Search

The choice between different forest management practices is a crucial step in short, medium, and long-term decision making in forestry and when setting up measures to support a regional or national forest policy. Some conditions such as biogeographically determined site factors, exposure to major disturbances, and societal demands are predetermined, whereas operational processes such as species selection, site preparation, planting, tending, or thinning can be altered by management. In principle, the concept of a forest management approach provides a framework for decision making, including a range of silvicultural operations that influence the development of a stand or group of trees over time. These operations vary among silvicultural systems and can be formulated as a set of basic principles. Consequently, forest management approaches are essentially defined by coherent sets of forest operation processes at a stand level. Five ideal forest management approaches (FMAs) representing a gradient of management intensity are described using specific sets of basic principles that enable comparison across European forests. Each approach is illustrated by a regional European case study. The observed regional variations resulting from changing species composition, stand density, age structure, stand edges, and site conditions can be interpreted using the FMA framework. Despite being arranged along an intensity gradient, the forest management approaches are not considered to be mutually exclusive, as the range of options allows for greater freedom in selecting potential silvicultural operations. As derived goods and services are clearly affected, the five forest management approaches have implications for sustainability. Thus, management objectives can influence the balance between the economic, ecological, and social dimensions of sustainability. The utility of this framework is further demonstrated through the different contributions to this special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the scope of energy diversification and profitable forest resource exploitation, increasing the use of biomass residues for energy can play an important role by using local sources of energy, reducing carbon emissions and fossil-energy use, providing additional revenue for the forest sector, and also reducing the risk of forest wildfires. Regional simulators can help forecast available wood and biomass and allow evaluation of possible future conflicts of interest and their consequences for society. This paper focuses on improving an existing regional forest simulator (SIMPLOT) so that it can be applied to study research questions related to increasing the use of eucalyptus biomass for bioenergy and the related consequences for wood available for pulp. Biomass modules were integrated into SIMPLOT so that different sources of biomass used for energy could be accounted for. The updated version of the simulator was used to assess the impact of different biomass demands for bioenergy, combined with different afforestation alternatives on the wood available for the pulp and paper industry in Portugal. SIMPLOT's forecasts indicated that the eucalyptus forest is unable to satisfy wood demand even when pulp afforestation areas are doubled, regardless of the biomass demand considered. Also, the simulation results showed that, with the tested afforestation rates, eucalyptus forest cannot meet high increases in demand for wood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]