Fruits from the Amazon region are highly appreciated for their exotic characteristics and have been a subject of interest and research since European pioneers discovered this rainforest. Numerous edible fruits from the Amazon region are considered to be rich sources of protein, though their bioactive metabolites are not used wisely worldwide despite being partly consumed by local communities. However, some of them are globally recognised and commercialised, such as guarana, acai, chestnuts from the Amazon (Brazilian nuts), and cacao. Some other exotic fruits like babacu, bacuri, buriti, euterpe, camu-camu, cupuacu, cubiu, dende, graviola, piquia, pupunha and tucuma may be better exploited in order to be aggregated to feed the general population. The application of these fruits was always explored by the traditional medicine of pre-Colombian tribes living in the Amazon region; however, the modern pharmaceutical industry is showing great interest in these fruits as a source of potential bioactive molecules with potential applications in the treatment of several diseases, including some types of cancers, diabetes, Alzheimers disease, the control of blood pressure, etc., Perhaps this is a realisation of Hippocrates dream -- that one day our food will be a form of medicine.

Restoration of our national forests benefits the environment and creates jobs in rural communities. Increasing the pace of restoration of the Nation's forests is critically needed to address a variety of threats including fire, climate change, the bark beetle infestation, and others -- to the health of our forest ecosystems, watersheds, and forest-dependent communities. The Forest Service within the Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and National Park Service (NPS) within the Department of the Interior have increasingly promoted landscape-scale forest restoration as a way to improve forest health. Through landscape-scale projects, agencies can treat tens or hundreds of thousands of acres, in contrast to projects commonly of under 1,000 acres. Such projects must comply with NEPA by assessing the effects of major federal actions that significantly affect the environment. This book examines the number of such projects the agencies have conducted and how they are scoped; the actions taken by agencies to track the projects' progress; successes and challenges experienced by agencies; and steps taken by agencies to help increase NEPA efficiency for such projects.

Forests are enormously important to mankind. They not only supply essential harvestable products, but also ornamental landscapes, regulate climate, hydrology, mineral cycling and soil erosion. Over the last few decades, crucial changes have taken place in the views and demands on forests by society at large. In this book, the authors present topical research in the study of forestry ecology and policy. Topics discussed include forest management in Finland and Sweden; forestry-related GPS research; forestry trade and population growth in the Philippines and forestry education towards ecological civilization.

This book examines the research and monitoring components in understanding the extent and success of forest management efforts to promote resilience and adaptable forests. Management efforts could then respond to changing forest conditions by adjusting traditional forestry practices or even by taking more intensive action to assist forest adaptation.

Providing a critical and incisive examination of community forestry, this is a detailed study of complex issues in local forest governance, community sustainability and grassroots environmentalism. It explores community forestry as an alternative form of local collaborative governance in globally significant developed forest regions, with examples ranging from the Gulf Islands of British Columbia to Scandinavia. Responding to the global trend in devolution of control over forest resources and the ever-increasing need for more sustainable approaches to forest governance, the book highlights both the possibilities and challenges associated with community forestry implementation. It features compelling case studies and accounts from those directly involved with community forestry efforts, providing unique insight into the underlying social processes, issues, events and perceptions. It will equip students, researchers and practitioners with a deep understanding of both the evolution and management of community forestry in a pan-national context.

Can private standards bring about more sustainable production practices? This question is of interest to conscientious consumers, academics studying the effectiveness of private regulation, and corporate social responsibility practitioners alike. Grabs provides an answer by combining an impact evaluation of 1,900 farmers with rich qualitative evidence from the coffee sectors of Honduras, Colombia and Costa Rica. Identifying an institutional design dilemma that private sustainability standards encounter as they scale up, this book shows how this dilemma plays out in the coffee industry. It highlights how the erosion of price premiums and the adaptation to buyers' preferences have curtailed standards' effectiveness in promoting sustainable practices that create economic opportunity costs for farmers, such as agroforestry or agroecology. It also provides a voice for coffee producers and value chain members to explain why the current system is failing in its mission to provide environmental, social, and economic co-benefits, and what changes are necessary to do better.

In the past 100-plus years, forestland ownerships have gone through two structural changes in the US and other parts of the world: the accumulation of industrial timberlands between 1900s and 1980s and the transformation of industrial timberlands to institutional ownerships afterwards. This book is about the history and economics of these two structural changes with the emphasis on the latter. The scale of both changes is unprecedented and truly revolutionary, impacting tens of millions of acres of private landholdings and billions of dollars of investment and affecting industrial structure, forest management and policy, research and development, community welfare, and forest sustainability. Looking though a historical count of key events, players, prevailing management philosophies, public policy, and institutional factors, the author of this book searches for an economic explanation and assesses the impact of these two changes. Its main contributions are three folds. First, it explains why industrial firms were able to profit from owning large areas of forest lands in the first place and how institutional investors could purchase these lands later. Many details of the history that could have otherwise been lost are revealed in this book for the first time. Second, it compares private and public equity timberland investments with respect to risk-adjusted returns as well as such other dimensions of interest to investors and forest managers including alignment of interests, capacity to exploit market inefficiencies, and their forest management and conservation records. Finally, it provides thoughtful commentary into the future of institutional timberland investments and global forest sustainability. This book is required reading for anyone interested in understanding the workings of the modern forest sector in the U.S. and elsewhere, forest investment, and forest sustainability.

From an unlikely beginning as an agency transcriptionist in her hometown of Washington, DC, Gloria Brown became the first African American woman to attain the rank of forest supervisor at the US Forest Service. As a young widow with three children, she transferred to Missoula, Montana, and embarked on a remarkable journey, ultimately leading the Siuslaw National Forest in Oregon and later the Los Padres in California. The story of Brown's career, from clerical worker to forest supervisor, unfolds against the backdrop of a changing government agency and a changing society. As scholars awaken to the racist history of public land management and the ways that people of color have been excluded from contemporary notions of nature and wilderness, Brown's story provides valuable insight into the roles that African Americans have carved out for themselves in the outdoors generally and in the field of environmental policy and public lands management specifically. Drawing on her powerful communication and listening skills, her sense of humor, and her willingness to believe in the basic goodness of humanity, Brown conducted civil rights trainings and shattered glass ceilings, all while raising her children alone. Written in an engaging and accessible style with historian Donna Sinclair, Brown's story provides a fascinating case study for public administration and contributes to a deeper understanding of the environmental and civil rights movements of the twentieth century, particularly the role that racial discrimination has played in national forests, parks, and other wilderness spaces. It also highlights issues of representation in the federal government, women's history, the history of the American West, and literature associated with African American experiences in predominately white societies.

This book brings together the work of over twenty-five researchers to provide a comparative and empirically rich portrait of community forestry policy and practice in Canada. Tackling all forestry regions from Newfoundland to British Columbia, it unearths the history of community forestry across the nation, demonstrating strong regional differences tied to patterns of policy-making and cultural traditions. Case studies reveal innovative practices in governance and ecological management but also uncover challenges related to government support and market access. This book also considers the future of the sector, including the role of institutional reform, multiscale networks, and adaptive management strategies.

Jack Ward Thomas, an eminent wildlife biologist and U.S. Forest Service career scientist, was drafted in the late 1980s to head teams of scientists developingstrategies for managing the habitat of the northern spotted owl. That assignment led to his selection as Forest Service chief during the early years of the Clinton administration. It is history's good fortune that Thomas kept journals of his thoughts and daily experiences, and that he is a superb writer able to capture the moment with clarity and grace. The issues Thomas dealt with in office and noted in his journals lie at the heart of recent Forest Service policy and controversy, starting with President Clinton's Timber Summit in Portland, Oregon, dealing with the spotted owl issue, and the 1994 loss of fourteen firefighters in the Storm King Mountain fire in Colorado. Against a constant backdrop of partisan politics in the White House and Congress, Thomas discusses issues ranging from grazing in the national forests, long-term pulp timber sales in Alaska, and the Forest Service Law Enforcement Division to the New World Mine near Yellowstone National Park. He considers the timber salvage rider and its linkage to forest health, the Department of Justice and Counsel on Environmental Quality influence on Forest Service policies, and interagency management for the Columbia River Basin. Woven throughout these excerpts from his diary is Thomas's conviction that the effective, ethical management of wildlife depends on how the management effort is situated within the broader human context, with all its intransigence and unpredictability. Writing in 1995, Thomas says, "Things simply don't work the way that students are taught in natural resources policy classes--not even close. . . .There is simply no way that scholars of the subject can understand the ad hoc processes that go on within only loosely defined boundaries." Wildlife management, he says, is "90 percent about people and 10 percent about animals," and when it comes to learning about people, wildlife managers are on their own. This book is the record of how one man met that challenge.

The exploitation of Latino workers in many industries, from
agriculture and meat packing to textile manufacturing and janitorial
services, is well known. By contrast, pineros -- itinerant workers who
form the backbone of the forest management labour force on federal land
-- toil in obscurity.

Drawing on government papers, media accounts, and interviews with
federal employees and Latino forest workers in Oregon's Rogue
Valley, Brinda Sarathy investigates how the federal government came to
be one of the single largest employers of Latino labour in the Pacific
Northwest. She documents pinero wages, working conditions, and benefits
in comparison to those of white loggers and tree planters,
exposing exploitation that, she argues, is the product of an ongoing
history of institutionalized racism, fragmented policy, and
intra-ethnic exploitation in the West. To overcome this legacy, Sarathy
offers a number of proposals to improve the visibility and working
conditions of pineros and to provide them with a stronger voice in
immigration and forestry policy-making.

This vividly drawn account fills many gaps in our understanding of
forest management in the Pacific Northwest, making clear that true
environmental justice must take into account not only stewardship of
forests, but also the treatment of the people who work in them.

Brinda Sarathy is an assistant professor of
environmental analysis at Pitzer College in Claremont, California.

Forestry cannot be isolated from the forces that drive all economic
activity. It involves using land, labour, and capital to produce goods
and services from forests, while economics helps in understanding how
this can be done in ways that will best meet the needs of people.
Therefore, a firm grounding in economics is integral to sound forestry
policies and practices.

This book, a major revision and expansion of Peter H. Pearse's
1990 classic, provides this grounding. Updated and enhanced with
advanced empirical presentation of materials, it covers the basic
economic principles and concepts and their application to modern forest
management and policy issues. Topics range from valuation of forest
investments and unpriced forest goods and services to property rights,
taxation, and global issues of forests and the environment. Review
questions and suggestions for further readings appear at the end of
each chapter.

Forest Economics draws on the strengths of two of the
field's leading practitioners who have more than fifty years of
combined experience in teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in
forest economics in the United States and Canada. Its comprehensive and
systematic analysis of forest issues makes it an indispensable resource
for students and practitioners of forest management, natural resource
conservation, and environmental studies.

Daowei Zhang is a professor of forest economics
and policy in the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences at Auburn
University. Peter H. Pearse is a professor emeritus at
the University of British Columbia, a forester RPF (Ret), and a member
of the Order of Canada.

Providing a critical and incisive examination of community forestry, this is a detailed study of complex issues in local forest governance, community sustainability and grassroots environmentalism. It explores community forestry as an alternative form of local collaborative governance in globally significant developed forest regions, with examples ranging from the Gulf Islands of British Columbia to Scandinavia. Responding to the global trend in devolution of control over forest resources and the ever-increasing need for more sustainable approaches to forest governance, the book highlights both the possibilities and challenges associated with community forestry implementation. It features compelling case studies and accounts from those directly involved with community forestry efforts, providing unique insight into the underlying social processes, issues, events and perceptions. It will equip students, researchers and practitioners with a deep understanding of both the evolution and management of community forestry in a pan-national context.

2011 Outstanding Title, University Press Books for Public and Secondary School Libraries Winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award Before Forks, a small town on Washington's Olympic Peninsula, became famous as the location for Stephenie Meyer's Twilight book series, it was the self-proclaimed "Logging Capital of the World" and ground zero in a regional conflict over the fate of old-growth forests. Since Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist William Dietrich first published The Final Forest in 1992, logging in Forks has given way to tourism, but even with its new fame, Forks is still a home to loggers and others who make their living from the surrounding forests. The new edition recounts how forest policy and practices have changed since the early 1990s and also tells us what has happened in Forks and where the actors who were so important to the timber wars are now. For more information on the author to to: http://williamdietrich.com/

This book makes a significant academic contribution because the study enriches the theories of social capital, governance and participatory forestry by making use of the evidence of empirical data collected in the field-work in Bangladesh. It also provides great policy implications in the field of rural development. - Professor Makoto Inoue This is a timely and important book addressing a vital topic for the planet's future, namely how to maintain both tropical biodiversity and the cultures of the peoples living in and around them. It draws on experiences from Bangladesh of shifting cultivation, and shows how careful analysis of people's livelihoods combined with participatory forest management programs can make a difference. A clear and cogent account, and essential reading for a wide variety of disciplines. - Professor Jules Pretty

In the years following World War II, the world's biggest dam was almost built in Hells Canyon on the Snake River in Idaho. Karl Boyd Brooks tells the story of the dam controversy, which became a referendum not only on public-power expansion but also on the environmental implications of the New Deal's natural resources and economic policy.

Private-power critics of the Hells Canyon High Dam posed difficult questions about the implications of damming rivers to create power and to grow crops. Activists, attorneys, and scientists pioneered legal tactics and political rhetoric that would help to define the environmental movement in the 1960s. The debate, however, was less about endangered salmon or threatened wild country and more about who would control land and water and whether state enterprise or private capital would oversee the supply of electricity.

By thwarting the dam's construction, Snake Basin irrigators retained control over water as well as economic and political power in Idaho, putting the state on a postwar path that diverged markedly from that of bordering states. In the end, the opponents of the dam were responsible for preserving high deserts and mountain rivers from radical change.

With "Public Power, Private Dams," Karl Brooks makes an important contribution not only to the history of the Pacific Northwest and the region's anadromous fisheries but also to the environmental history of the United States in the period after World War II.

Karl Boyd Brooks is associate professor of history and environmental studies at the University of Kansas.

""Public Power, Private Dams" provides a thorough discussion of the controversies surrounding the Hells Canyon High Dam, with a detailed examination of the regional and national forces that struggled over the dam, how their differing visions of the future were embodied in developmental alternatives, and how the region's salmon runs and tribes and fishers were the big losers." --Dale Goble, University of Idaho

The connections between communities and forests are complex and evolving, presenting challenges to forest managers, researchers, and communities themselves. Dependency on timber extraction and timber-related industries is no longer a universal characteristic of the forest community. Remoteness is also a less common feature, as technology, workforce mobility, tourism, and 'amenity migrants' increasingly connect rural to urban places. Forest Community Connections explores the responses of forest communities to a changing economy, changing federal policy, and concerns about forest health from both within and outside forest communities. Focusing primarily on the United States, the book examines the ways that social scientists work with communities-their role in facilitating social learning, informing policy decisions, and contributing to community well being. Bringing perspectives from sociology, anthropology, political science, and forestry, the authors review a range of management issues, including wildfire risk, forest restoration, labor force capacity, and the growing demand for a growing variety of forest goods and services. They examine the increasingly diverse aesthetic and cultural values that forest residents attribute to forests, the factors that contribute to strong and resilient connections between communities and forests, and consider a range of governance structures to positively influence the well being of forest communities and forests, including collaboration and community-based forestry.

Short-listed for the 1978 Governor General's Award for Non-Fiction The 19th century spawned a unique breed of men who took pride in their woodsmen skills and rough codes of conduct. They called themselves lumberers, shantymen, timber beasts, les bucherons -- and, more recently, lumberjacks, working in the vast forests of eastern Canada and British Columbia. Across the country, farm boys would go to the woods, lumbering being the only winter work available. Immigrants -- Swedes and Finns more often than not -- resumed the trades they had learned so well in the forests of northern Europe. They broke the cold, hard monotony of camp life with songs, tall tales and card games. Within these pages, author Donald MacKay allows us a glimpse into that moment in our heritage when men entered the virgin forest to carve out an industry from the seemingly endless array of pine, spruce, maple and balsam fir found there.

Community-based forest management (CBFM) is a model of forest management in which a community takes part in decision making and implementation, and monitoring of activities affecting the natural resources around them. CBFM provides a framework for a community members to secure access to the products and services that flow from the landscape in which they live and has become an essential component of any comprehensive approach to forest management.

In this volume, Nicholas K. Menzies looks at communities in China, Zanzibar, Brazil, and India where, despite differences in landscape, climate, politics, and culture, common challenges and themes arise in making a transition from forest management by government agencies to CBFM. The stories of these four distinct places highlight the difficulties communities face when trying to manage their forests and negotiate partnerships with others interested in forest management, such as the commercial forest sector or conservation and environmental organizations. These issues are then considered against a growing body of research concerning what constitutes successful CBFM.

Drawing on published and unpublished case studies, project reports, and his own rich experience, Menzies analyzes how CBFM fits into the broader picture of the management of natural resources, highlighting the conditions that bring about effective practices and the most just and equitable stewardship of resources. A critical companion for students, researchers, and practitioners, "Our Forest, Your Ecosystem, Their Timber" provides a singular resource on the emergence and evolution of CBFM.

With a career spanning more than forty years, from the isolation of the Canadian forest to the drama of the corporate boardroom, Mike Apsey has seen first-hand the complexities of forest management. What's All This Got to Do with the Price of 2x4's? is the insider's account that gives readers a new background on the competing tensions of conservation and international economics. With the perspective of someone who has served on both sides of the issue - industry and government - Apsey is in a unique position to advance timely recommendations for a system of forestry governance and offer a new approach to developing forest policy. Invaluable for anyone concerned about conservation and the future of the world's forests, this memoir underscores the intricacies and intertwining of forest policy, economics, and public policy.

Considerable emphasis has been placed on the interactions between environmental change and forests in recent years. Reports have been produced detailing scenarios of forest development associated with particular changes in climate. Similarly, scenarios have been produced looking at likely trends in air quality. However, many studies have failed to recognize that some of the biggest changes for forests are related to the socioeconomic environment rather that the physical environment. This book considers the interactions between forestry and environmental (climatic) change, from social and economic perspectives.

A quiet revolution is taking place in America's forests. Once seen primarily as stands of timber, our woodlands are now prized as a rich source of a wide range of commodities, from wild mushrooms and maple sugar to hundreds of medicinal plants whose uses have only begun to be fully realized. Now as timber harvesting becomes more mechanized and requires less labor, the image of the lumber-jack is being replaced by that of the forager.

This book provides the first comprehensive examination of nontimber forest products (NTFPs) in the United States, illustrating their diverse importance, describing the people who harvest them, and outlining the steps that are being taken to ensure access to them. As the first extensive national overview of NTFP policy and management specific to the United States, it brings together research from numerous disciplines and analytical perspectives -- such as economics, mycology, history, ecology, law, entomology, forestry, geography, and anthropology -- in order to provide a cohesive picture of the current and potential role of NTFPs.

The contributors review the state of scientific knowledge of NTFPs by offering a survey of commercial and noncommercial products, an overview of uses and users, and discussions of sustainable management issues associated with ecology, cultural traditions, forest policy, and commerce. They examine some of the major social, economic, and biological benefits of NTFPs, while also addressing the potential negative consequences of NTFP harvesting on forest ecosystems and on NTFP species populations.

Within this wealth of information are rich accounts of NTFP use drawn from all parts of the American landscape -- from the PacificNorthwest to the Caribbean. From honey production to a review of nontimber forest economies still active in the United States -- such as the Ojibway "harvest of plants" recounted here -- the book takes in the whole breadth of recent NTFP issues, including ecological concerns associated with the expansion of NTFP markets and NTFP tenure issues on federally managed lands.

No other volume offers such a comprehensive overview of NTFPs in North America. By examining all aspects of these products, it contributes to the development of more sophisticated policy and management frameworks for not only ensuring their ongoing use but also protecting the future of our forests.

Margaret Elley Felt's autobiographical Gyppo Logger, originally published in 1963, tells a story almost universally overlooked in the history of the logging industry: the emergence of family-based, independent contract or "gyppo" loggers in the post-World War II timber economy, and the crucial role of women within that economy. For seven years Margaret Felt was her husband's partner in their logging business - driving truck, keeping the wage rolls, and jawboning her way into more credit at the supply stores. Margaret Elley Felt is the author of thirteen books in addition to Gyppo Logger. She has contributed to popular magazines including National Wildlife and Parents Magazine, and was an editor and public information officer for several Washington State agencies.

In recent years, the forests of British Columbia have become a battleground for sustainable resource development. The conflicts are ever present, usually pitting environmentalists against the forest industry and forestry workers and communities. In an effort to broker peace in the woods, British Columbia's NDP government launched a number of promising new forest policy initiatives in the 1990s. In Search of Sustainability brings together a group of political scientists to examine this extraordinary burst of policy activism. Focusing on how much change has occurred and why, the authors examine seven components of BC forest policy: land use, forest practices, tenure, Aboriginal issues, timber supply, pricing, and jobs.