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Books > Professional & Technical > Agriculture & farming > Forestry & silviculture: practice & techniques
Bringing together a wealth of knowledge, the Handbook of Environmental Management, Second Edition, gives a comprehensive overview of environmental problems, their sources, their assessment, and their solutions. Through in-depth entries, and a topical table of contents, readers will quickly find answers to questions about pollution and management issues. This six-volume set is a reimagining of the award-winning Encyclopedia of Environmental Management, published in 2013, and features insights from more than 500 contributors, all experts in their fields. The experience, evidence, methods, and models used in studying environmental management is presented here in six stand-alone volumes, arranged along the major environmental systems. Features of the new edition: The first handbook that demonstrates the key processes and provisions for enhancing environmental management. Addresses new and cutting -edge topics on ecosystem services, resilience, sustainability, food-energy-water nexus, socio-ecological systems and more. Provides an excellent basic knowledge on environmental systems, explains how these systems function and offers strategies on how to best manage them. Includes the most important problems and solutions facing environmental management today.
Forest certification has been widely accepted as a tool that would encourage industrial and non-industrial management of resources in an environmentally acceptable, socially beneficial and economically viable manner. Much has been written on certification yet five issues have been missing, which this book addresses: an analysis of the scientific basis for the certification standards; a formal and mechanistic incorporation of social and natural system sustainability as part of the standards; the rationale for the different sets of standards that are currently being used to certify governmental, industrial and non-industrial organizations; the success of the different sets of standards in assessing the environmental acceptability, social benefits and economic viability of the managed system; and, the difficulty of certifying small landowners with current protocols. Forest Certification examines the historical roots of forest certification, the factors that guide the development of certification protocols, the players involved in certification, the factors determining the customers to be certified, and the benefits of certification. The book also covers the terminology and other issues intrinsic to certification that direct the structure of standards, the similarities between indicators of different human disturbances within the ecosystem/landscape and certification standards, and, finally, a case study evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of existing certification protocols. Forest Certification is unique in its analysis of the scientific basis for the structure of the forest certification protocols. It documents the roles of human values in the development of assessment protocols but demonstrates how elements of existing protocols should be used to produce non-value based standards.
At the time of European discovery, the ancient North American forests stretched across nearly half the continent. And while today little remains of this past glory, efforts are underway to bring back some of the diverse ecosystems of that era. America's Ancient Forests: From the Ice Age to the Age of Discovery provides scientists and professionals with essential information for forest restoration and conservation projects, while presenting a compelling and far-reaching account of how the North American landscape has evolved over the past 18,000 years. The book weaves historical accounts and scientific knowledge into a dynamic narrative about the ancient forests and the events that shaped them. Divided into two major parts, it covers first the glaciers and forests of the Ice Age and the influences of native peoples, and then provides an in-depth look at these majestic forests through the eyes of the first European explorers. Changes in climate and elevation, the movement of trees northward, the assembly of modern forests, and qualities that all ancient forests shared are also thoroughly examined. A special feature of this book is its self-contained introduction to the early history of Native American peoples and their environment. The author draws on his roots in the Osage nation as well as painstaking research through the historical record, offering a complete discussion of how the cultural practices of hunting, agriculture, and fire helped form the ancient forests.
Across the continental United States, one can identify 20 distinct forest cover types. Most of these are to be found on federal lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. Those responsible for the management of trees that form the 20 different cover types and the diversity of forest wildlife that reside in them must have a solid grounding in concepts of forest management, especially silviculture, as well as concepts of wildlife management, in order to integrate both as part of any effective natural resource management plan. Forest Wildlife Ecology and Habitat Management provides both foresters and wildlife biologists responsible for managing forest resources with an integrated understanding of the relationship between forests and wildlife. Based on David Patton's 50 years of experience as a forester and wildlife biologist, the book shows readers how to look at forests as ecological systems and wildlife as part of the energy flow and nutrient cycling process within those systems. He offers readers a fundamental understanding of the natural processes that occur in a forest taking into consideration vegetation, water, and the natural effects of climate and time. He then provides a biological perspective on wildlife, discussing reproduction, behavior, feeding habits, and mobility. He also discusses the various influences on forests and wildlife by both natural and human-caused events. Covering those forest types included in the U.S. National Atlas, and associating over 1,100 wildlife species with 20 major forest types in 48 states, Professor Patton provides recommendations for ways to restore and maintain wildlife habitat by direct and indirect coordination. Towards this end, the author - Evaluates various approaches to integrate forestry and wildlife management Offers a number of practical management strategies, emphasizing a progressive holistic approach
In contexts outside of ecology, the term "disturbance" carries a variety of negative connotations. Within ecology, however, disturbances are neither inherently negative nor positive for ecological systems; instead, their effects depend on the context, scale, and species involved. As ecologists better understand these context-dependencies, the field of disturbance ecology has matured, diversified, and become more complex and nuanced over the past several decades. Ecological Disturbance: Scale, Context, and Nature unites a collection of perspectives that weave together the topics of disturbance ecology and biological diversity. Chapters cover wildfire, disease, herbivory, surface mining, land-use conversions, and forest harvest, among numerous other natural and anthropogenic influences on ecosystems. The book begins with an introduction that reviews how thinking on perturbations and community organization has evolved over the last century, then explores how disturbances might be meaningfully categorized, and how biological diversity has been conceptualized. The introduction also explores the roles of scale and ecological context in disturbance outcomes, and reviews recent analytical and methodological advances relevant to disturbance ecology. The book then moves into forested ecosystems, where much of the early literature on disturbances arose, and focuses on scale-dependence, relationships of natural and anthropogenic disturbance, and recovery or successional trajectories. The next section focuses on emerging disturbances amidst global change, including non-native species, disease, and synergies with other disturbances. The book ends with a section on land-use disturbance, focusing on landscape pattern, resilience, and recovery dynamics. Throughout, the book's material spans a wide diversity of spatial and temporal scales, disciplines, taxa, and levels of ecological organization. This book may be used in a seminar course, as a compendium for disturbance ecology curricula that are at the interface of conceptual and applied ecology, and in other circumstances to illustrate how different authors have handled the various pragmatic challenges that arise in studies that ask broader questions. In an era of unprecedented global change, this book constitutes a valuable source for researchers, students, natural resource managers, and other conservation practitioners interested in delving deeper into disturbance ecology.
The influence of the past, and of the future on current-time tradeoffs in the forest arena are particularly relevant given the long-term successions in forest landscapes and the hundred years' rotations in forestry. Historically established path dependencies and conflicts determine our present situation and delimit what is possible to achieve. Similarly, future trends and desires have a large influence on decision making. Nevertheless, decisions about forest governance and management are always made in the present - in the present-time appraisal of the developed situation, future alternatives and in negotiation between different perspectives, interests, and actors. This book explores historic and future outlooks as well as current tradeoffs and methods in forest governance and management. It emphasizes the generality and complexity with empirical data from Sweden and internationally. It first investigates, from a historical perspective, how previous forest policies and discourses have influenced current forest governance and management. Second, it considers methods to explore alternative forest futures and how the results from such investigations may influence the present. Third, it examines current methods of balancing tradeoffs in decision-making among ecosystem services. Based on the findings the authors develop an integrated approach - Reflexive Forestry - to support exchange of knowledge and understandings to enable capacity building and the establishment of common ground. Such societal agreements, or what the authors elaborate as forest social contracts, are sets of relational commitment between involved actors that may generate mutual action and a common directionality to meet contemporary challenges.
"In a Dark Wood" presents a history of debates among ecologists over what constitutes good forestry, and a critique of the ecological reasoning behind contemporary strategies of preservation, including the Endangered Species Act. Chase argues that these strategies, in many instances adopted for political, rather than scientific reasons, fail to promote biological diversity and may actually harm more creatures than they help. At the same time, Chase offers examples of conservation strategies that work, but which are deemed politically incorrect and ignored. In a Dark Wood provides the most thoughtful and complete account yet written of radical environmentalism. And it challenges the fundamental--but largely unexamined--assumptions of preservationism, such as those concerning whether there is a "balance of nature," whether all branches of ecology are really science, and whether ecosystems exist. In his new introduction, Chase evaluates the response to his book and reports on recent developments in environmental science, policy, and politics. In a Dark Wood was judged by a recent national poll to be one of the one hundred best nonfiction books written in the English language during the twentieth century. A smashing good read, this book will be of interest to environmentalists, ecologists, philosophers, biologists, and bio-ethicists, and anyone concerned about ecological issues.
Originally published in 1990 Tropical Resources presents in-depth coverage of the extremely diverse tropical environments, the resources to be found within the region and their production, and ecological management. The book discusses economic geography and ways of utilizing available resources, including those of tropical forests, wildlife, tidal wetlands and the sea. The book also include chapters on the development and land use of protected areas, the ecological aspects of pasture resources; and the impacts of economic development and population damage. In addition, studies are offered on tropical soils, including their distribution properties and management and the ecological processes at work in tropical forests. For geographers, economists and policymakers, the book provides a wealth of information on tropical resources and their potential development.
As a natural science, silviculture has a large say in how humans interact with the terrestrial world. Although the perspective taken here that the production of wood is narrow, the amount of land area consumed is extensive; the indirect consequences of wood production on natural processes are larger still. Through the amount of land engaged, the flora and fauna affected and the environmental consequences, good or bad; silviculture is a frequent constituent in applied ecology, environmental science, conservation ecology and other broad land-use disciplines. Silvicultural expertize is essential when trees and wood are an economic output; often best promoted when silviculture is allied with hydrology, ecology, soil science, wildlife management, etc. This book touches upon the following important areas of the subject in detail.
From recycled products to organic food, the movement to be "environmentally friendly" is now expanding into the forestry field. Recognizing this impact, Home Depot has committed to giving preference to selling "certified wood," proven to come from forests that meet certain biological and social sustainablility standards. Retailers and vendors can offer certified wood through the international Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and FSC accredited organizations like SmartWood, recently featured in People magazine.
In this manual, Post-harvest Tobacco Infestation Control, we have addressed the 'state-of-the-art' and given little account of obsolete techniques. With contributing authors from international cigarette manufacturers, plus consultation with the worldwide tobacco industry, we have recorded the acceptable methodology for infestation management. This manual fills a void, as the most recent treatment of this subject was more than 20 years 350 ago. Major emphasis is on sanitation which should, where possible, reduce or replace pesticide use at all stages of tobacco processing. This manual is divided into an introduction and chapters dealing with: biology, monitoring, sanitation, physical control and insecticides - with separate chapters on insect growth regulators and fumigation. At the end, a few case histories are outlined to show how this integrated approach to infestation control is put into practice. Comments from users of this manual regarding general usefulness, omissions and/or corrections are welcome and should be addressed to CORESTA, the infestation control subgroup of the Phytopathology group. Introduction 1 Tobacco is vulnerable to many insect pests while growing in the 13 357 field. 4. 3 * Farmers may use pesticides to help control some insects and avoid losing up to 40% of the growing crop. Two insects, the cigarette beetle (Lasioderma serricorne) and the tobacco moth (Ephestia elutella), feed on cured tobacco leaves, whether air-cured burley, sun-cured oriental, flue-cured or tobacco by-products (Chapter 2).
Discover new approaches to promote a viable forest industry while protecting non-timber values Frontiers of Forest Biology: Proceedings of the 1998 Joint Meeting of the North American Forest Biology Workshop and the Western Forest Genetics Association gives you significant new insights on current initiatives in forest biology. Because the field is changing rapidly, you need to keep aware of current trends, as the emphasis in forest research shifts from productivity-based goals to sustainable development of forest resources. In this volume, you will find a comprehensive summary of the state of the art of forest science in North America. Whether your focus is on genetics or on the environmental aspects of forest science, plant physiology, or silviculture, you will find helpful chapters by practitioners as well as cutting-edge research by scientists. This integrated approach is unique in the field. Based on the 1998 Joint Meeting of the North American Forest Biology Workshop and the Western Forest Genetics Association, Frontiers of Forest Biology addresses changing priorities in forest resource management. This important book contains fascinating research studies, complete with tables and diagrams, on topics such as biodiversity research, the productivity of commercial species, conserving adaptive variation in forest ecosystems, and the effect of harvesting trees on nutrient leaching.The book maps the frontiers of this fast-changing science with chapters on: the social, biological, and industrial context of forest biology new directions for research into genetics, physiology, plant silviculture, and conservation the impact of genetics on sustainable forestry the effects of cold and disease on plant physiology regeneration of various species after logging new species adapted for agroforestry the impact and management of exotic weedsFrontiers of Forest Biology offers solid information on a broad spectrum of topics and suggests fresh avenues for your investigations in all aspects of forest biology.
Forestry today, like many other sectors that traditionally rely on material goods, faces significant global drivers of societal change that are less often addressed than the environmental concerns commonly in the spotlight of scientific, political, and news media. There are three major interconnected issues that are challenging forestry at its foundation: urbanization, tertiarization, and globalization. These issues are at the core of this book. The urbanization of society, a process in development from the first steps of industrialization, is particularly significant today with the predominance and quick growth rate of the world's urban population. Ongoing urbanization is creating new perspectives on forestry, inducing changes in its social representation, and changing lifestyles and practices with a tendency toward dematerialization. The process of urbanization is also creating a disconnect and in some ways is leaving behind rurality, the sector of society where forestry has traditionally developed and taken place over centuries. The second issue covered in this book is the tertiarization of the economy. In society today, the sector of services largely dominates the economy and occupies the major part of the world's active population. This ongoing process modifies professional modalities and ways of life and opens new doors to forests through the immaterial goods they provide. It also profoundly changes the framework, rules, processes, means of production, exchanges between economic factors, and the processes of innovation. The third issue is undoubtedly globalization in its economic, political, and social components. Whether it's through bridging distances, crossing borders, accelerating changes, standardizing practices, leveling hierarchical structures, or pushing for interdependence, globalization impacts everyone, everywhere in multiple ways. Forestry is no exception. Forestry in the Midst of Global Changes focuses on these global drivers of change from the perspective of their relationships with how society functions. By analyzing them in depth through multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and even transdisciplinary approaches, this book is helping to design the forestry of tomorrow.
America's 754 million acres of forest constitute more than a major geographical feature. They are intricately woven into the national economy and culture-providing a fifth of the nation's industrial raw material, protecting and regulating its watersheds, providing grazing range for a sizeable portion of livestock, producing most of its game and much of its nonsport wildlife, and attracting millions of tourists annually.
First published in 1995, The Forest Certification Handbook has become the landmark book concerning all aspects of forest and wood product certification from policy to business to in-the-field technical issues. Yet since first publication an enormous amount has happened in the field. This new second edition has been entirely rewritten to incorporate the changes over the past decade, and is a complete and up-to-date source of information on all aspects of developing, selecting and operating a forest certification programme that provides both market security and raises standards of forest management.
During the Green Revolution in many developing countries, agroforestry systems tended to reflect modern agricultural systems by their intensive use of fertilizers, pesticides, and site modifications to fit the desired crop. Since the 1980's, agroforestry has learned from traditional indigenous systems to work more closely with the fertility of marginal lands through the use of less intensive cultivation and fallow periods.
The book is a fundamental reference source on reaction wood for wood scientists and technologists, plant biologists, silviculturists, forest ecologists, and anyone involved in the growing of trees and the processing of wood. It brings together our current understanding of all aspects of reaction wood, and is the first book to discuss both compression wood and tension wood. Trees produce reaction wood to maintain the vertical orientation of their stems and the optimum angle of each branch. They achieve this by laying down fibre cell walls in which differences in physical and chemical structure from those of normal fibres are expressed as differential stresses across the stem or branch. This process, while of obvious value for the survival of the tree, causes serious problems for the utilisation of timber. Timber derived from trees containing significant amounts of reaction wood is subject to dimensional instability on drying, causing twisting, bending and splitting. It is also difficult to work as timber, and for the pulp and paper industry the cost of removing the increased amount of lignin in compression wood is substantial. This has both practical and economic consequences for industry. Understanding the factors controlling reaction wood formation and its effect on wood structure is therefore fundamental to our understanding of the adaptation of trees to their environment and to the sustainable use of wood. The topics covered include: -Morphology, anatomy and ultrastructure of reaction wood -Cell-wall polymers in reaction wood and their biosynthesis -Changes in tree proteomes during reaction wood formation -The biomechanical action and biological functions of reaction wood -Physical and mechanical properties of reaction wood from the scale of cell walls to planks -The detection and characterisation of compression wood -Effects of reaction wood on the performance of wood and wood-based products -Commercial implications of reaction wood and the influence of forest management on its formation "
Logging in the northern forest has been romanticized, with images of log drives, plaid shirts, and bunkhouses in wide circulation. Increasingly dismissed as a quaint, rural pastime, logging remains one of the most dangerous jobs in the United States, with loggers occupying a precarious position amid unstable markets, expanding global competition, and growing labor discord. Examining a time of transition and decline in Maine's forest economy, Andrew Egan traces pathways for understanding the challenges that have faced Maine's logging community and, by extension, the state's forestry sector, from the postwar period through today. Seeking greater profits, logging companies turned their crews loose at midcentury, creating a workforce of independent contractors who were forced to purchase expensive equipment and compete for contracts with the mills. Drawing on his own experience with the region's forest products industry, interviews with Maine loggers, media coverage, and court documents, Egan follows the troubled recent history of the industry and its battle for survival.
There has been a recent resurgence of interest in wood energy as part of a sustainable range of renewable energy options. This book addresses the current gap in the energy and public policy literature for a reference book that compiles the most-recent wood energy assessments, and evaluates current and potential future wood energy uses and the role for public policy to foster efficient use of the most-widely consumed renewable energy in the world. It brings together a group of expert authors covering topics from forest management, operations and engineering, to socio-economics and energy policy perspectives. It thus covers practical issues such as silviculture, harvesting, processing, comparative cost estimates, public policy tools and market effects. As such the book provides a comprehensive review of the complex dimensions of wood energy as well as practical guidance for professionals, researchers and advanced students. It will also provide invaluable guidance for economic development agencies, practitioners and policy-makers, when evaluating the impacts of wider wood energy adoption as part of a strategy for sustainable energy generation. The main focus is on industrialised production and developed economies, particularly the USA and Europe.
Since the 1992 Earth Summit, there have been increased efforts on an international scale to address global climate change. Reducing the increased levels of CO2 and other "greenhouse gases," which are believed to be contributing to this climatic change, will require major effort on the part of the world's governments. This means that the environmental, economic, social, and political consequences of climate change must be understood, and that strategies to mitigate climate change must also address these issues.
Urban forestry includes not only the city -street, it includes city parks and recreation areas as well as suburban areas. It involves city planning, forestry for development, construction of an infrastructure to care and nurture trees, funding, and community action. This title deals with the aspects of managing all facets of these areas.
This title aims to provide introductory and concluding surveys of the subject of farms, trees and farmers. Two central parts explore trends in farmer tree-growing and the factors which influence decision-making. Eight case studies cover, among other topics, the need for tree products, market access, the allocation of land and labour, and exposure to risk. In showing why farmers decide to grow or not grow trees, it seeks to increase the reader's knowledge about farming systems and to provide a guide to encouraging farm forestry throughout the world.
This book traces the economic and biological pattern of forest development from initial settlement and harvest activity at the natural forest frontier to modern industrial forest plantations. It builds from diagrams describing three discrete stages of forest development, and then discusses the management and policy implications associated with each, supporting its observations with examples and data from six continents and from both developed and developing countries. It shows that characteristic distinctions between the three stages make forestry unusual in natural resource management and that effective policy requires different, even contrasting, decisions at each stage. William F. Hyde's comprehensive discussion covers a wide range of issues, including the impacts of both specific forest policies and broader macroeconomic policies, the unique requirements of current issues such as global warming, biodiversity and tourism, and the complexities of the different forest products industries. Concluding chapters review the roles of the newer institutional landowners, of smaller private and farm landowners, and of public agencies. This highly-original volume reaches far beyond forest economics; it explains what forestry can do for regional development and environmental conservation and what policies designed for other sectors and the macro-economy can do for forestry.
This book addresses an important topic of food security in South Asia with specific reference to climate change. Of the 1 billion food insecure people in the world, more than 30% are in South Asia. The problem of food insecurity may be exacerbated by the projected climate change especially because of the water scarcity caused by rapid melting of the glaciers in the Himalayas and increase in variability in monsoonal rains and frequency of extreme events. Furthermore, large populations of Bangladesh and other coastal regions may be displaced by sea level rise. Thus, this volume addresses recommended land use and soil/water/crop/vegetation management practices which would enable land managers to adapt to climate disruption by enhancing soil/ecosystem/social resilience. In addition to biophysical factors, this book also addresses the issues related to human dimensions including social, ethnical and political considerations. |
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