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Natural disturbances may compromise the past and ongoing efforts to increase carbon sequestration and halt biodiversity loss in boreal forests. Measures to minimize the effects of forest disturbances i.e., adaptive management, offer solutions to secure future timber yields. However, the consequences of adaptive management on biodiversity, the climate change mitigation potential of forests, and other ecosystem services are not well understood. In addition, the impact of climate change and disturbances on future forest-based mitigation potential is not well known. We compared the effects of forest management options emphasizing climate change mitigation or adaptation on boreal forests in changing climate and disturbance regimes in southern Finland. We used the process-based forest landscape and disturbance model iLand to dynamically model interactions between climate change and disturbances together with forest management and protection options, and examined the consequent effects on forest carbon storage, berry yields, recreation, and structural attributes important for biodiversity. Mitigation managements resulted in up to one-fifth higher carbon stocks, even after accounting for disturbances by wind and bark beetles, but halved annual harvests over the 80-year simulation period. Adaptive managements reduced bark beetle disturbances, but in some cases the disturbed volumes were even higher than under business-as-usual management due to increased wind damage. The effects of proactive risk management depended on the time horizon considered, the adaptive management option chosen and the climate change scenario. In general, the mitigation managements had positive effects on the biodiversity indicators studied, while the effects of adaptive management were mixed. Our results highlight the complex interactions between disturbance risk prevention, biodiversity, carbon sequestration and storage, and other ecosystem services. The results guide forest managers and policymakers to plan mitigation and adaptation strategies optimizing multiple benefits, and strengthening forest resilience in a changing climate., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Anna Repo reports financial support was provided by Research Council of Finland. Juha Aalto, Katharina Albrich, Ilari Lehtonen, Anna Repo, Juha Honkaniemi, Aapo Jantunen reports financial support was provided by Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry Finland. Juha Honkaniemi reports financial support was provided by Research Council of Finland. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Large trees are essential for carbon storage and biodiversity conservation. While an increasing number of studies have focused on large trees in primary forests, little is known about them in secondary and planted forests. We surveyed 86,936 trees in secondary forests and 91,294 trees in planted forests in Zhejiang, China, to investigate the distribution patterns and determinants of large trees in these forests. We found a mean density of large trees (DBH ≥ 30 cm) of 15 ± 13 stems ha -1 in secondary forests and 11 ± 9 stems ha -1 in planted forests. Moreover, the mean density of trees with DBH ≥ 60 cm was 0.36 stems ha -1 , indicating that large trees are particularly rare in secondary and planted forests. These large trees were primarily occurred in secondary forests that living in high-elevation area with less human exploitation and colder and wetter climates, and in planted forests with higher species richness and lower tree density. In addition, the density of large trees in these forests significantly increased with tree species richness and decreased with increasing tree density. These results indicate that the sparse large trees were the legacy of historical human activities in the studied area, but currently, the development of large trees is still limited by the improper forest structure characterized by low species diversity and high tree density. To better conserve large trees, there is an urgent need for enhanced conservation policies for secondary forests, such as establishing forest parks for forests with large trees, and implementing near-natural forest management practices for planted forests, which include planting mixed native tree species and maintaining moderate tree density., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The plantation forestry estate in Australia has been in decline for a decade or more. Previous studies attribute observed investment inertia to factors including the long-term nature of forestry investments, high up front establishment cost and more recently water resource constraints. The introduction of plantation forestry methods as part of the Australian Carbon Credit Unit Scheme in 2017 has generated renewed interest in plantation forestry as a carbon abatement option. To assess this opportunity, we performed high spatial resolution bioeconomic modelling of southeastern Australia's Green Triangle forestry region to understand the joint influence of site productivity, species selection and spatially variable costs including agricultural land prices and transport distances on land use change and additional future timber flows. We found that additional plantations may be economically viable at a carbon price of AU$39/t CO 2 e. New softwood (P. radiata) plantations provide the lowest cost option across the region when compared to hardwood (E. globulus). However, at carbon prices below AU$50/t CO 2 e comparatively little technically feasible abatement is possible for both plantation species with only 632,000 t CO 2 e from hardwood and 12.9 Mt CO 2 e, from softwood under economically optimised conditions which equates to 0.13 and 2.5 percent of Australia's 2023 emissions respectively. We found however that this may translate to significant additional timber flows for the region's processing industry even at lower carbon prices. We estimated an additional 62,600 green metric tonnes of hardwood (1 percent of annual Australian plantation hardwood harvest) and 6.6 million m 3 of cumulative softwood (44 percent supply of annual Australian plantation softwood harvest) over a 50-year period at AU$40/t CO 2 e. However, the results were found to be sensitive to discount rate assumptions. The discussion focuses on the economic and policy factors that may enable/limit the use of carbon markets to expand the Australian plantation forestry estate., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests:Courtney M. Regan reports financial support was provided by the Green Triangle Forest Industries Hub on earlier iterations of this modelling. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Wildfire governance requires addressing driving physical, biological and socio-economic processes, by promoting the development of fire-resistant and resilient landscapes. These landscapes can best be achieved by strategies that integrate fuel management for direct prevention with allied socio-economic activities, through the collaboration of stakeholders with different and sometimes conflicting interests. This work aims to address the need for new approaches supporting the participatory process of collective decision-making, helping stakeholders explore land management strategies for landscape fire resilience. We present and discuss a methodology combining agent-based modelling with a role-playing game. It was tested in a valley of the Italian Alps, involving 23 local stakeholders in forest and pasture management in three game sessions. Evaluation was based on observation of game sessions, collection of feedback via immediate post-session debriefing and questionnaires, and long-term (multi-year) assessment carried out through semi-structured interviews. We found the methodology valuable for facilitating discussion among different stakeholders, who were able to identify context-related challenges (land fragmentation and land abandonment, stakeholders' limited collaboration, controversial drives of European funding) and possible strategies for producing a fire-resilient landscape (community management forms of pastoralists activities for maintaining land cover diversity). The approach also triggered a positive process for longer-term change. By analysing the outcomes, we are able to identify four key recommendations for future work using serious gaming for sustainable landscapes: 1) aim for an even composition of session groups, 2) consider the multiple levels of organisation in the area, 3) use the allocation of game roles to disrupt power dynamics, and 4) seek to involve the broadest stakeholder spectrum in developing the game itself., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Forest management is at the crossroads of economic, environmental, and social goals, often requiring strategic trade-offs. As global demands surge, it's vital to employ management strategies fostering multifunctional landscapes, enabling ecosystem integrity while procuring resources. Historically, the boreal forest in Fennoscandia has been intensively managed for timber, causing environmental shifts and conflicts with biodiversity conservation and climate mitigation policies. Application of current management practices while increasing harvests are a threat to both biodiversity and carbon stocks. To explore this issue, we quantify the cost-efficiency of two forest management regimes: rotation forestry (RF) and continuous cover forestry (CCF), considering specific forest attributes like soil type (mineral and peat soils), site type (fertility classes) and tree stand age, which have been underexplored in previous research. We simulated 45,559 forest stands for 100 years in Northern boreal forests of Finland. We proposed two straightforward cost-efficiency indices (CEI) to evaluate the performance of these management regimes, specifically focusing on their impact on economic output, biodiversity conservation (measured as a biodiversity index for six forest vertebrates, including five bird species and one mammal) and carbon stock. Our findings suggest that continuous cover forestry holds the potential to deliver more cost-efficient ecosystem services and maintain greater biodiversity compared to rotation forestry approaches. Continuous cover forestry, however, is not optimal for all at management units, which calls for alternative management options depending on the stand characteristics. The cost-efficiency indices performance of rotation forestry and continuous cover forestry depend on the characteristics of the initial stand which is largely determined by the previous management of the stand. Our results contribute to guiding forest management towards enhanced sustainability and ecological balance. The great variation in stand characteristics suggest a need for diverse management strategies to create multifunctional landscapes. Our proposed cost-efficiency indices could serve as practical tools for decision-making., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

This study investigates the resilience of indigenous knowledge in five Karen villages, located in Thailand's Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, and Lampang provinces, that have been recognized for best practices in community forest management (CFM). The CFM model was initiated by local communities to promote forest conservation and community engagement. Data on CFM practices, land-use rights, social networks, and indigenous knowledge were collected through 17 in-depth interviews and 5 focus group meetings. The findings include how these Karen communities have adopted payment for environmental services (PES) to fund conservation projects and social welfare. More specifically, PES generates social capital by facilitating coordination with stakeholders from the private sector, academia, and government. These social networks promote markets for local products and advocate for indigenous land-use rights. The PES model also serves as a tool whereby Indigenous Peoples can shape their identities as innovative forest guardians and legitimize their residence within the forest. Additionally, the study reports on how Karen people have diversified their livelihoods to include hosting academic tourism, handicrafts, and livestock, reducing their dependence on forest resources., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

The crises of climate change and biodiversity loss have pushed the aim for increasing the resilience of forest ecosystems high on the agenda of foresters and policymakers. At the same time, synergistic opportunities for restoring forests and biodiversity are emerging to safeguard these ecosystems. Naturalness is a key characteristic of forest ecosystems, which should be considered when estimating benchmarks for resilience and biodiversity conservation. The naturalness of forest ecosystems is highly dependent on the intensity of human activity, as different levels of management intensity can change the original traits of forest ecosystems. This paper presents an archetypal typology of forest ecosystems, describing the association between management and naturalness. Both features are represented as gradients covering the full spectrum observed in European forests. The array of forest ecosystem archetypes was verified using case studies across Europe. The typology provides useful information for setting targets for resilience and restoration of forest ecosystems., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Background: In Lyme-endemic areas, limited research has investigated the risk of tick-borne diseases among frontline workers in fire management. This study aimed to compare the exposure histories to ticks and tick-borne pathogens, knowledge, and prevention practices between individuals engaged in fire-related forest management and those participating in recreational activities within Santa Cruz County, CA, in an area of high risk of tick exposure. Methods: Blood samples from 55 forest workers and 58 members of the public were tested for bacterial DNA of and antibodies to Borrelia burgdorferi , Anaplasma phagocytophilum , and Rickettsia species. In addition, a questionnaire was administered to 54 workers and 84 members of the public to identify gaps in knowledge and prevention practices. Results: Although workers had a higher percentage of positive B. burgdorferi antibodies than the public (5.5% compared with 1.7%), the difference was not statistically significant. Conversely, rickettsial antibodies were more prevalent among the public (17.2% versus 3.6% for workers), but specificity to pathogenic bacteria could not be confirmed. No DNA for the three pathogens or antibodies against A. phagocytophilum were detected. Many workers and members of the public reported tick bites (67.4% of participants), with a notable 11% increase among workers in the odds of being bitten for each additional year spent working in forests. Although workers took greater precautions, significant knowledge and practice gaps were identified among both populations, such as an inability to distinguish tick species from common arthropods (mites, spiders, fleas), overestimating the size of ticks, and inappropriate tick-removal techniques. Conclusion: This study underscores the risk of tick-borne diseases faced by fire management workers in Lyme disease-endemic regions. The findings emphasize the necessity for future studies of Lyme disease within this population, and highlight the urgent need for enhanced training programs to minimize these risks.

Background: Forest trees, particularly at a young age in afforestation, are susceptible to bark gnawing by herbivorous rodents such as voles. Few preventive measures for vole damage exist, although mowing to control herbaceous vegetation is often suggested. However, no empirical evidence supports the claim that mowing prevents or inhibits rodent damage to seedlings in a forest ecosystem. We examined the effects of single mowing applications on rodent population dynamics and the amount of damage they cause. The study was conducted at 34 randomly selected European beech forest plantations in Poland, with half manually mowed in late summer. In each plantation, we monitored the population dynamics of small rodents every 2 months from December 2019 to April 2021, and/or measured the level of damage to tree saplings monthly., Results: The amount of damage followed a clear seasonal pattern with peaks in late autumn ranging from 0 to 40% of saplings per plantation. Mowing did not alter the pattern of population dynamics of small rodents (including voles and mice) on the plantations, nor did it reduce sapling damage caused by rodents. Additionally, herbaceous vegetation cover had no significant effect on the damage intensity., Conclusions: Our results indicate that mowing is ineffective in preventing tree damage by small rodents in forest plantations; therefore, we do not recommend it as a forestry practice. © 2023 Society of Chemical Industry., (© 2023 Society of Chemical Industry.)

Sustainable forestry typically involves integration of several economic and ecological objectives which, at times, may not be compatible with one another. Multi-objective prioritization via harvest scheduling programs can be used to elucidate these relationships and explore solutions. One such program is a spatially explicit harvest scheduler that adopts the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm to iteratively find management solutions to achieve multiple objectives (Habplan). Although this program has been used to address forest management scheduling and simulation-based tasks, its utility is constrained by time-intensive data preparation and challenges with incorporating spatial configuration objectives. To address these shortcomings, we introduce an open-source software package, HabplanR, streamlines data preparation, sets parameters, visualizes results, and assesses spatial components of ecological objectives. We developed four example objectives to incorporate into a multi-objective management problem: habitat quality indices for three species "types" (open, closed, and intermediate-canopy-associated species), and harvested pine pulpwood (revenue). We demonstrate the utility of this package to find management schedules that can accommodate potentially conflicting habitat needs of species, while achieving economic targets. We produced 100 software runs and prioritized individual objectives to select four management schedules for further comparisons. We compared outcome differences of the four schedules, including a spatial comparison of two high performing schedules. The software package makes costs and benefits of different schedules explicit and allows for consideration of the spatial configuration of management outcomes in decision-making., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.)

Forests are expected to be strongly affected by modifications in climate and disturbance regimes, threatening their ability to sustain the provision of essential services. Promoting drought-tolerant species or functionally diverse stands have recently emerged as management options to cope with global change. Our study aimed at evaluating the impact of contrasting stand-level management scenarios on the resilience of temperate forests in eastern North America and central-western Europe using the individual process-based model HETEROFOR. We simulated the evolution of eight stands over 100 years under a future extreme climate according to four management scenarios (business as usual - BAU; climate change adaptation - CC; functional diversity approach - FD; no management - NM) while facing multiple disturbances, resulting in a total of 160 simulations. We found that FD demonstrated the greatest resilience regarding transpiration and tree biomass, followed by CC and then BAU, while these three scenarios were equivalent concerning the net primary production. These results were however dependent on forest type: increasing functional diversity was a powerful option to increase the resilience of coniferous plantations whereas no clear differences between BAU and adaptive management scenarios were detected in broadleaved and mixed stands. The FD promoted a higher level of tree species diversity than any other scenario, and all scenarios of management were similar regarding the amount of harvested wood. The NM always showed the lowest resilience, demonstrating that forest management could be an important tool to mitigate adverse effects of global change. Our study highlighted that tree-level process-based models are a relevant tool to identify suitable management options for adapting forests to global change provided that model limitations are considered, and that alternative management options, particularly those based on functional diversity, are promising and should be promoted from now on., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Agri-environment and forest schemes can support landowners to conserve and enhance agricultural and forest ecosystems. The effectiveness of these schemes is often debated due to discrepancies that occur between the application of such measures and the delivery of Ecosystem Services (ES). We simulated the application of a suite of farmland and forest measures within a range of biophysical contexts in known High Nature Value landscapes across the Republic of Ireland. Three high resolution geospatial scenarios simulated the anticipated effects of the measures: i) a Baseline Scenario of current conditions, ii) an Enhanced Scenario simulated the application of measures, and iii) using the new 'Restoration Planner' freeware, an Enhanced + Connectivity Scenario simulated the application of additional targeted measures for ecosystem connectivity. Across all scenarios, we modelled and compared the responses of a range of ES including: habitat quality, carbon storage, production income and ecosystem connectivity. Multivariate analyses were used to ordinate and determine eight bundles of measures and their associated effect on ES and connectivity. These bundles were subsequently contextualised by examining unique landscape characteristics in which they occurred. The results show that measures applied under the Enhanced Scenario resulted in weak gains to carbon storage (2 %), strong gains to habitat quality (28 %), and weak losses to production income (-7 %) and ecosystem connectivity (-2 %). Similarities were observed under the Enhanced + Connectivity Scenario, though with comparably stronger gains to ecosystem connectivity (15 %). This study is the first to demonstrate the potential synergies and trade-offs to ES that can result from the integrated and targeted application of both farmland and forest measures within a variety of landscape characteristics., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Monitoring soil quality index (SQI) and soil organic carbon (SOC) stock status of the Western Ghats (WG) forests in India is crucial for providing vital ecosystem services alongside sustainable forest management practices. However, comprehensive profile data on SQI and SOC stock across different forest types under WG forests are limited. The study evaluated SQI and SOC stock under three forest types, i.e. tropical wet evergreen (TWE), tropical semi-evergreen (TSE), and tropical moist deciduous (TMD) across WG in Karnataka. SQI was assessed using principal component analysis with two indexing approaches and scoring methodologies, with weightage indexing through nonlinear scoring functions (NLSF) showing superiority over other methodologies. TMD forests exhibited the highest SQI, followed by TWE and TSE, while the lowest was observed in Rippon Pet RF (0.36 surface, 0.28 control section), primarily due to limitations in organic carbon and clay content. SOC stock mirrored SQI trends (TMD > TWE > TSE), with the highest values in Kollegal RF (339.3 MG ha -1 ) and lowest in Rippon Pet RF (102.5 MG ha -1 ). Although SOC and SQI were established to be ideal indicators for dynamic ecosystem services (ESs), high OC content in surface soils of Poomale NF induces pedogenic acidification and Al toxicities, indicating potential forest soil degradation. Significant correlation with control section SQI and SOC (p < 0.05) emphasises monitoring subsurface soil status to identify soil degradation, sustainable forestry practices, and complex ESs in forest systems., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.)

This article reflects on the resignification of the Tijuca massif during the latter half of the nineteenth century after the planting of the Tijuca Forest, based on notions of the social uses of forests which were in line with Eurocentric imagery prizing nature. We utilized primary sources from the Brazilian Arquivo Nacional and Biblioteca Nacional, especially the Hemeroteca Digital online collection. The perception of these green areas shifted, with planted forests evolving from solely spaces for future forestry use to also serve as forest parks for recreation and contemplating nature, while still permitting appreciation of fine wood and landscapes and evoking the idea of nationalism and modernity.

Increasingly frequent severe drought events are pushing Mediterranean forests to unprecedented responses. Lack of management leads to dense forests that are highly susceptible to drought stress, potentially resulting in extensive dieback and increased vulnerability to other disturbances. Forest treatments like thinning and slash burning reduce competition for resources and have the potential to enhance tree growth and vigor and minimize tree vulnerability to drought. Here, we used tree rings to study the growth and physiological response of black pine (Pinus nigra) to drought in northeastern Spain under different treatments, including two thinning intensities (light and heavy, with 10% and 40% basal area reduction, respectively) followed by two understory treatments (clearing alone and in combination with slash burning), resulting in a research design of four treatments plus an untreated control with three replicates. Specifically, we studied basal area increment (BAI), resilience indices, and intrinsic water use efficiency (iWUE) using carbon and oxygen isotope composition (δ 13 C and δ 18 O in tree-ring cellulose) before and after treatments. Our results showed that BAI and resistance to drought increased in the heavy-thin (burned and unburned) and light-thin burned units. Resilience increased in the burned units regardless of the thinning intensity, while recovery was not affected by treatment. Slash burning additionally increased BAI in the light-thin and resistance and resilience in the heavy-thin units compared with clearing alone. The stable isotope analysis revealed a minor effect of treatments on δ 13 C and δ 18 O. No change in iWUE among treatments was presumably linked to a proportional increase in both net CO 2 assimilation and stomatal conductance, which particularly increased in the heavy-thin (burned and unburned) and light-thin burned units, indicating that these trees were the least affected by drought. This study shows that management approaches aimed at reducing wildfire hazard can also increase the vigor of dominant trees under drought stress. By reducing competition both from the overstory and the understory, thinning followed by clearing alone or in combination with slash burning promotes tree growth and vigor and increases its resistance and resilience to drought., (© 2024 The Ecological Society of America.)

Various research endeavours are designed to identify ecosystem services, assess their spatial distribution, and prioritize them in a given forest landscape. The Turkish State Forest Organization has introduced an ecosystem-based multiple-use forest management philosophy since 2008, which emphasizes the need for identifying and allocating ecosystem services to each forest planning unit. This paper aims to investigate the use of Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) techniques and explores their effectiveness and suitability in identifying and allocating ecosystem services to forest units, considering scientific suitability, stakeholder engagement and the sustainability concept in the context of ecosystem-based forest management decision-making processes in a case study area of Turkey. We propose a framework that entails an iterative process comprising various stages, starting from identifying ecosystem services (ES) to allocating them to forest stands with a participatory approach. We employed the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Delphi method to determine stakeholder preferences and allocate ecosystem services to forest stands. This was achieved through an equation newly developed using scientific suitability, stakeholder preferences, and the sustainability concept. The landscape percentage allocated primarily to ES was as follows: water regulation (55.44%), soil protection (16.47%), biodiversity conservation (14.03%), wood production (13.08%), and aesthetic-recreation (0.84%). Notably, no allocations were made for national defence and climate regulation services. In conclusion, the stratification of Posof forests into zones was efficiently achieved a priori, considering both scientific-technical and socio-cultural criteria through MCDA techniques based on stakeholder preferences. This study streamlines the decision-making process involved in spatially allocating ecosystem services and provides crucial information instrumental in determining management objectives and optimal forest activities., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

In the Mediterranean, we find a mosaic of natural and cultural landscapes, where a variety of forest management practices created intermediate disturbance regimes that potentially increased biodiversity values. Nonetheless, it is essential to understand the species' long-term response to the dynamic management in agroecosystems, since the species tolerance to disturbance can change throughout the life cycle. Mammalian carnivores can be sensitive to human disturbance and are an essential part of ecosystems due to their regulatory and community structuring effects. We investigated the spatial response of five mesocarnivores species to spatially- and temporally- varying management practices in an agroforestry landscape. More specifically, we assessed the mesocarnivores' temporal changes in space use by implementing multi-season occupancy models in a Bayesian framework, using seasonal camera-trapping surveys for a 2-year period. All species had a weak response of local extinction to forestry management and livestock grazing pressure. For forest-dwelling species, occupancy was higher where productivity of perennial vegetation was high, while colonization between seasons was positively associated with vegetation cover. For habitat generalist species, we found that occupancy in the wet season increased with the distance to cattle exclusion plots. Most of these plots are pine stands which are subject to forestry interventions during winter. During the 2-year period we found seasonal fluctuations in occupancy for all species, with an overall slight decrease for three mesocarnivore species, while for the two forest-dwelling species there was an increase in occupancy between years. The weak species response to management practices supports the importance of traditional management for upholding a diverse mesocarnivore community in agroforestry systems but could also reflect these species' ecological plasticity and resilience to disturbance., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

In recent years, Climate-Smart Forestry (CSF) has emerged as an innovative approach to sustainable forest management, aiming to enhance forest resilience and to balance the provision of ecosystem services facing climate-related threats. This study introduces for the first time a new composite climate-smart index (I CSF ) to assess CSF. The methodological approach comprises the following steps: (i) the selection and evaluation of CSF indicators; (ii) the weighting of these indicators; and (iii) the assessment of CSF for Mediterranean forests in two distinct periods, specifically 2005 and 2015. Eight indicators were selected from a systematic literature review. The Analytic Hierarchy Process was applied to translate the preferences obtained through an online questionnaire from a network of CSF-expert stakeholders into weights, at both indicators and criteria levels (i.e., adaptation, mitigation, and the social dimension). Results reveals that indicators "tree species composition", "forest damage", and "regeneration" are of crucial importance for CSF assessment. The comparison of the CSF value between the years 2005 and 2015, shows a slight increase in CSF ratings. The I CSF serves as a comprehensive index of CSF covering all aspects of that concept, i.e. adaptation, mitigation, and the social dimension (including production). The national-scale analysis provides an overview of the dynamics that involve forest management of Mediterranean forests against climate change. The study offers a practicable method for CSF evaluation with its allover set of indicators, representing a suitable tool for supporting forest managers to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Forest fire risk assessment plays a crucial role in the environmental management of natural hazards, serving as a key tool in the prevention of forest fires and the protection of various species. As these risks continue to evolve with environmental changes, the pertinence of contemporary research in this field remains undiminished. This review constructs a comprehensive taxonomic framework for classifying the existing body of literature on forest fire risk assessment within forestry studies. The developed taxonomy categorizes existing studies into 8 primary categories and 23 subcategories, offering a structured perspective on the methodologies and focus areas prevalent in the domain. We categorize a sample of 170 articles to present recent trends and identify research gaps in forest fire risk assessment literature. The classification facilitates a critical evaluation of the current research landscape, identifying areas in need of further exploration. Particularly, our review identifies underrepresented methodologies such as optimization modeling and some advanced machine learning techniques, which present routes for future inquiry. Moreover, the review underscores the necessity for model development that is tailored to specific regional data sets but also adaptable to global data resources, striking a balance between local specificity and broad applicability. Emphasizing the dynamic nature of forest fire behavior, we advocate for models that integrate the burgeoning field of machine learning and multi-criteria decision analysis to refine predictive accuracy and operational effectiveness in fire risk assessment. This study highlights the great potential for new ideas in modeling techniques and emphasizes the need for increased collaboration among research communities to improve the effectiveness of assessing forest fire risks., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.)

Background: Tree ontogeny is the genetic trajectories of regenerative processes in trees, repeating in time and space, including both development and reproduction. Understanding the principles of tree ontogeny is a key priority in emulating natural ecological patterns and processes that fall within the calls for closer-to-nature forest management. By recognizing and respecting the growth and development of individual trees and forest stands, forest managers can implement strategies that align with the inherent dynamics of forest ecosystem. Therefore, this study aims to determine the ontogenetic characteristics of tree regeneration and growth in northern European hemiboreal forests., Methodology: We applied a three-step process to review i) the ontogenetic characteristics of forest trees, ii) ontogenetic strategies of trees for stand-forming species, and iii) summarise the review findings of points i and ii to propose a conceptual framework for transitioning towards closer-to-nature management of hemiboreal forest trees. To achieve this, we applied the super-organism approach to forest development as a holistic progression towards the establishment of natural stand forming ecosystems., Results: The review showed multiple aspects; first, there are unique growth and development characteristics of individual trees at the pre-generative and generative stages of ontogenesis under full and minimal light conditions. Second, there are four main modes of tree establishment, growth and development related to the light requirements of trees; they were described as ontogenetic strategies of stand-forming tree species: gap colonisers, gap successors, gap fillers and gap competitors. Third, the summary of our analysis of the ontogenetic characteristics of tree regeneration and growth in northern European hemiboreal forests shows that stand-forming species occupy multiple niche positions relative to forest dynamics modes., Conclusions: This study demonstrates the importance of understanding tree ontogeny under the pretext of closer-to-nature forest management, and its potential towards formulating sustainable forest management that emulates the natural dynamics of forest structure. We suggest that scientists and foresters can adapt closer-to-nature management strategies, such as assisted natural regeneration of trees, to improve the vitality of tree communities and overall forest health. The presented approach prioritizes ecological integrity and forest resilience, promoting assisted natural regeneration, and fostering adaptability and connectivity among plant populations in hemiboreal tree communities., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests., (© 2024 Petrokas et al.)

The United Nations declares that the global degradation of ecosystems represents a danger to human health. Deterioration of forests is one of several threats against the natural systems. The aim of this exploratory study was to investigate people's experiences with clear-cutting and how it had affected their health and well-being. Qualitative data from six people who valued forest ecosystems were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed in accordance with Graneheim and Lundman's qualitative content analysis (Graneheim, U. H. and Lundman, B. (2004) Qualitative content analysis in nursing research: concepts, procedures and measures to achieve trustworthiness. Nurse Education Today, 24, 105-112). Clear-cutting was not regarded as an environment-friendly forestry method. The interviewees described emotional reactions such as grief and poor mental well-being when beloved forests were clear-felled. The grief was partly because of a personal loss of place and recreation area that was important for their physical and emotional well-being. Another part was grief on behalf of nature itself, that is, the loss of habitats of animals and plants and a worsening of the global climate. The interviewees held that emotions related to loss of nature were insufficiently communicated in public discourse. They felt powerless and unable to influence forestry because of what they experienced as an impenetrable industry. Clear-cutting of forests may result in poor well-being among people who value forest ecosystems. More focus on planetary health is needed, including healthy public policy promoting forest management that considers people's need for nature experiences and possible ecological grief when forests are totally and abruptly cleared., (© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Forests provide important ecosystem services (ESs), including climate change mitigation, local climate regulation, habitat for biodiversity, wood and non-wood products, energy, and recreation. Simultaneously, forests are increasingly affected by climate change and need to be adapted to future environmental conditions. Current legislation, including the European Union (EU) Biodiversity Strategy, EU Forest Strategy, and national laws, aims to protect forest landscapes, enhance ESs, adapt forests to climate change, and leverage forest products for climate change mitigation and the bioeconomy. However, reconciling all these competing demands poses a tremendous task for policymakers, forest managers, conservation agencies, and other stakeholders, especially given the uncertainty associated with future climate impacts. Here, we used process-based ecosystem modeling and robust multi-criteria optimization to develop forest management portfolios that provide multiple ESs across a wide range of climate scenarios. We included constraints to strictly protect 10% of Europe's land area and to provide stable harvest levels under every climate scenario. The optimization showed only limited options to improve ES provision within these constraints. Consequently, management portfolios suffered from low diversity, which contradicts the goal of multi-functionality and exposes regions to significant risk due to a lack of risk diversification. Additionally, certain regions, especially those in the north, would need to prioritize timber provision to compensate for reduced harvests elsewhere. This conflicts with EU LULUCF targets for increased forest carbon sinks in all member states and prevents an equal distribution of strictly protected areas, introducing a bias as to which forest ecosystems are more protected than others. Thus, coordinated strategies at the European level are imperative to address these challenges effectively. We suggest that the implementation of the EU Biodiversity Strategy, EU Forest Strategy, and targets for forest carbon sinks require complementary measures to alleviate the conflicting demands on forests., (© 2024 The Author(s). Global Change Biology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Climate refugia, areas where climate is expected to remain relatively stable, can offer a near-term safe haven for species sensitive to warming temperatures and drought. Understanding the influence of temperature, moisture, and disturbance on sensitive species is critical during this time of rapid climate change. Coastal habitats can serve as important refugia. Many of these areas consist of working forestlands, and there is a growing recognition that conservation efforts worldwide must consider the habitat value of working lands, in addition to protected areas, to effectively manage large landscapes that support biodiversity. The sensitivity of forest bats to climate and habitat disturbance makes them a useful indicator taxon. We tested how microclimate and forest management influence habitat use for 13 species of insectivorous bats in a large climate refugium in a global biodiversity hotspot. We examined whether bat activity during the summer dry season is greater in forests where coastal fog provides moisture and more stable temperatures across both protected mature stands and those regularly logged. Acoustic monitoring was conducted at a landscape scale with 20 study sites, and generalized linear mixed models were used to examine the influence of habitat variables. Six species were positively associated with warmer nighttime temperature, and 5 species had a negative relationship with humidity or a positive relationship with climatic moisture deficit. Our results suggest that these mammals may have greater climate adaptive capacity than expected, and, for now, that habitat use may be more related to optimal foraging conditions than to avoidance of warming temperatures and drought. We also determined that 12 of the 13 regionally present bat species were regularly detected in commercial timberland stands. Because forest bats are highly mobile, forage over long distances, and frequently change roosts, the stewardship of working forests must be addressed to protect these species., (© 2024 The Authors. Conservation Biology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology.)

In this paper, we collected the individual tree point cloud data in the plots of Larix olgensis plantations with different thinning intensities in Mengjiagang Forest Farm, applied the fractal analysis theory to extract box dimensions ( D b ) on MATLAB platform, and characterized the structural complexity of L. olgensis . We assessed the effect of different thinning intensities and tree attributes on the structural complexity of L. olgensis . The results showed significant differences in L. olgensis D b between control (CK: 1.68±0.07), low and medium intensity thinning (T 1 , T 2 , T 3 : 1.74±0.07), and high intensity thinning (T 4 : 1.81±0.06), which indicated that the thinning intensity increased tree structural complexity. For trunk attribute, the diameter at breast height and tree height was significantly positively correlated with D b , while the height-to-diameter ratio was significantly negatively correlated with D b . For canopy attribute, crown volume, surface area, projected area, and crown diameter was significantly positively correlated with D b . Hegyi competition index was significantly negatively correlated with D b in the control and low-moderate-intensity thinning treatments, but not significantly correlated with D b in the high-intensity thinning treatment. It indicated that thinning influenced L. olgensis structural complexity, with trunk attribute and canopy attribute as the main drivers of L. olgensis structural complexity.

We address a Bayesian two-stage decision problem in operational forestry where the inner stage considers scheduling the harvesting to fulfill demand targets and the outer stage considers selecting the accuracy of pre-harvest inventories that are used to estimate the timber volumes of the forest tracts. The higher accuracy of the inventory enables better scheduling decisions but also implies higher costs. We focus on the outer stage, which we formulate as a maximization of the posterior value of the inventory decision under a budget constraint. The posterior value depends on the solution to the inner stage problem and its computation is analytically intractable, featuring an NP-hard binary optimization problem within a high-dimensional integral. In particular, the binary optimization problem is a special case of a generalized quadratic assignment problem. We present a practical method that solves the outer stage problem with an approximation which combines Monte Carlo sampling with a greedy, randomized method for the binary optimization problem. We derive inventory decisions for a dataset of 100 Swedish forest tracts across a range of inventory budgets and estimate the value of the information to be obtained., (© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The International Biometric Society.)

The EU Nature Restoration Law (NRL) is critical for the restoration of degraded ecosystems and active afforestation of degraded peatlands has been suggested as a restoration measure under the NRL. Here, we discuss the current state of scientific evidence on the climate mitigation effects of peatlands under forestry. Afforestation of drained peatlands without restoring their hydrology does not fully restore ecosystem functions. Evidence on long-term climate benefits is lacking and it is unclear whether CO 2 sequestration of forest on drained peatland can offset the carbon loss from the peat over the long-term. While afforestation may offer short-term gains in certain cases, it compromises the sustainability of peatland carbon storage. Thus, active afforestation of drained peatlands is not a viable option for climate mitigation under the EU Nature Restoration Law and might even impede future rewetting/restoration efforts. Instead, restoring hydrological conditions through rewetting is crucial for effective peatland restoration., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Tropical forest degradation from selective logging, fire and edge effects is a major driver of carbon and biodiversity loss 1-3 , with annual rates comparable to those of deforestation 4 . However, its actual extent and long-term impacts remain uncertain at global tropical scale 5 . Here we quantify the magnitude and persistence of multiple types of degradation on forest structure by combining satellite remote sensing data on pantropical moist forest cover changes 4 with estimates of canopy height and biomass from spaceborne 6 light detection and ranging (LiDAR). We estimate that forest height decreases owing to selective logging and fire by 15% and 50%, respectively, with low rates of recovery even after 20 years. Agriculture and road expansion trigger a 20% to 30% reduction in canopy height and biomass at the forest edge, with persistent effects being measurable up to 1.5 km inside the forest. Edge effects encroach on 18% (approximately 206 Mha) of the remaining tropical moist forests, an area more than 200% larger than previously estimated 7 . Finally, degraded forests with more than 50% canopy loss are significantly more vulnerable to subsequent deforestation. Collectively, our findings call for greater efforts to prevent degradation and protect already degraded forests to meet the conservation pledges made at recent United Nations Climate Change and Biodiversity conferences., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Logged and disturbed forests are often viewed as degraded and depauperate environments compared with primary forest. However, they are dynamic ecosystems 1 that provide refugia for large amounts of biodiversity 2,3 , so we cannot afford to underestimate their conservation value 4 . Here we present empirically defined thresholds for categorizing the conservation value of logged forests, using one of the most comprehensive assessments of taxon responses to habitat degradation in any tropical forest environment. We analysed the impact of logging intensity on the individual occurrence patterns of 1,681 taxa belonging to 86 taxonomic orders and 126 functional groups in Sabah, Malaysia. Our results demonstrate the existence of two conservation-relevant thresholds. First, lightly logged forests (<29% biomass removal) retain high conservation value and a largely intact functional composition, and are therefore likely to recover their pre-logging values if allowed to undergo natural regeneration. Second, the most extreme impacts occur in heavily degraded forests with more than two-thirds (>68%) of their biomass removed, and these are likely to require more expensive measures to recover their biodiversity value. Overall, our data confirm that primary forests are irreplaceable 5 , but they also reinforce the message that logged forests retain considerable conservation value that should not be overlooked., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

As a component of the biogeochemical cycle, litterfall contributes carbon and nutrients to forest ecosystems by transferring organic material to mineral soil. Litterfall therefore serves as an important indicator for soil fertility and ecosystem health. This study aimed to determine the impact of different levels of thinning (light, moderate, and heavy) on litterfall quantity (needles, branches, bark, cones, and miscellaneous parts) and on the amount of carbon and nutrients entering the ecosystem in black pine afforestation areas. Three levels of low thinning, namely light, moderate, and heavy thinning (15%, 25%, and 35% of breast height area, respectively), were applied as treatments. Additionally, a control plot was included in the experiment. Litterfall samples were collected four times per year (once per season) from 12 treatment plots for three years. In the laboratory, dry weight measurements and analyses of carbon and macro-micro nutrient elements (N, P, K, Ca, Mg, S, Na, Fe, Cu, Zn, and Mn) were performed on litterfall samples taken from the field. Differences between treatments in terms of litterfall and the amount of carbon and nutrient elements entering the ecosystem were evaluated through variance analysis and the Duncan test. According to the findings, the quantity of litterfall input into the forest floor was highest in the control treatment, at 6,543 kg ha -1  year -1 and lowest in the heavy treatment, at 4,378 kg ha -1  year -1 , showing a significant variation in litterfall quantity. The input of C to the soil ranged between 2,233 kg ha -1  year -1 and 3,347 kg ha -1  year -1 depending on thinning treatment. Although thinning treatment reduced C input to the soil, there was no significant difference among treatments. This also applied to nutrient elements such as N, P, K, Mg, and S. Needles constituted the majority of litterfall components (60%) and had the highest C density among all components, at 51.2%. The weighted carbon ratio for litterfall was calculated at 50.8%. Considering carbon-focused planning, performing moderate thinning interventions in the study area or similar pine-afforested areas may be a suitable option for maintaining the sustainability and health of the forest., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.)

Though the federal government impacts private forest management across the United States through legislation such as the Clean Water Act, state-level regulations applied to private forest landowners vary remarkably. Despite this diversity of policies, little is known about how variations in regulatory intensity (defined here as number of forestry regulations) correlate with state-level political and socioeconomic characteristics. In this study, we use a quantitative approach to explore the intensity of regulation on forest practices impacting private landowners across all 50 states. We quantified intensity by tabulating the number of regulated forest practices, then used a quasi-Poisson regression to estimate the relationship between regulatory intensity and state-level characteristics, including forestland ownership types, the economic importance of the forest industry, and measures of state environmentalism. Results indicated a positive association between regulatory intensity and the percent of private corporate land, environmental voting records of elected officials, and direct democracy. Foresters and landowners may learn from these relationships, consider how to influence different policies, and build or achieve greater levels of public trust. This study starts to help us explain why state-level forestry policies differ, not just how they differ., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Carbon sequestration via afforestation and forest growth is effective for mitigating global warming. Accurate and robust information on forest growth characteristics by tree species, region, and large-scale land-use change is vital and future prediction of forest carbon stocks based on this information is of great significance. These predictions allow exploring forestry practices that maximize carbon sequestration by forests, including wood production. Forest inventories based on field measurements are considered the most accurate method for estimating forest carbon stocks. Japan's national forest inventories (NFIs) provide stand volumes for all Japanese forests, and estimates from direct field observations (m-NFIs) are the most reliable. Therefore, using the m-NFI from 2009 to 2013, we selected four major forest plantation species in Japan: Cryptomeria japonica, Chamaecyparis obtusa, Pinus spp., and Larix kaempferi and presented their forest age-carbon density function. We then estimated changes in forest carbon stocks from the past to the present using the functions. Next, we investigated the differences in the carbon sequestration potential of forests, including wood production, between five forestry practice scenarios with varying harvesting and afforestation rates, until 2061. Our results indicate that, for all four forest types, the estimates of growth rates and past forest carbon stocks in this study were higher than those considered until now. The predicted carbon sequestration from 2011 to 2061, assuming that 100 % of harvested carbon is retained for a long time, twice the rate of harvesting compared to the current rate, and a 100 % afforestation rate in harvested area, was three to four times higher than that in a scenario with no harvesting or replanting. Our results suggest that planted Japanese forests can exhibit a high carbon sequestration potential under the premise of active management, harvesting, afforestation, and prolonging the residence time of stored carbon in wood products with technology development., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors have no conflicts of interest associated with this work., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Forest management practices designed to meet varied landowner objectives affect wildlife habitat and may interrupt the life-cycle stages of disease vectors, including the black-legged tick, Ixodes scapularis Say (Acari: Ixodidae). Ixodes scapularis transmits multiple pathogens including Borrelia burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme disease, which is the most common tick-borne disease in the United States. There is evidence that a range of active forest management practices (e.g., invasive plant removal, prescribed burning) can alter tick densities and pathogen transmission. However, few studies have investigated relationships between forest stand structural variables commonly manipulated by timber harvesting and tick ecology. Foresters may harvest timber to create certain forest structural conditions like the mean number of trees, or basal area, per hectare. This study used a spatially replicated experiment in a blocked design to compare forest stands with a range of overstory structures and document variations in the midstory, understory, and forest floor, as well as microclimate conditions within tick off-host habitat. Greater numbers of trees or basal area per hectare correlated with greater canopy closure but less understory cover, stabilized microclimate temperature, higher microclimate humidity, and greater I. scapularis nymph densities. A random forest model identified understory forest structure as the strongest predictor of nymph densities. There was no relationship between the number of trees or basal area per hectare and daily deer (Odocoileus virginianus Zimmermann) activity or nymphal infection prevalence. These findings provide a deeper understanding of tick-habitat associations within a forest stand and have the potential to inform forest management decisions., (© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America. All rights reserved. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Social acceptability of forestry practices plays a key role in defining sustainable forestry policies and strategies. In this study an online survey was distributed among members of environmental, non-governmental, professional, and academic organizations to assess the acceptability of forestry practices in Puerto Rico among members of civic society interested in environmental management issues. Participants were asked about their perception of forest uses, their preference of tree harvesting technologies, methods that may apply in small scale wood production settings, and trust in organizations providing forest information. We also inquired about attitudes towards economic activity in forests and the impact of such activity on recreation and biodiversity. The results show that even though participants do not place a high priority on economic development through forestry activities, acceptance of forest management for wood harvesting will be possible by considering adherence to particular forestry technologies and methods to safeguard current recreation activities and biodiversity conservation. Social acceptability information would be worthwhile when seeking consensus among a broader group of local stakeholders. As a next step we suggest the creation of a council constituted by diverse forestry sector stakeholders that would engage in a strategic planning exercise to delineate a clear road map that can guide short and long-term sustainable forest management, including wood industry development., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Roads are expanding at the fastest pace in human history. This is the case especially in biodiversity-rich tropical nations, where roads can result in forest loss and fragmentation, wildfires, illicit land invasions and negative societal effects 1-5 . Many roads are being constructed illegally or informally and do not appear on any existing road map 6-10 ; the toll of such 'ghost roads' on ecosystems is poorly understood. Here we use around 7,000 h of effort by trained volunteers to map ghost roads across the tropical Asia-Pacific region, sampling 1.42 million plots, each 1 km 2 in area. Our intensive sampling revealed a total of 1.37 million km of roads in our plots-from 3.0 to 6.6 times more roads than were found in leading datasets of roads globally. Across our study area, road building almost always preceded local forest loss, and road density was by far the strongest correlate 11 of deforestation out of 38 potential biophysical and socioeconomic covariates. The relationship between road density and forest loss was nonlinear, with deforestation peaking soon after roads penetrate a landscape and then declining as roads multiply and remaining accessible forests largely disappear. Notably, after controlling for lower road density inside protected areas, we found that protected areas had only modest additional effects on preventing forest loss, implying that their most vital conservation function is limiting roads and road-related environmental disruption. Collectively, our findings suggest that burgeoning, poorly studied ghost roads are among the gravest of all direct threats to tropical forests., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

More than a quarter of the world's tropical forests are exploited for timber 1 . Logging impacts biodiversity in these ecosystems, primarily through the creation of forest roads that facilitate hunting for wildlife over extensive areas. Forest management certification schemes such as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) are expected to mitigate impacts on biodiversity, but so far very little is known about the effectiveness of FSC certification because of research design challenges, predominantly limited sample sizes 2,3 . Here we provide this evidence by using 1.3 million camera-trap photos of 55 mammal species in 14 logging concessions in western equatorial Africa. We observed higher mammal encounter rates in FSC-certified than in non-FSC logging concessions. The effect was most pronounced for species weighing more than 10 kg and for species of high conservation priority such as the critically endangered forest elephant and western lowland gorilla. Across the whole mammal community, non-FSC concessions contained proportionally more rodents and other small species than did FSC-certified concessions. The first priority for species protection should be to maintain unlogged forests with effective law enforcement, but for logged forests our findings provide convincing data that FSC-certified forest management is less damaging to the mammal community than is non-FSC forest management. This study provides strong evidence that FSC-certified forest management or equivalently stringent requirements and controlling mechanisms should become the norm for timber extraction to avoid half-empty forests dominated by rodents and other small species., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Environmental conflicts involve many participants in the social life: citizens, foresters, the media, activists, politicians, officials and scientists. In this paper we pay special attention to scientists who provide the others with expert knowledge and proposals for solutions to ecological problems. Using the example of the ecological conflict around the strategy of protection of Białowieża Forest against the invasion of the spruce bark beetle (Ips typographus), we will present how these scientific functions were performed as well as what communication mistakes were made, and formulate a postulate to enrich forest management with a participatory model of social debate involving scientists representing all possible approaches to the problem. Our proposal applies Kitcher's framework giving a ground for different stakeholders to come together to address complex environmental issues. Fitting into the trend of deliberative democracy, the paper provides an insight from philosophy that can be applied to controversial issues of policy and management, and how to influence an environmental change., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Active restoration through silvicultural treatments (enrichment planting, cutting climbers and liberation thinning) is considered an important intervention in logged forests. However, its ability to enhance regeneration is key for long-term recovery of logged forests, which remains poorly understood, particularly for the production and survival of seedlings in subsequent generations. To understand the long-term impacts of logging and restoration we tracked the diversity, survival and traits of seedlings that germinated immediately after a mast fruiting in North Borneo in unlogged and logged forests 30-35 years after logging. We monitored 5119 seedlings from germination for ~1.5 years across a mixed landscape of unlogged forests (ULs), naturally regenerating logged forests (NR) and actively restored logged forests via rehabilitative silvicultural treatments (AR), 15-27 years after restoration. We measured 14 leaf, root and biomass allocation traits on 399 seedlings from 15 species. Soon after fruiting, UL and AR forests had higher seedling densities than NR forest, but survival was the lowest in AR forests in the first 6 months. Community composition differed among forest types; AR and NR forests had lower species richness and lower evenness than UL forests by 5-6 months post-mast but did not differ between them. Differences in community composition altered community-weighted mean trait values across forest types, with higher root biomass allocation in NR relative to UL forest. Traits influenced mortality ~3 months post-mast, with more acquisitive traits and relative aboveground investment favoured in AR forests relative to UL forests. Our findings of reduced seedling survival and diversity suggest long time lags in post-logging recruitment, particularly for some taxa. Active restoration of logged forests recovers initial seedling production, but elevated mortality in AR forests lowers the efficacy of active restoration to enhance recruitment or diversity of seedling communities. This suggests current active restoration practices may fail to overcome barriers to regeneration in logged forests, which may drive long-term changes in future forest plant communities., (© 2024 The Authors. Global Change Biology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Smart forestry, an innovative approach leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), aims to enhance forest management while minimizing the environmental impact. The efficacy of AI in this domain is contingent upon the availability of extensive, high-quality data, underscoring the pivotal role of sensor-based data acquisition in the digital transformation of forestry. However, the complexity and challenging conditions of forest environments often impede data collection efforts. Achieving the full potential of smart forestry necessitates a comprehensive integration of sensor technologies throughout the process chain, ensuring the production of standardized, high-quality data essential for AI applications. This paper highlights the symbiotic relationship between human expertise and the digital transformation in forestry, particularly under challenging conditions. We emphasize the human-in-the-loop approach, which allows experts to directly influence data generation, enhancing adaptability and effectiveness in diverse scenarios. A critical aspect of this integration is the deployment of autonomous robotic systems in forests, functioning both as data collectors and processing hubs. These systems are instrumental in facilitating sensor integration and generating substantial volumes of quality data. We present our universal sensor platform, detailing our experiences and the critical importance of the initial phase in digital transformation-the generation of comprehensive, high-quality data. The selection of appropriate sensors is a key factor in this process, and our findings underscore its significance in advancing smart forestry.

Introduction: Forestry is one of the most dangerous industries worldwide. Workers handle heavy loads and are exposed to numerous adverse factors of the work environment. This study was focused on analyzing severe and fatal occupational accidents over a long period., Methods: Data were gathered from occupational safety and health databases of the State Forests of the Slovak Republic, which manages 879,113 ha of forests in Slovakia. Between 2007 and 2021, 210 severe and64 fatal accidents were recorded. The data analyses included contingency tables, Pearson χ2 test, and Cramer's V coefficient to analyze the relationships between studied variables., Results: The mean annual number of fatalities was 14, occurring to workers aged 42 on average. Almost 80% of all fatal accidents were suffered by contractors of harvesting operations, who were 5.23 times more likely to suffer a fatality than company employees. On average, 1.28 severe and0.75 fatal accidents occurred per 1 million m 3 of harvested timber. The outcomes of the correlation analysis showed a decreasing trend in incidence in the case of severe accidents. Workers ≤ 30 years or between 51 and 60 years of age were the most vulnerable in the case of fatal accidents. In the case of severe accidents, workers between 51 and 60 were the most vulnerable group. Most fatal accidents were suffered by tree fellers (72.2%) during felling (69.8%), who were in contact with falling trees and tree parts (93.7% share for this material agent). Conclusion and Practical Applications: The presented study identified the most vulnerable worker groups as well as the effects of factors on the occurrence of severe and fatal occupational accidents in forestry. The results will serve in development of occupational safety and health strategies in forest enterprises., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 National Safety Council and Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Using an extended full-cycle carbon model from the Faustmann framework, which allows for management strategies of several uses concurrently implemented in the same area of forest, this paper investigates the selection of management objectives that are beneficial and optimal for forest plantations in Vietnam. Three scenarios are considered: Scenario 1 investigates the management objective of maximizing the land economic value (LEV) of timber as a single production. Scenario 2 investigates the joint production of timber and bioenergy sources. Scenario 3 analyzes the joint production of timber, bioenergy production, and carbon sequestration. The findings reveal that if growers pursue a timber management objective (Scenario 1), the farming business only provides considerable benefits under the government-subsidized credit scheme of 8.4%. For a higher non-subsidized interest rate of 15.24% of commercial banks, such gains reduce substantially and become negative value under the mean interest rate of 19.08% of private credit sources. Altering the management objective to a joint production of timber and raw bioenergy production (Scenario 2) will boost the LEV by a moderate level, but at the expense of timber production and thus carbon stock. However, the reduction tendency of timber and carbon balance is not substantial due mainly to the relatively small proportion of bioenergy production compared to timber production; therefore, decision-making frameworks targeting carbon uptake may be capable of incorporating such levels of confliction. Further internalizing the carbon value of the forest into management objectives generally leads to a longer rotation length, thus improving both carbon sequestration and income gains. Shifting the current timber-dominant management objective to a joint production of timber and bioenergy sources, or, alternatively, a joint production of timber, bioenergy production, and carbon sequestration when the carbon market is emerging, is a good alternative strategy for forest management in Vietnam., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Suitable extraction technique and the least cost while reducing the environmental impact is the primary concern in timber transportation planning in undulate topography. Two types of extraction machines with unique characteristics to be applied in timber harvest area in Malaysia is combined for timber harvesting with the aim each machine will extract timber suitable to their ability. A Bees Algorithm (BA) was proposed to find an optimum TTP for timber extraction, forest road, and landing locations with grid cell-sized 10 m × 10 m and attributed with fixed and variable costs. The result shows the log fisher (1351 timbers) as a preferable extraction technique with total cost of RM 86,551.73 than the crawler tractor (206 timbers); the timber extraction route is 2630 m for the log fisher and 9860 m for the crawler tractor with total cost of RM 10,453.03. The model finds a suitable timber extraction technique and estimates the extraction costs. Further studies are required to compare the BA with other optimization methods for better results., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

After agriculture, wood harvest is the human activity that has most reduced the storage of carbon in vegetation and soils 1,2 . Although felled wood releases carbon to the atmosphere in various steps, the fact that growing trees absorb carbon has led to different carbon-accounting approaches for wood use, producing widely varying estimates of carbon costs. Many approaches give the impression of low, zero or even negative greenhouse gas emissions from wood harvests because, in different ways, they offset carbon losses from new harvests with carbon sequestration from growth of broad forest areas 3,4 . Attributing this sequestration to new harvests is inappropriate because this other forest growth would occur regardless of new harvests and typically results from agricultural abandonment, recovery from previous harvests and climate change itself. Nevertheless some papers count gross emissions annually, which assigns no value to the capacity of newly harvested forests to regrow and approach the carbon stocks of unharvested forests. Here we present results of a new model that uses time discounting to estimate the present and future carbon costs of global wood harvests under different scenarios. We find that forest harvests between 2010 and 2050 will probably have annualized carbon costs of 3.5-4.2 Gt CO 2 e yr -1 , which approach common estimates of annual emissions from land-use change due to agricultural expansion. Our study suggests an underappreciated option to address climate change by reducing these costs., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Forestry management worldwide has become increasingly effective at obtaining high timber yields from productive forests. In New Zealand, a focus on improving an increasingly successful and largely Pinus radiata plantation forestry model over the last 150 years has resulted in some of the most productive timber forests in the temperate zone. In contrast to this success, the full range of forested landscapes across New Zealand, including native forests, are impacted by an array of pressures from introduced pests, diseases, and a changing climate, presenting a collective risk of losses in biological, social and economic value. As the national government policies incentivise reforestation and afforestation, the social acceptability of some forms of newly planted forests is also being challenged. Here, we review relevant literature in the area of integrated forest landscape management to optimise forests as nature-based solutions, presenting 'transitional forestry' as a model design and management paradigm appropriate to a range of forest types, where forest purpose is placed at the heart of decision making. We use New Zealand as a case study region, describing how this purpose-led transitional forestry model can benefit a cross section of forest types, from industrialised forest plantations to dedicated conservation forests and a range of multiple-purpose forests in between. Transitional forestry is an ongoing multi-decade process of change from current 'business-as-usual' forest management to future systems of forest management, embedded across a continuum of forest types. This holistic framework incorporates elements to enhance efficiencies of timber production, improve overall forest landscape resilience, and reduce some potential negative environmental impacts of commercial plantation forestry, while allowing the ecosystem functioning of commercial and non-commercial forests to be maximised, with increased public and biodiversity conservation value. Implementation of transitional forestry addresses tensions that arise between meeting climate mitigation targets and improving biodiversity criteria through afforestation, alongside increasing demand for forest biomass feedstocks to meet the demands of near-term bioenergy and bioeconomy goals. As ambitious government international targets are set for reforestation and afforestation using both native and exotic species, there is an increasing opportunity to make such transitions via integrated thinking that optimises forest values across a continuum of forest types, while embracing the diversity of ways in which such targets can be reached., (© 2023 The Authors. Biological Reviews published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Cambridge Philosophical Society.)

Measurement of the recovery of wood stocks in logging areas in the Amazon helps to understand the efficiency of policies for the use and conservation of native forests. This work evaluated the effects of logging on the dynamics and production of commercial species in the short and medium term in a conservation unit in the state of Rondônia. Structural patterns of the species as a function of mortality and recruitment rates, patterns of average increment in diameter, and estimates of forest production in the short and medium term were analyzed. The study was carried out in an area designated as Annual Production Unit 2 of Forest Management Unit III of Jamari National Forest. In addition to legalized harvesting, there are reports of illegal logging in the area as of 2015. Inventory data from 2011, 2015, and 2018 were used, considering trees of commercial value with a diameter at breast height (DBH) greater than 10 cm. Mortality rate, recruitment, periodic annual increment, absolute tree density, basal area, and commercial volume, by species and DBH classes, as well as the similarity of the species regarding the growth pattern. The population structure of species over the years was affected by tree mortality, mainly due to damage caused by illegal logging. Mean increment values varied by species and diameter classes, and six species represented 72% of the total volume of wood stock. It is important to review the criteria for sustainable forest production in the long term. Thus, it is necessary to promote species diversity and improve public authorities' capacity to enforce and of the private sector to comply with legislation. This, in turn, will enable the development of strategies to make the consumption of legal wood more rational., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)