This book outlines the latest trends in the use of multicriteria analysis in agriculture by highlighting recent applications for modeling agricultural decision-making. It introduces specific case studies using multicriteria analysis as a method for selecting multiattribute discrete alternatives or solving multiobjective planning problems. The book is intended for a broad readership, including agricultural and environmental economists, engineers and all scientists whose work involves the management of agricultural resources and decision-making in agriculture. The methods and applications presented in this book cover decision-making processes in agricultural and environmental contexts. The methodologies described consider multiple criteria simultaneously in a wide range of complex decision-making contexts by taking into account multiple, conflicting criteria. Given the wide range of case studies covered, the book offers a comprehensive guide to decision-making in the agricultural context and beyond.

Forest tenure reforms are occurring in many developing countries around the world. These reforms typically include devolution of forest lands to local people and communities, which has attracted a great deal of attention and interest. While the nature and level of devolution vary by country, all have potentially important implications for resource allocation, local ecosystem services, livelihoods and climate change. This book helps students, researchers and professionals to understand the importance and implications of these reforms for local environmental quality, climate change, and the livelihoods of villagers, who are often poor. It is shown that local forest management can often be more successful than top-down management of common pool forest resources. The relationship of local forest tenure reform to the important climate change initiative REDD+ is also considered. The work includes a number of generic chapters and also detailed case studies from China, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nepal, Tanzania and Uganda. Using specific examples and a wide variety of disciplinary perspectives, including quantitative and qualitative analytical methods, the book provides an authoritative and critical picture of local forest reforms in light of the key challenges humanity faces today.

There is a considerable gap between the science of conservation biology and the design and execution of biodiversity conservation projects in the field. Science is often failing to inform the practice of conservation, which remains largely experience-based. The main reason is the poor accessibility of evidence on the effectiveness of different interventions. This is the basis for this book adopting an 'evidence-based approach', modelled on the systematic reviews used in health sciences and now being applied to many policy arenas. Evidence-based Conservation brings together a series of case studies, written by field practitioners, that provides the evidence-base for evaluating how effective conservation and poverty alleviation strategies can be better implemented. A series of systematic reviews uses experiences and data from fifteen integrated conservation and development projects conducted in the Lower Mekong region, specifically in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. They provide wide-ranging overviews of the effectiveness of protected areas and how innovative tools and methods for monitoring and evaluation can be utilised for more effective outcomes. Results are in the form of management and policy recommendations, based on the quality of evidence and the cost-utility of the intervention. By bridging the gap between field practice and conservation, the analysis should lead to more effective integrated conservation and development interventions. The book represents one of the first attempts to apply the evidence-based approach to conservation and development.

With one volume each year, this series keeps scientists and advanced students informed of the latest developments and results in all areas of the plant sciences. This latest volume includes reviews on plant physiology, biochemistry, genetics and genomics, forests, and ecosystems.

This book addresses current global and regional issues concerning the world's forests, societies and the environment from an independent and non-governmental point of view. A main message is that cooperation on a global scale is not only commendable, but essential if solutions to the problems facing the world's forests are to be found. To achieve this, modern science needs to find a clearer picture of relationships between forests, human activity and the environment and of the consequences of environmental change for the ability of societies to survive. Part I, Editorial Perspectives, is analyzing the ongoing globalization processes of forests, societies and the environment. Part II, Society and Environment, reviews worldwide trends with significance for the future of forests and forestry. While the trends are influenced by forest sector issues, that sector is influenced to a much larger extent by external factors - such as demography, urbanization, or technological development. Part III, Importance of Forests, looks at the value of the goods and services of forests; tangible and intangible; market and non-market; and concludes that failure to recognize their full value is one of the crucial impediments to sustainable development. In Part IV, Global Forum, scientists take up global forestry themes - deforestation, trade and the environment, climate change, biodiversity - with the aim of stimulating wider discussion. Part V, Regional Forum, looks at major themes of particular relevance to Africa, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, North America and Europe, such as farm and agroforestry, corruption and concessions, urban forestry and environmental conflicts. Part VI introduces the special theme- forest sectors in transition economies. Teams of scientists from Russia and China focus on the implications of the transition from plan to market economy, illuminating both the very different nature of the forest sector in the two countries and the different transition paths that they have adopted. In the past millennium the entire world has been discovered. In the past half century the contribution of forests to the economy worldwide has been perceived, while only recently have their societal and environmental benefits been globally recognized. Globalization is a demanding process requiring knowledge and information. This book offers knowledge, facts and information &endash; but also values from diverse human and cultural perspectives &endash; about world forests, society and environment to help us towards equity in our use of the global forest, to create a clearer vision on a unasylva.

Timber sourcing is shifting from extraction from natural forests to forms of cultivation that are increasingly agricultural in nature. This book takes a multidisciplinary approach to examine the socio-political, biophysical and discursive dimensions of this divergence of wood production from forests. This analysis challenges the historical integration of wood production and forest ecosystem management exemplified by the institutions of forestry with their inherent wood/forest connection. This has significant implications for how wood and forest socio-ecological systems confront change and challenge ideas about how to achieve sustainability. Historically, the institutions of stewardship forestry were founded on ideals of sustainable systems in long-term equilibrium. However, these occur within rapidly evolving social and technological contexts that constantly challenge the maintenance of any equilibrium. This creates considerable tension within wood and forest socio-ecological systems and their institutions and governance. Moving beyond adaptation to transformation, however, requires a willingness to consider post-forestry conditions, such as integration of emerging wood cultivation systems into agricultural and landscape approaches, and increasing management of extensive forest ecosystems for non-wood values in the absence of wood production. This book includes four case studies: a global modelling of shifts in wood production and three national case studies (Australia, Indonesia and New Zealand), each analysing shifts in resilience in wood and forest socio-ecological systems using a different disciplinary approach. This book will be of interest to advanced students, researchers and professionals in forestry, land use, conservation, rural studies and geography.

This book assesses the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP) and identifies lessons learned for governance and policy through this new and innovative approach to collaborative forest management. Unlike anything else in US public land management, the CFLRP is a nationwide program that requires collaboration throughout the life of national forest restoration projects, joining agency partners and local stakeholder groups in a kind of decade-long restoration marriage. This book provides a comprehensive assessment of the governance dynamics of the program, examining: questions about collaborative governance processes and the dynamics of trust, accountability and capacity; how scientific information is used in making decisions and integrated into adaptive management processes; and the topic of collaboration through implementation, an underdeveloped area of collaborative governance literature. Bringing together chapters from a community of social science and policy researchers who have conducted studies across multiple CFLRP projects, this volume generates insights, not just about the program, but also about dynamics that are central to collaborative and landscape approaches to land management and relevant for broader practice. This volume is a timely and important contribution to environmental governance scholarship. It will be of interest to researchers and students of natural resource management, environmental governance, and forestry, as well as practitioners and policy makers involved in forest and ecosystem restoration efforts, and collaborative natural resource management more broadly.

Because of its peculiar biology, its negative impacts on forestry, and its urticating larvae affecting human and animal health, pine processionary moth has largely been studied in many European countries during the last century. However, knowledge remained scattered and no synthesis has ever been published. Since the IPCC retained the moth as one of the two insect indicators of climate change because of its expansion with warming up, filling this gap became increasingly important. Led by INRA, this book associates 101 authors from 22 countries of Europe, Minor Asia and North Africa, combining all the concerned research fields (entomology, ecology, genetics, mathematical modelling, medical and veterinary science, pest management) in a multidisciplinary approach to understand and model the processes underlying past, present and future moth expansion and to propose adapted management methods. Besides, the major biological patterns of the related processionary species are also detailed.

Indonesia's commitment to reducing land-based greenhouse gas emissions significantly includes the expansion of conservation areas, but these developments are not free of conflicts. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of agrarian conflicts in the context of the implementation of REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) and forest carbon offsetting in Indonesia, a country where deforestation is a major issue. The author analyzes new kinds of transnational agrarian conflicts which have strong implications for global environmental justice in the REDD+ pilot province of Jambi on the island of Sumatra. The chapters cover: the rescaling of the governance of forests; privatization of conservation; and the transnational dimensions of agrarian conflicts and peasants' resistance in the context of REDD+. The book builds on an innovative conceptual approach linking political ecology, politics of scale and theories of power. It fills an important knowledge and research gap by focusing on the socially differentiated impacts of REDD+ and new forest carbon offsetting initiatives in Southeast Asia, providing a multi-scalar perspective. It is aimed at scholars in the areas of political ecology, human geography, climate change mitigation, forest and natural resource management, as well as environmental justice and agrarian studies. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.tandfebooks.com/doi/view/10.4324/9781351066020, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

This textbook provides students and academics with a conceptual understanding of fire behavior and fire effects on people and ecosystems to support effective integrated fire management. Through case studies, interactive spreadsheets programmed with equations and graphics, and clear explanations, the book provides undergraduate, graduate, and professional readers with a straightforward learning path. The authors draw from years of experience in successfully teaching fundamental concepts and applications, synthesizing cutting-edge science, and applying lessons learned from fire practitioners. We discuss fire as part of environmental and human health. Our process-based, comprehensive, and quantitative approach encompasses combustion and heat transfer, and fire effects on people, plants, soils, and animals in forest, grassland, and woodland ecosystems from around the Earth. Case studies and examples link fundamental concepts to local, landscape, and global fire implications, including social-ecological systems. Globally, fire science and integrated fire management have made major strides in the last few decades. Society faces numerous fire-related challenges, including the increasing occurrence of large fires that threaten people and property, smoke that poses a health hazard, and lengthening fire seasons worldwide. Fires are useful to suppress fires, conserve wildlife and habitat, enhance livestock grazing, manage fuels, and in ecological restoration. Understanding fire science is critical to forecasting the implication of global change for fires and their effects. Increasing the positive effects of fire (fuels reduction, enhanced habitat for many plants and animals, ecosystem services increased) while reducing the negative impacts of fires (loss of human lives, smoke and carbon emissions that threaten health, etc.) is part of making fires good servants rather than bad masters.

Forest landscape restoration (FLR) is a planned process that aims to regain ecological integrity and enhance human wellbeing in deforested or degraded landscapes. The aim of this book is to explore options to better integrate the diverse dimensions - spatial, disciplinary, sectoral, and scientific - of implementing FLR. It demonstrates the value of an integrated and interdisciplinary approach to help implement FLR focusing specifically on four issues: understanding the drivers of forest loss and degradation in the context of interdisciplinary responses for FLR; learning from related integrated approaches; governance issues related to FLR as an integrated process; and the management, creation and use of different sources of knowledge in FLR implementation. The emphasis is on recognising the need to take human and institutional factors into consideration, as well as the more obvious biophysical factors. A key aim is to advance and accelerate the practice of FLR, given its importance, particularly in a world facing increasing environmental challenges, notably from climate change. The first section of the book presents the issue from an analytical and problem-orientated viewpoint, while later sections focus on solutions. It will interest researchers and professionals in forestry, ecology, geography, environmental governance and landscape studies.

This book explores the concepts, premises, advancements, and challenges in quantifying natural forest landscape patterns through mapping techniques. After several decades of development and use, these tools can now be examined for their foundations, intentions, scope, advancements, and limitations. When applied to natural forest landscapes, mapping techniques must address concepts such as stochasticity, heterogeneity, scale dependence, non-Euclidean geometry, continuity, non-linearity, and parsimony, as well as be explicit about the intended degree of abstraction and assumptions. These studies focus on quantifying natural (i.e., non-human engineered) forest landscape patterns, because those patterns are not planned, are relatively complex, and pose the greatest challenges in cartography, and landscape representation for further interpretation and analysis.

Lignin, a plant constituent, is the second most abundant biopolymer on earth. Every year, the pulp and paper industry generates over 45 million metric tons of lignin as a by-product of chemical wood pulps and uses about 10 million metric tons of lignin as a component of mechanical wood pulps. The majority of the by-product lignin is being used internally as a low-grade fuel for the chemical pulping operation, while the lignin-rich mechanical wood pulps are being used mainly to make short-life paper products such as newsprint and telephone directories because of the light-instability of lignin. There is a tremendous economic incentive to find better uses of lignin and to expand the markets of mechanical wood pulps.
In Asia and other areas of the world where forest resources are less abundant, non-wood plant materials such as straw and bamboo have been used to make paper products for many centuries. The effective isolation and product development of lignin from chemical pulping of non-wood materials have become increasingly more important because internal use of the non-wood pulping spent liquors is difficult and the traditional way of discharging them to the environment is no longer acceptable.
This volume covers recent developments in chemical modification and utilization of lignin as a component of polymeric materials such as starch films, conducting polymers, polyurethanes and thermoplastics, and as a key building block to make carbon fibers, soil conditioners, nitrogenous fertilizers, and pulping catalysts. It also describes recent advances in chemical modification of lignin aimed at the photostabilization and upgrading of lignin-rich mechanical wood pulp and paper.

In 1944 Lady Park Wood (45 hectares of woodland in Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire, UK) was set aside indefinitely by the Forestry Commission so that ecologists could study how woodland develops naturally. Since then, in a unique long-term study, individual trees and shrubs have been recorded at intervals, accumulating a detailed record of more than 20,000 individual beech, sessile oak, ash, wych elm, small-leaved lime, large-leaved lime, birch, hazel, yew and other species. In the seven decades since the study started, the wood has changed; trees grew, died and regenerated, and drought, disease and other events shaped its destiny. Each tree and shrub species reacted in its own way to changes in the wood as a whole and to changes in the fortunes of its neighbours. Meanwhile, the wild fauna, flora and fungi also responded, leaving the wood richer in some groups but poorer in others. In this landmark book, beautifully illustrated throughout, George Peterken and Edward Mountford, summarise the ongoing results of the Lady Park Wood study, highlighting its unique place in nature conservation and its significance to ecology in general. It also builds on experience at Lady Park Wood and elsewhere to discuss in particular: the role and maintenance of long-term ecological studies; the concept and form of natural woodland; the role of minimum-intervention policies in woodland nature conservation; near-to-nature forestry; and the desirability and practicalities of re-wilding woodlands.

The management of common pool resources and publicly-owned areas is fraught with difficulty. This book explores the long, complex, and frequently contentious history of public lands management in the United States in order to draw lessons for the emerging field of marine spatial planning (MSP). The author first establishes that these two seemingly different settings are in fact remarkably similar, drawing on established theories of policy analysis. The work then examines the management of US National Forests over the past 120 years, including three place-based case studies, to discover recurring themes. The analysis shows how different management approaches evolved over time in response to changing laws and cultural norms, producing outcomes favored by different constituencies. This history also reveals the ambiguities and contradictions inherent in multiple-use management of any public space. Next, the book analyzes recent efforts to advance MSP, both in the US and globally, showing how they mirror past experiences in National Forest management, including similar disagreements among stakeholders. In conclusion the author suggests how those within ocean-related sectors - government, academia, industry, and environmental groups - might achieve their individual and collective goals more effectively based on lessons from the public lands setting.

1. Uses advanced geospatial technology to study fragile Himalayan ecosystems and their sustainability. 2. Provides satellite data and spatio-temporal analyses to assess and monitor water resources in the Himalayas. 3. Focuses on land use/land cover changes (LULCC) a leading aspect of environmental changes caused by human-induced activities in rapidly developing areas. 4. Includes case studies from Indian Himalayan, Nepal, and Afghanistan regions. 5. Discusses urban sprawls and future projections of groundwater resources and air pollution in the region.

Landscapes are being degraded and simplified across the globe. This book explores how forest restoration might be carried out to increase landscape heterogeneity, improve ecological functioning and restore ecosystem services in such landscapes. It focuses on large, landscape-scale reforestation because that is the scale at which restoration is needed if many of the problems that have now developed are to be addressed. It also shows how large-scale forest restoration might improve human livelihoods as well as improve conservation outcomes. A number of governments have undertaken national reforestation programs in recent years; some have been more successful than others. The author reviews these to explore what type of reforestation should be used, where this should be carried out and how much should be done. For example, are the traditional industrial forms of reforestation necessarily the best to use in all situations? How can forest restoration be reconciled with the need for food security? And, are there spatial thresholds that must be exceeded to generate economic and environmental benefits? The book also examines the policy and institutional settings needed to encourage large-scale reforestation. This includes a discussion of the place for incentives to encourage landholders to undertake particular types of reforestation and to reforest particular locations. It also considers forms of governance that are likely to lead to an equitable sharing of the costs and benefits of forest restoration.

This text has been developed from a workshop on "Technological Change in Agriculture and Tropical Deforestation" organized by the Center for International Forestry Research and held in Costa Rica in March, 1999. It explores how intesification of agriculture affects tropical deforestation using case studies from different geographical regions, using different agricultural products and technologies and in differing demographic situations and market demographic situations and market conditions. Guidance is also given on future agricultural research and extension efforts.

This book takes a multi-disciplinary and critical look at what has changed over the last ten years in one of the world's most important and dynamic ecosystems, the Amazon floodplain or varzea. It also looks forward, assessing the trends that will determine the fate of environments and people of the varzea over the next ten years and providing crucial information that is needed to formulate strategies for confronting these looming realities.

Small woods, coppices and hangers are an integral part of the countryside and landscape. This practical guide to the management and conservation of woods up to ten hectares offers information on buying and selling woods, contact addresses, and a glossary of terms.

Tropical rain forests are increasingly expected to serve for climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation amid global climate change and increasing human demands for land. Natural production forests that are legally designated to produce timber occur widely in the Southeast Asian tropics. Synergizing timber production, climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation in such tropical production forests is one of the most realistic means to resolve these contemporary global problems. Next-generation sustainable forest management is being practiced in the natural tropical rain forest of a model site in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, while earlier sustainable management practices have generally failed, leading to extensive deforestation and forest degradation elsewhere in the tropics. Ecologists have examined co-benefits of sustainable forestry in the model forest in terms of forest regeneration, carbon sequestration and biodiversity in comparison to a forest managed by destructive conventional methods. Taxonomic groups studied have included trees, decomposers, soil microbes, insects and mammals. A wide array of field methods and technology has been used including count plots, sensor cameras, and satellite remote-sensing. This book is a compilation of the results of those thorough ecological investigations and elucidates ecological processes of tropical rain forests after logging. The book furnishes useful information for foresters and conservation NGOs, and it also provides baseline information for biologists and ecologists. A further aim is to examine the environmental effects of a forest certification scheme as the model forest has been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. Taken as a whole, this book proves that the desired synergy is possible.

"Methods and Approaches in Forest History" is a companion to "Forest History: International Studies on Socioeconomic and Forest Ecosystem Change," which includes over 20 papers from the same conference held in Florence in 1998. This volume focuses on the different approaches and methods adopted in the study of forest history. The interdisciplinary nature of these studies is emphasized, bringing in the different perspectives of anthropologists, botanists, ecologists, foresters, historians, geneticists and geographers. This volume demonstrates the rich diversity of approaches and methods to forest history.

This book examines the importance of air pollution for the forests of rapidly industrializing countries and regions. Its geographical coverage includes South and Central America, Africa, and Asia, including Siberia, China and Korea. The problems presented by air pollution are placed within the more general context of sustainable development within these regions and the historical legacy that they are attempting to deal with. Attention is drwan to the very serious problems associated with poor air quality in cities such as Mexico City and Chongqing, China. Air pollution in these areas is among the worst in the world. Several chapters examine the importance of forest fires as a source of air pollution, with particular reference to the Southeast Asian fires in recent years. The available information about the effects of this pollution on the surrounding forests is reviewed, and recommendations are made for a better understanding of the impacts. A final chapter reviews the recent developments in air pollution control policies in the different regions covered by the book. It is of interest to postgraduates and researchers in forestry, pollution studies and environmental science.

The introduction of chain saws and tractors in the early 1950's marked the beginning of a change in tree harvesting techniques from the old manual methods to mechanized operations. It was followed by a rapid evolution both technically and systematically. Hence, the requirements for improved know ledge of operational efficiency also increased. Changing relations between Man, machines and environment brought about new experiences and awareness of a physiological and ergonomic nature. Improved knowledge of both machine technology and planning of work on a small or large scale has grown increa singly important for an efficient utilization of expensive machines and other equipment. The need for a textbook on tree harvesting techniques including expe riences made in recent years is enhanced. The book presented here is prima rily based on lectures given on the subject of Forest Techniques at the Faculty of Forestry at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and after modifications also at the University of Nairobi (Kenya). Thus, the book is written primarily for students at the faculties and institutes of forestry. However, it is also useful for persons actively occupied in forest operations. The presentation of this book in its original Swedish version in 1972 created a considerable interest in the preparation of a condensed edition in English. Thus interest has been expressed in Finland, Norway, Holland, Canada, U.S.A., Brazil, Japan, Poland, Scotland and Yugoslavia."

Micropropagation has become a reliable and routine approach for large-scale rapid plant multiplication, which is based on plant cell, tissue and organ culture on well defined tissue culture media under aseptic conditions. A lot of research efforts are being made to develop and refine micropropagation methods and culture media for large-scale plant multiplication of several number of plant species. However, many forest and fruit tree species still remain recalcitrant to in vitro culture and require highly specific culture conditions for plant growth and development. The recent challenges on plant cell cycle regulation and the presented potential molecular mechanisms of recalcitrance are providing excellent background for understanding on totipotency and what is more development of micropropagation protocols. For large-scale in vitro plant production the important attributes are the quality, cost effectiveness, maintenance of genetic fidelity, and long-term storage. The need for appropriate in vitro plant regeneration methods for woody plants, including both forest and fruit trees, is still overwhelming in order to overcome problems facing micropropagation such as somaclonal variation, recalcitrant rooting, hyperhydricity, polyphenols, loss of material during hardening and quality of plant material. Moreover, micropropagation may be utilized, in basic research, in production of virus-free planting material, cryopreservation of endangered and elite woody species, applications in tree breeding and reforestation.