Part armchair travelogue, part guide book, this projected three-volume series - divided into the western, central, and eastern United States - will introduce readers to all 155 national forests across the country. "This Land" is the only comprehensive field guide that describes the natural features, wildernesses, scenic drives, campgrounds, and hiking trails of our national forests, many of which - while little known and sparsely visited - boast features as spectacular as those found in our national parks and monuments. Each entry includes logistical information about size and location, facilities, attractions, and associated wilderness areas. For about half of the forests, Robert H. Mohlenbrock has provided sidebars on the biological or geological highlights, drawn from the 'This Land' column that he has written for "Natural History" magazine since 1984. Superbly illustrated with color photographs, botanical drawings, and maps, this book is loaded with information, clearly written, and easy to use. This volume covers national forests in Alaska, Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, California, Utah, Idaho, and Washington.

Can you tell which plants are safe to eat? Which trees are best to shelter under a storm? How do you tell a deciduous and coniferous tree apart? In his charming new book, bestselling author of The Hidden Life of Trees Peter Wohlleben takes you on a journey of discovery. From learning what creatures lurk beneath tree roots to finding your way around the woods without a compass, this is a captivating guide to navigating the wonders of the wild.

In 1950, the biggest firestorm documented in North America-one fire alone burned 3,500,000 acres of boreal forest in northern Alberta and British Columbia-created the world's largest smoke layer in the atmosphere. The smoke travelled half way around the northern hemisphere and made the moon and sun appear blue. The Chinchaga Firestorm is an historical study of the effects of fire on the ecological process. Using technical explanations and archival discoveries, the author shows the beneficial yet destructive effects of many forest fires, including the 2011 devastation of Slave Lake, Alberta. Cordy Tymstra tells the stories of communities and individuals as their lives intersected with the path of the Chinchaga River Fire-stories that demonstrate people's spirit, resourcefulness, self-sufficiency, and their persistence in the struggle against nature's immense power. The 1950 event changed the way these fires are fought in Alberta and elsewhere. The Chinchaga Firestorm will appeal to wildland fire scientists, foresters, forest ecologists and policy makers, as well as those who are interested in western Canadian history and ecology.

This book offers to a wide readership the opportunity to understand, consider and plan strategies that aim to conserve forest ecosystems across the world. This book presents ten chapters written by renowned researchers from Brazil, Argentina, Tunisia and Germany, offering to the scientific community as well as to human society as a whole important concepts, methods and gaps that we need to fill if we wish to preserve Earths forests.The authors begin this collection by demonstrating how rare tree species could be a surrogate for biodiversity in conservation decision-making (Chapter One). Sustainable management of biodiversity in woody ecosystems is the theme of Chapter Two, followed by an interesting synthesis and discussion on challenges for conservation of forests and Brazilian reptiles (Chapter Three). Prioritization of areas for permanent preservation for forest recovery aiming at landscape connectivity (Chapter Four), conservation of Aleppo pine forests for post flood and fire plantings (Chapter Five), agroforestry and its connections to REDD+ activities in the Amazon (Chapter Six), forest conservation and its challenges in tropical Africa (Chapter Seven), large dams in the Amazon and their effects on the fauna (Chapter Eight) and selection and propagation of native tree species for improving ecological restoration (Chapter Nine) are themes deeply addressed in the next contributions, including interesting case studies. This book ends with an approach to environmental suitability modeling and its potential to support conservation decisions and ecological restoration programs in virtually any part of the world (Chapter Ten).Forest Conservation: Methods, Management and Challenges is an important tool for students, researchers, decision-makers, governmental and non-governmental agencies that are interested in preserving different forest types in order to assure biodiversity conservation for current and future generations.

Forests, as physical entities, have received considerable scholarly attention in political studies of Asia and beyond. Much less notice has been paid to the significance of forests as symbols that enable commentary on identity, aspirations, and authority. Natural Potency and Political Power, an innovative exploration of the social and political importance of forests in contemporary Laos, challenges common views of the rural countryside as isolated and disconnected from national social debates and politics under an authoritarian regime. It offers instead a novel understanding of local perspectives under authoritarianism, demonstrating that Lao people make implicit political statements in their commentary on forests and wildlife; and showing that, in addition to being vital material resources, forests (and their natural potency) are linked in the minds of many Lao to the social and political power of the state. Sarinda Singh explores the intertwining of symbolic and material concerns in local debates over conservation and development, the popularity of wildlife consumption, the particular importance of elephants, and forest loss and mismanagement. In doing so, she draws on ethnographic fieldwork around Vientiane, the capital, and Nakai, site of the contentious Nam Theun 2 hydropower project--places that are broadly reflective of the divide between urban prosperity and rural poverty. Nam Theun 2, supported by the World Bank, highlights the local, regional, and global dynamics that influence discussions of forest resources in Laos. Government officials, rural villagers, and foreign consultants all contribute to competing ideas about forests and wildlife. Singh advances research on forest politics by rethinking how ideas about nature influence social life. Her work refutes the tendency to see modern social life as independent of historical influences, and her attention to viewpoints both inside and outside the state prompts an understanding of authoritarian regimes as not only sources of repression, but also sites of negotiation, engagement, and debate about the legitimacy of social inequalities.

Boerker points out exactly how important forests are for recreation, water supply, flood control, wild life, livestock raising, agriculture, and the lumber industry. Originally published in 1945. A UNC Press Enduring Edition - UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Salvage logging--removing trees from a forested area in the wake of a catastrophic event such as a wildfire or hurricane--is highly controversial. Policymakers and those with an economic interest in harvesting trees typically argue that damaged areas should be logged so as to avoid "wasting" resources, while many forest ecologists contend that removing trees following a disturbance is harmful to a variety of forest species and can interfere with the natural process of ecosystem recovery.

"Salvage Logging and Its Ecological Consequences "brings together three leading experts on forest ecology to explore a wide range of issues surrounding the practice of salvage logging. They gather and synthesize the latest research and information about its economic and ecological costs and benefits, and consider the impacts of salvage logging on ecosystem processes and biodiversity. The book examines

- what salvage logging is and why it is controversial - natural and human disturbance regimes in forested ecosystems - differences between salvage harvesting and traditional timber harvesting - scientifically documented ecological impacts of salvage operations - the importance of land management objectives in determining appropriate post-disturbance interventions Brief case studies from around the world highlight a variety of projects, including operations that have followed wildfires, storms, volcanic eruptions, and insect infestations. In the final chapter, the authors discuss policy management implications and offer prescriptions for mitigating the impacts of future salvage harvesting efforts.

"Salvage Logging and Its Ecological Consequences "is a "must-read" volume for policymakers, students, academics, practitioners, and professionals involved in all aspects of forest management, natural resource planning, and forest conservation.

The last traces of Australia's tropical rainforest, where the southeasterly winds bring rain to the coastal mountains, contain a unique assemblage of plants and animals, some primitive, many that are found nowhere else on earth. And fifteen years ago, they also contained Bill Laurance, a budding ecologist seduced by the nature of the landscape in north Queensland. Laurance isn't your typical scientist: he wears cut-offs instead of white coats, enjoys the occasional food fight, and isn't afraid to speak his mind, even if it gets him into trouble, as it often did in the Australian rainforest and as he recounts in his marvelous Queensland journal "Stinging Trees and Wait-a-Whiles,"
As Laurance writes in the preface, the book is "not a typical account about scientific research--at least I hope not, for my colleagues' sake. Rather, it is a story about the joys and agonies of fieldwork, about zany characters and a wild clash of cultures." Laurance did his fieldwork and encountered these characters and cultures in a tiny town of loggers and farmers, a place where conservation issues have a direct impact on individual lives. He found himself at the center of a bitter battle over conservation strategies and became not only the subject of small-town gossip but also the object of many residents' hatred. Keeping ahead of his high-spirited young volunteers, hounded by the drug-sniffing local policeman, and all the while trying to further his own research amid natural and unnatural obstacles, Laurance offers us a personal and hilarious account of fieldwork and life in the Australian outpost of Millaa Millaa. "Stinging Trees and Wait-a-Whiles" is a biology lesson, a conservation primer, and anutterly energetic story about an impressionable young man who wound up at the epicenter of an issue that tore a small town apart.

Blending ethnography with a fascinating personal story, A Future for Amazonia is an account of a political movement that arose in the early 1990s in response to decades of attacks on the lands and peoples of eastern Ecuador, one of the world's most culturally and biologically diverse places. After generations of ruin at the hands of colonizing farmers, transnational oil companies, and Colombian armed factions, the indigenous Cofan people and their rain forest territory faced imminent jeopardy. In a surprising turn of events, the Cofan chose Randy Borman, a man of Euro-American descent, to lead their efforts to overcome the crisis that confronted them. Drawing on three years of ethnographic research, A Future for Amazonia begins by tracing the contours of Cofan society and Borman's place within it. Borman, a blue-eyed, white-skinned child of North American missionary-linguists, was raised in a Cofan community and gradually came to share the identity of his adoptive nation. He became a global media phenomenon and forged creative partnerships between Cofan communities, conservationist organizations, Western scientists, and the Ecuadorian state. The result was a collective mobilization that transformed the Cofan nation in unprecedented ways, providing them with political power, scientific expertise, and a new role as ambitious caretakers of more than one million acres of forest. Challenging simplistic notions of identity, indigeneity, and inevitable ecological destruction, A Future for Amazonia charts an inspiring course for environmental politics in the twenty-first century.

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/

Recent decades have seen unprecedented growth in the scale and intensity of industrial forestry. Directly and indirectly, it has degraded the wildlife and ecological integrity of these tropical forests, prompting a need to evaluate the impact of current forest management practices and reconsider how best to preserve the integrity of the biosphere.

Synthesizing the body of knowledge of leading scientists and professionals in tropical forest ecology and management, this book's thirty chapters examine in detail the interplay between timber harvesting and wildlife, from hunted and protected habitats to invertebrates and large mammal species.

Collectively, the contributors suggest that better management is pivotal to the maintenance of the tropics' valuable biodiversity, arguing that we must realize that tropical forests harbor the majority (perhaps 70 to 80 percent) of the world's animal species. Further, they suggest modifications to existing practices that can ensure a better future for our valuable resources.

Forests cover approximately 30% of total land area and function as habitats for organisms, hydrologic flow modulators, and soil conservers, constituting one of the most important aspects of the Earth's biosphere. The canopy is one of the uppermost levels of a forest, below the emergent layer, formed by the tree crowns. The canopy is home to unique flora and fauna not found in other layers of a forest. Trees in the canopy are able to photosynthesise very rapidly thanks to the large amount of light, so it supports the widest diversity of plant as well as animal life in most rainforests. This book presents a wide variety of topics on the ecosystem in forest canopies. Included is a study on light distribution patterns and how it effects the daily photosynthesis of herbaceous vegetation. Recent progress, concerns, and future directions in simulations of vegetation processes are presented as well, in the terrestrial biosphere model that is coupled to a climate system model.

Unique tales and reflections of a scientist-explorer on his adventures in some of the world's most remote tropical rainforests Perhaps it is not possible to experience all the mysterious sounds, the unfamiliar smells, and the spectacular sights of a tropical rainforest without ever visiting one. But this exhilarating and honest book comes wondrously close to taking the reader on such a journey. Bruce M. Beehler, a widely traveled expert on birds and tropical ecology, recounts fascinating details from twelve field trips he has taken to the tropics over the past three decades. As a researcher, he brings to life the exotic rainforests and the people who inhabit them; as a conservationist, he makes a plea for better ways of managing rainforests-"a resource that the world cannot do without." Drawing on his experiences in Papua New Guinea, India, Madagascar, Indonesia, the Philippines, Panama, and the Ivory Coast, Beehler describes the surprises-both pleasant and unpleasant-of doing science and conservation in the field. He explains the role that rainforests play in the lives of indigenous peoples and the crucial importance of understanding local cultures, customs, and politics. The author concludes with simple but tough solutions for maintaining rainforest health, expressing fervent hope that his great-grandchildren and others may one day also hear the rainforest whisper its secrets.

"Cottonwood and the River of Time" looks at some of the approaches scientists have used to unravel the puzzles of the natural world. With a lifetime of work in forestry and genetics to guide him, Reinhard Stettler celebrates both what has been learned and what still remains a mystery as he examines not only cottonwoods but also trees more generally, their evolution, and their relationship to society.

Cottonwoods flourish on the verge, near streams and rivers. Their life cycle is closely attuned to the river's natural dynamics. An ever-changing floodplain keeps generating new opportunities for these pioneers to settle and prepare the ground for new species. Perpetual change is the story of cottonwoods -- but in a broader sense, the story of all trees and all kinds of life. Through the long parade of generation after generation, as rivers meander and glaciers advance and retreat, trees have adapted and persisted, some for thousands of years. How do they do this? And more urgently, what lessons can we learn from the study of trees to preserve and manage our forests for an uncertain future?

In his search for answers, Stettler moves from the floodplain of a West Cascade river, where seedlings compete for a foothold, to mountain slopes, where aspens reveal their genetic differences in colorful displays; from the workshops of Renaissance artists who painted their masterpieces on poplar to labs where geneticists have recently succeeded in sequencing a cottonwood's genome; from the intensively cultivated tree plantations along the Columbia to old-growth forests challenged by global warming.

Natural selection and adaptation, the comparable advantages and disadvantages of sexual versus asexual reproduction, the history of plant domestication, and the purposes, risks, and potential benefits of genetic engineering are a few of the many chapters in this story. By offering lessons in how nature works, as well as how science can help us understand it, Cottonwood and the River of Time illuminates connections between the physical, biological, and social worlds.

Reinhard F. Stettler is professor emeritus of forestry at the University of Washington.

This book provides a manual for undertaking research into the role of people in commonly shared resources, like forests, water bodies, fisheries and grazing pastures. The method in this book constructs indicators for the level of participation, net benefits from participating, forest dependence, forest quality, inequality, wealth and social differences. It can be concluded that (1) the studied organisations for forest management vary considerably in their effectiveness and (2) voluntary participation is most likely to emerge among the villagers who depend highly on the forest and perceive the quality of the forest as good.

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.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the economic value of Mediterranean forests, including not only the more obvious benefits (e.g. timber), but also the less commonly-measured public goods (e.g. tourism and conservation) that these forests provide. It brings together forest valuations at the national level from eighteen Mediterranean countries, based on extensive local data collection, and thus allows comprehensive analyses within countries as well as comparative analyses across countries. Forest benefits were classified within the Total Economic Value (TEV) framework. The book describes the valuation techniques used and examines ways to overcome the problems encountered. The book explores the research findings in the context of the institutions and policies that affect Mediterranean forests and proposes new policy approaches for improving forest policies and management at the national, regional and local levels. It is also shown how the methodologies used can be applied to other regions.

Rainforests represent one of Earth's most precious natural resources. With swaths of forested land spanning the globe, rainforests house over half of the known species in the world. Along with this biodiversity, they also provide homes for certain human peoples, are critical to maintaining the oxygen-carbon dioxide balance in the atmosphere, and are an important source of food and medical supplies. However, rainforests face the threat of extinction because of logging and the encroachment of urban societies. Every day sees more and more acres of these needed and beautiful areas disappear forever, vanishing faster than nature can replace them. This book provides a useful review of rainforests: describing exactly what they are, the source of their importance, and the dangers they face. Following this overview are carefully selected abstracts of current literature that provide in-depth studies and discussions of the rainforests, with easy access provided by author, title, and subject indexes.