This book presents the latest scientific and management information on multiaged silviculture, an emerging strategy for managing forestry systems worldwide. Over recent decades, forest science and management have tended to emphasize plantation silviculture. Whilst this clearly meets our wood production needs, many of the world's forests need to be managed far less intensively and more flexibly in order to maintain their natural ecosystem functions together with the values inherent in those processes. Developing multiaged management strategies for these complex forest ecosystems represents a global challenge to successfully integrate available science with sustainable management practices. Multiaged Silviculture covers the ecology and dynamics of multiaged stands, the management operations associated with regeneration, tending, and stocking control, and the implications of this strategy on production, genetic diversity, and stand health. It is primarily aimed at graduate level students and researchers in the fields of forestry and silviculture, but will also be of relevance and use to all professional foresters and silviculturists.

In recent years, there has been substantial debate over Sierra Nevada forest management. All perspectives on this debate inevitably cite "sound science" as a necessary foundation for any management practice. Over the dozen years since publication of the last science summary, the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project (SNEP 1996), many relevant research projects have published findings in dozens of scientific journals, yet these have not been synthesized or presented in a form that directly addresses current land management challenges. Current management usually cites a "healthy forest"1 as a primary objective. It is difficult, however, to define forest "health," and, as a broad concept, "a healthy forest" provides few specifics to guide management or assess forest practices. Various constituencies have different ideas of forest health (i.e., sustainable timber production, fire resilience, biodiversity, etc.) making forest health unclear as an objective (Kolb et al. 1994). A premise of silviculture is that forest prescriptions can be tailored to fit a wide variety of land management objectives, once those objectives are defined. We attempt to define some of the key management objectives on National Forest System lands in the Sierra Nevada and how they might be approached through particular silvicultural prescriptions. In this paper, we focus on summarizing forest research completed at different scales and integrating those findings into suggestions for managing forest landscapes. Although many experiments and forest treatments still occur at the stand level, ecological research and recent public input have emphasized the need to address cumulative impacts and coordinate management across the forest landscape. We believe our synthesis has some novel and highly applicable management implications. This paper, however, is not intended to produce new research findings for the academic community; rather it is an effort to provide managers of Sierran forests with a summary of "the best available science." Some of the suggestions in this paper are already used in different Forest Service management practices. There are several aspects of forest management that this paper does not address, but we would like to particularly note two omissions. The USDA Forest Service is charged with multiple-use management, which can include more objectives (e.g., socioeconomic impacts) than our focus on ecological restoration of Sierran forests. Restoration practices need both public and economic support to be socially and financially viable. Also, we do not specifically address the issues of water yield and quality in this paper, although water is one of the Sierra's most important resources. Although our focus is on forest conditions, the suggested management practices may also make forests more resilient to disturbances including climate change. Management practices that help restore the forest headwaters of Sierran watersheds will benefit water production and quality for downstream users.

This book presents the latest scientific and management information on multiaged silviculture, an emerging strategy for managing forestry systems worldwide. Over recent decades, forest science and management have tended to emphasize plantation silviculture. Whilst this clearly meets our wood production needs, many of the world's forests need to be managed far less intensively and more flexibly in order to maintain their natural ecosystem functions together with the values inherent in those processes. Developing multiaged management strategies for these complex forest ecosystems represents a global challenge to successfully integrate available science with sustainable management practices. Multiaged Silviculture covers the ecology and dynamics of multiaged stands, the management operations associated with regeneration, tending, and stocking control, and the implications of this strategy on production, genetic diversity, and stand health. It is primarily aimed at graduate level students and researchers in the fields of forestry and silviculture, but will also be of relevance and use to all professional foresters and silviculturists.

Kevin O'Hara recreates his boyhood with these wonderful stories of growing up in Massachusetts in the 1950s and 60s as one of eight children. His parents, born in Ireland, came to this country for their children's sake. His family struggled against grinding poverty but they never gave up and never lost their faith that God had a plan for them. Kevin learned the lessons of making do and making things last, and what the true riches of the world are: good health and the love of a united family. These lessons grounded him as he reached adulthood...and was sent off to fight in the jungles of Vietnam as a reluctant solider. This book will tug at your heart and make you cry tears of both sorrow and joy. It is a story about the Irish American experience, but it is much more - it's the story of a generation growing up in the shadow of the Second World War and the start of a new age of hope and promise, a time when people believed that anything was possible as long as you dared to dream and had faith in yourself. And a little Irish luck couldn't hurt either.

Kevin O'Hara's journey of self-discovery begins as a mad lark: who in their right mind would try to circle the entire coastline of Ireland on foot--and with a donkey and cart no less?""

But Kevin had promised his homesick Irish mother that he would explore the whole of the Old Country and bring back the sights and the stories to their home in Massachusetts. Determined to reach his grandmother's village by Christmas Eve, Kevin and his stubborn but endearing donkey, Missie, set off on 1800-mile trek along the entire jagged coast of a divided Ireland.

Their rollicking adventure takes them over mountains and dales, through smoky cities and sleepy villages, and into the farmhouses and hearts of Ireland's greatest resource--its people.

Along the way, Kevin would meet incredible characters, experience Ireland in all of its glory, and explore not only his Irish past, but find his future self.