Why Forests? Why Now?
Why Forests? Why Now?

Author: Frances Seymour

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2016-12-27

Total Pages: 389

ISBN-13: 1933286865

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Tropical forests are an undervalued asset in meeting the greatest global challenges of our time—averting climate change and promoting development. Despite their importance, tropical forests and their ecosystems are being destroyed at a high and even increasing rate in most forest-rich countries. The good news is that the science, economics, and politics are aligned to support a major international effort over the next five years to reverse tropical deforestation. Why Forests? Why Now? synthesizes the latest evidence on the importance of tropical forests in a way that is accessible to anyone interested in climate change and development and to readers already familiar with the problem of deforestation. It makes the case to decisionmakers in rich countries that rewarding developing countries for protecting their forests is urgent, affordable, and achievable.

Tropical Rainforest Responses to Climatic Change
Tropical Rainforest Responses to Climatic Change

Author: Mark B. Bush

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 427

ISBN-13: 3540239081

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The goal of this book is to provide a current overview of the impacts of climate change on tropical forests, to investigate past, present, and future climatic influences on the ecosystems with the highest biodiversity on the planet.Tropical Rainforest Responses to Climatic Change will be the first book to examine how tropical rain forest ecology is altered by climate change, rather than simply seeing how plant communities were altered. Shifting the emphasis onto ecological processes e.g. how diversity is structured by climate and the subsequent impact on tropical forest ecology, provides the reader with a more comprehensive coverage. A major theme of this book that emerges progressively is the interaction between humans, climate and forest ecology. While numerous books have appeared dealing with forest fragmentation and conservation, none have explicitly explored the long term occupation of tropical systems, the influence of fire and the future climatic effects of deforestation, coupled with anthropogenic emissions. Incorporating modelling of past and future systems paves the way for a discussion of conservation from a climatic perspective, rather than the usual plea to stop logging.

Potential Impacts of Climate Change on Tropical Forest Ecosystems
Potential Impacts of Climate Change on Tropical Forest Ecosystems

Author: Adam Markham

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-11-11

Total Pages: 456

ISBN-13: 9401727309

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Climate change represents one of the most alarming long-term threats to ecosystems the world over. This new collection of papers provides, for the first time, an overview of the potentially serious impact that climate change may have on tropical forests. The authors, a multi-disciplinary group of leading experts in climatology, forestry, ecology and conservation biology, present a state-of-knowledge snapshot of how tropical forests are likely to react to the changes being wrought on our planet's atmosphere and climate. Tropical forests represent extraordinary harbours for biological diversity, and yet as deforestation and degradation continue apace, they are under greater pressure from human impacts than ever before. Climate change adds yet another threat to these valuable ecosystems, and this volume demonstrates just how significant a problem this may really be. The authors identify certain types of forest, including tropical montane cloud forest that may be particularly vulnerable. They also show the strong likelihood of global warming aggravating problems in already fragmented forest areas.

Climate Change Impacts on Tropical Forests in Central America
Climate Change Impacts on Tropical Forests in Central America

Author: Aline Chiabai

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-09-25

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 1317961501

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The loss of biodiversity is a major environmental problem in nearly every terrestrial ecosystem on Earth. This loss is accelerating driven by climate change, as well as by other causes including agricultural exploitation, fragmentation and degradation triggered by land use changes. The crucial issue under debate is the impact on the welfare of current and future population, and the role of humans in the exploitation of natural resources. This is of particular importance in Central America, which it is amongst the richest and most threatened biodiversity regions on the Earth, and where the loss of ecosystems strongly affects its socio-economic vulnerability. This book addresses the impacts of climate and land-use change on tropical forest ecosystems in this important region, and assesses the expected economic costs if no policy action is taken, under different future scenarios and for different geographical scales. This innovative collection utilises both theoretical approaches and empirical results to provide a conceptual framework for an integrated analysis of climate and land-use change impacts on forest ecosystems and related economic effects, offering insight into the complex relationship between ecosystems and benefits to humans. This important contribution to forest ecosystems and climate change provides invaluable reading for students and scholars in the fields of environmental and ecological economics, environmental science and forestry, natural resource management, agriculture and climate change.

Seasonally Dry Tropical Forests
Seasonally Dry Tropical Forests

Author: Rodolfo Dirzo

Publisher: Island Press

Published: 2012-09-26

Total Pages: 409

ISBN-13: 1610910214

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Though seasonally dry tropical forests are equally as important to global biodiversity as tropical rainforests, and are one of the most representative and highly endangered ecosystems in Latin America, knowledge about them remains limited because of the relative paucity of attention paid to them by scientists and researchers and a lack of published information on the subject. Seasonally Dry Tropical Forests seeks to address this shortcoming by bringing together a range of experts in diverse fields including biology, ecology, biogeography, and biogeochemistry, to review, synthesize, and explain the current state of our collective knowledge on the ecology and conservation of seasonally dry tropical forests. The book offers a synthetic and cross-disciplinary review of recent work with an expansive scope, including sections on distribution, diversity, ecosystem function, and human impacts. Throughout, contributors emphasize conservation issues, particularly emerging threats and promising solutions, with key chapters on climate change, fragmentation, restoration, ecosystem services, and sustainable use. Seasonally dry tropical forests are extremely rich in biodiversity, and are seriously threatened. They represent scientific terrain that is poorly explored, and there is an urgent need for increased understanding of the system's basic ecology. Seasonally Dry Tropical Forests represents an important step in bringing together the most current scientific information about this vital ecosystem and disseminating it to the scientific and conservation communities.

Changing Tropical Forests
Changing Tropical Forests

Author: Harold K. Steen

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 9780822312369

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Changing Tropical Forests begins with an overview of the history of deforestation in tropical America and the tasks facing Latin American environmental historians. Based on proceedings of a 1991 conference sponsored by the Forest History Society and IUFRO Forest History Group in Costa Rica, the contributors offer detailed accounts of the enivornmental history of specific forest conditions, grasslands, and changing ecosystems of Costa Rica, Mexico, Surinam, and Brazil. the role of human intervention in this process of change is also discussed. Contributors. William Balée, James R. Barborak, Peter Boomgaard, Larissa V. Brown, Gerardo Budowski, John Dargavel, Warren Dean, Silvia del Amo R., Elizabeth Graham, J. Régis Guillaumon, Rhena Hoffmann, Sally P. Horn, Sebastião Kengen, Herman W. Konrad, Mary Pamela Lehmann, Robert D. Leier, Murdo J. MacLeod, M. Patricia Marchak, Elinor G. K. Melville, David M. Pendergast, Susan M. Pierce, Leslie E. Sponsel, Richard P. Tucker, Terry West

Achieving Sustainable Management of Tropical Forests
Achieving Sustainable Management of Tropical Forests

Author: Jürgen Blase

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9781786762498

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Although global rates of deforestation have started to decrease, they remain alarmingly high in many tropical countries. In light of this challenge, the growing importance of sustainable forest management (SFM) has been highlighted as a means for improving sustainability across the sector. Achieving sustainable management of tropical forests summarises and reviews the rich body of research on tropical forests and how this research can be utilised to make sustainable management of tropical forests a standard implementable strategy for the future. The book features expert discussions on the economic, political and environmental contexts needed for SFM to operate successfully, including coverage of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With its distinguished editors and international array of expert authors, Achieving sustainable management of tropical forests will be a standard reference for researchers in tropical forest science, international and national organisations responsible for protection and responsible stewardship of tropical forests, as well as the commercial sector harvesting and using tropical forest products.

Forest Ecosystems, Forest Management and the Global Carbon Cycle
Forest Ecosystems, Forest Management and the Global Carbon Cycle

Author: Michael J. Apps

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-06-29

Total Pages: 455

ISBN-13: 3642611117

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Globally, forest vegetation and soils are both major stores of terrestrial organic carbon, and major contributors to the annual cycling of carbon between the atmosphere and the biosphere. Forests are also a renewable resource, vital to the everyday existence of millions of people, since they provide food, shelter, fuel, raw materials and many other benefits. The combined effects of an expanding global population and increasing consumption of resources, however, may be seriously endangering both the extent and future sustainability of the world's forests. About thirty chapters cover four main themes: the role of forests in the global carbon cycle; effects of past, present and future changes in forest land use; the role of forest management, products and biomass on carbon cycling, and socio-economic impacts.