There is increasing pressure on the forestry industry to adopt sustainable practices, but a lack of knowledge about how to facilitate this, and how to measure sustainability. This book reviews current thinking about scientifically based indicators, and sustainable management of natural forests and plantations. Information is applicable to boreal, temperate and tropical biomes. The contents have been developed from papers presented at a IUFRO conference held in Australia, in order to develop a state-of the art report on this subject.
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.
National forest inventories (NFIs) are one of the main sources of forest information. This book describes the importance and history of NFIs in Latin America and the Caribbean, a region that is particularly relevant due to the extension and biodiversity of its forests. Methodologies for data collection and measurement of the most relevant indicators in 21 countries are addressed. In addition, similarities and differences in IFN designs, challenges and opportunities, and prospects for the future are examined. This analysis demonstrates that the information generated by the countries is diverse and must be harmonized to meet the commitments and opportunities for sustainable forest management in the 21st century. This publication represents a milestone in the beginning of the harmonization process towards data transparency within the forestry sector in Latin America and the Caribbean and constitutes the first collaborative effort of a network of NFI experts and collaborators in the region.
This book proposes strategies for improving the resilience and conservation of temperate forests in South America, such that these forests can provide ecosystem services in a sustainable way. As such it contributes to the design of a resilient human-forest model that takes into account the multiculturalism of local communities, in many cases including aspects of ecological economics, development economics and territorial development planning that are related to indigenous peoples or first nations. Further, it provides proposals for public and territorial policies that improve the state of conservation of native forests and forest ecosystems, based on a critical analysis of the economic factors that lead to the degradation of forest ecosystems in South America today. This edition was conceived by members of the Transdisciplinary Research Center for Social and Ecological Strategies for Sustainable Forest Management in South America at the Universidad Austral de Chile. It includes contributions by distinguished researchers from around the world, combining the fields of economics, ecology, biology, anthropology, sociology and statistics. It is not, however, simply a collection of works written by authors from different disciplines, but rather each chapter is in itself transdisciplinary. This approach makes the book a unique contribution to enhancing social, managerial and political approaches to forestry management, helping to protect forest ecosystem services and make them more sustainable. This, in turn, will benefit local communities and society as a whole, by reducing the negative externalities of forestry management and enhancing future opportunities.
