paper discusses how aspects of the NEPA process may be found in two state-level environmental planning statutes established by the State of Maryland: the Maryland Forest Conservation Act and the Chesapeake Bay Critical Area Act. The former applies to development projects throughout most of Maryland, and the latter applies to development projects in lands close to Maryland's portion of the Chesapeake Bay. If environmental planning of the type promoted by NEPA is to be successful on a macro level, then those planning objectives must be extended to non-government as well as government projects. State environmental planning statutes such as Maryland's accomplish that purpose. Furthermore, as federal politicians continue to emphasize federalism and devolution of regulatory requirements to states and localities, state environmental planning requirements such as Maryland's may play an even increased role in environmental protection in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Professional Geographer is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The conservation-management of living beings is not only an issue in medicine. Based on a collaboration between a sociologist and a geneticist, this paper aims to document the banking practices in the sector of forest genetic resources, which raises specific questions. Drawing on a fieldwork investigation we further explore the various possibilities that biobanking in forestry conceal in terms of diversity of banked entities and banking practices. We argue that there is a consistent heterogeneity of entities and practices, which reflects the distribution of the agency conferred to the involved entities. This heterogeneity is related to the awareness of uncertainties, which change the relative importance of the different modes of agency in biobanking. Beyond seldom recognition of the diversity of modes of agency, we conclude by claiming for the need of a consistent agency policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-industrial private forest owners in Sweden are encouraged to mitigate environmental damages from forestry on their properties under a principle of “freedom with responsibility,” although the level of mitigation is generally left to the owners’ discretion. One voluntary measure private forest owners are encouraged to take is setting aside a part of their productive forests for conservation. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate how non-industrial private forest owner beliefs concerning both their own and the Swedish state’s responsibility for nature protection differ among owners of certified forests, who automatically leave a set-aside, and those who have stayed out of forest certification but have decided to leave a set-aside. Results of a Heckman selection bivariate probit model show that the more a respondent believes the state is responsible for fulfilling environmental goals compared to private forest owners, the less likely it is that an owner of a non-certified forest will leave a set-aside for conservation. Beliefs about responsibility do not, however, differ among owners of certified and non-certified forests. From a policy perspective, Swedish government agencies may have difficulty steering specific measures taken by private forest owners who are interested in conservation but have stayed out of forest certification regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lack of data on the population size of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) in the Yoko Council Forest (YCF), located in the Centre region of Cameroon has hindered the ability to develop conservation measures. The sustainable management of this species requires reliable knowledge of their ecology, habits and resource needs. This study was conducted from February–July 2022 to assess nesting ecology and to use nest decay rates to estimate population size. The retrospective method for studying the degradation of animal indices was used. The mean nest decay rate was 77.5 days and density was estimated at 69.3 [54.9 86.7] nests/ km2 to 113 chimpanzees per km2. We also found a high preference for nests in specific forest types, with 92% of nests in marantaceous forests, and a preference for nests to be on Khaya grandifolia (Meliaceae) (28.24%) or Uapaca guinensis (Euphorbiaceae) (27.06%) trees. The preferential position for construction of chimpanzee nests was on a branch (58.82%) as opposed to in a branch fork (40.39%), which is interesting since one would assume a fork would offer more nest stability. Our study offers crucial insights that can guide policymakers in formulating targeted conservation strategies for the substantial chimpanzee population in the YCF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to communicate recent findings on gender mainstreaming in forest management in three villages around the Koke Chantanang community forest in the Sa Kaeo province of Thailand. The research employed six in-depth interviews and 124 household surveys to assess how the community forest is utilized and identify how gender is mainstreamed in forest management. The results shows that community forest utilization offers opportunities for forest sustainability. However, findings on gender involvement reveal that the women are continuously dominated, with only three women out of 20 representatives on the village forest committee and making decisions (women make up only 16% of the village forest committees). Women are also not well represented in forest conservation initiatives despite the fact that they are the source of food security for their households. This paper argues that the lack of knowledge exchange and women's continued exclusion from forest management are critical issues that could undermine the future of the world's forests. This research recommends a more participatory approach that will provide for women's equal participation in decision making and their full contribution in forest resource conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The Cameroon forest is in decline because there is no holistic management strategy. This decline threatens all the forest resources: trees, flora and fauna. With high population growth rates, growing poverty, public corruption, and other similar ills, the fate of Cameroon’s forest is further jeopardized. Mobilizing efforts to reverse the current declining trend of the forest is imperative. This paper examines the state of forest degradation during the colonial and post‐colonial administrations in Cameroon. Both administrations have neglected the local population living in the forest. NGOs working in anglophone Cameroon seem to have realized the need to incorporate local forest communities in their style of forest resource management and conservation. Nevertheless, NGOs have their limitations. The paper advocates a management approach that consists of the state, NGOs and the local community, to achieve sustainable forest management in Cameroon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explain how a forest-sector-based discourse—each city should have its own forest—could gain prominence in current land use debates and even come to produce a new set of spatial practices for shaping the rural–urban interface. To this end, the focus was on the genealogy of discourse–actor relationships over recent decades, including the ‘translation’ of discourse into various (non)-discursive forms. The genealogical discourse approach has enabled not only the taking of a novel perspective on contemporary policies and practices of urban forest planning, but importantly, the addition of some insights into the constitutive role of discourse. In particular, the paper questions what makes a story line effective (or not) in carrying forward a strategic idea along the various trajectories from concepts and ideas to actual implementation that are constitutive of a long-term policy process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thesis of this paper centers on the premise that the twentieth century witnessed the start of a ‘Great Restoration’ of the world's forests. Efficient farmers and foresters are learning to spare forestland by growing more food and fiber in ever-smaller areas. Meanwhile; increased use of metals, plastics, and electricity has eased the need for timber. The conventional wisdom, the ‘Skinhead Earthé scenario, holds that as much as 200 million hectares of forest will be lost ill the next decades as agriculture extends to feed larger and richer populations. Current trends, however, suggest not balding but regrowth. Of course, industry has already taken big steps along the restoration path by sowing intensively managed ’plantation’ forests that act as wood farms. With economics already favoring intensive production, foresters should be able to lift the average world yield in lumbered forests to 5 cubic meters per hectare by 2050. The problem is the absence of a clear and widely shared goal to guide policy. A bottom-up process is needed because no single set of policy instruments is appropriate to all settings. For the Great Restoration to succeed, farmers, foresters, and environmentalists must recognize their common interest in high-yield production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The forests of the Congo Basin are exploited by rural communities and timber companies at different scales to meet various conflicting interests. The forests contributes in several ways to rural livelihoods, but the growing importance of timber exploitation poses a threat to this livelihood's fabric and to the conservation of biodiversity. For example, 61% of the top 23 timber species exported from Cameroon have important non-timber values to local communities. The paper argues that in the process of forest exploitation, a balanced approach is needed to take into account the interests of both rural communities and timber companies. This will require, among other things, the development and implementation of sustainable forest management plans by timber companies, exclusion from harvesting of timber species that are important to local communities, compensation of timer companies for compliance with management plans, and the involvement of rural communities in monitoring the activities of timer companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of forestry in Finland demonstrates that the management of nature is embedded in social and economic institutions. That these institutions have cultural dimensions needs to be recognized if current conflicts over forests are to be resolved. Drawing insights from social studies of science and technology, the paper explores Finland's 'forest war', which is carried out in strikingly science-based terms. It shows that debate has been carried out within the bounds of what official expertise on forests has long deemed acceptable, where the conservationist side of the argument also draws on scientific claims which are constructed, not neutral or extra-social facts. Since social and cultural factors are central to resource management even where debate is pursued in adamantly technical and scientific language, it needs to be recognized that 'nature' is not sufficient grounds for policy, but nor is 'the economy'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this paper is to describe recent attempts to define the stewardship concept and to translate it into action on the ground. The focus is on national forest lands and the unique challenges federal land managers face in working with the public to implement a concept that has different meanings to a variety of stakeholders. Stewardship requires more flexibility than is often found under existing administrative authorities. Large, bureaucratic agencies face many barriers in applying creative and innovative solutions to existing problems, not the least of which are internal and external reward structures. While there exist some authorities that allow for the creative testing of stewardship contracting projects on the ground, a number of challenges remain. Two significant ones are: (1) the need for a clearer, consistent understanding (by both Forest Service employees and constituents) of the authorities that can be used to test stewardship concepts; and (2) a more broad-based agreement on the desired outcome of stewardship projects. Given the current lack of understanding and agreement on how to implement stewardship concepts, the most effective means of moving the issue forward will be to apply innovative tests of contracting methods under current or new temporary authorities. These tests should be designed, implemented, monitored, and evaluated using broad-based, inclusive, on-the-ground coalitions that create effective ties and linkages between local and national levels. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Great Lakes Forest Alliance, created by charter in 1987 at the direction of the governors of Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, is a mutual aid, public/private partnership that integrates global, national and local interests by bridging the gap at a regional level. It expanded in 1997 to include Ontario. Trustees include key leaders of government and industry and citizens from a broad range of forest interests. It was designed to be as learning environment to address the resurgence of forest growth and the increasing demand for conservation, wood products and recreation. The need for the Alliance resulted in part from a perceived underrepresentation of regional forestrelated issues in the national arena. The Alliance attempts to consider leading-edge strategies over the long-term in a pro-active manner, and trustees recognize the need to build respect, trust, information exchange, cooperation, coordination and collaboration among diverse interests. Among the projects that demonstrate the bridge role played by the Alliance: a regional forest resources assessment, public and private funding that supports research toward a more frequent forest inventory process, training for communities to use the collaborative learning process to address economic prosperity and environmental protection strategies and the development of sustainable forest management criteria and indicators for the region. A continual challenge is relationships among diverse forest interests across jurisdictional and institutional boundaries in a manner that promotes exchanges that build collective wisdom. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the potential of public–private partnerships to contribute to the resolution of decision-making dilemmas concerning private goods that also provide public services. We focus on forests that deliver many ecosystem services and are important for biodiversity, which pose problems regarding the values that should be considered in their protection and exploitation. Conflicts between the interests and values concerned (or at least prioritization difficulties) will arise and their satisfactory resolution will require some kind of collaboration between governmental authorities and private forest owners. Thus, the Swedish Forest Agency has initiated a pilot project on a new form of such partnerships, Nature Conservation Agreements for social values, which are considered as a case study here. We use an adapted version of the Ladder of Partnership Activity, which includes theoretical constructs such as context, perceptions and motives, creation of collaborative advantages and the constitution of rules, to see if and how these partnerships can enhance an embedded governance system, by enabling the actors to address collective problems in a mutually satisfactory manner. Our results contribute knowledge on how the governance of forests can be designed, and the kinds of values that could be included to spur the implementation of partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

George Perkins Marsh's book Man and Nature was the first work of natural history to fundamentally influence American politics. This paper establishes the powerful impact that Alexander von Humboldt's writings had on Marsh. Marsh took ideas that Humboldt introduced across his books and synthesized them into a single powerful argument regarding the dangers of deforestation. These warnings eventually led to policies that sought to more carefully manage forestland, plant trees, and spawn the 20th century conservation movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Macrofungi constitute a group of the high-value forest resources worldwide. In this paper, we report species richness and composition of the macrofungi in sal (Shorea robusta) forests of mid-hill central Nepal, which were managed for 4–29 years by the local communities. The sal forests were rich in macrofungi (115 species) with Polyporaceae being the largest family followed by Clavariaceae. Saprotrophic fungi were more common than mycorrhizal species. The proportion of mycorrhiza was <40% of the total macrofungi species which might have indicated the deteriorated condition of the forests before the initiation of conservation management. However, the proportion of mycorrhizal species was slightly higher in the forests managed for >10 years than in the forests managed for short period. The species richness increased with increasing canopy and litter cover. Since silvicultural activities and resource utilization often have negative impacts to macrofungal diversity, these activities need to be optimized to keep balance between forest management and biodiversity conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sawmilling industry stores and measures logs in bark in order to maximise efficiency, quality conservation and preservation. Billing is based on the diameter under bark, estimated based on manual or automatic bark detection. Although an automatic system is desirable for the industry, existing systems like tracheid effect scanners, X-ray or computed tomography either do not work reliably during all seasons or are very cost-intensive. This paper presents an approach for automatic determination of diameter under bark based on a multi-sensor approach including shape data, colour image data and tracheid effect data using laser scanning. For 686 spruce (Picea abies) and 79 fir (Abies alba) logs, diameters under bark are estimated and compared to the diameter after machine debarking. Estimation errors are close to zero and are below ±10 mm for more than 94% of the logs. Influences of season or characteristics like bark beetle are small. Specialised algorithms for diameter estimation in the presence of snow or bark beetle might further improve the result at the cost of required extra manual input. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]