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Forest commons and local enforcement
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This article examines the relationship between local enforcement and forests used as commons. It uses a unique multicountry dataset, created over the past 15 years by the International Forestry Resources and Institutions Research Program. Drawing on original enforcement and forest commons data from 9 countries, we find that higher levels of local enforcement have a strong and positive but complex relationship to the probability of forest regeneration. This relationship holds even when the influence of a number of other factors such as user group size, subsistence, and commercial importance of forests, size of forest, and collective action for forest improvement activities is taken into account. Although several of the above factors have a statistically signifi- cant relationship to changes in the condition of forest commons, differences in levels of local enforcement strongly moderate their link with forest commons outcomes. The research, using data from diverse political, social, and ecological contexts, shows both the importance of enforcement to forest commons and some of the limits of forest governance through commons arrangements.
governance sustainability collective action local institutions forest regeneration
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Forest fuel reduction alters fire severity and long-term carbon storage in three Pacific Northwest ecosystems
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Abstract. Two forest management objectives being debated in the context of federally managed landscapes in the U.S. Pacific Northwest involve a perceived trade-off between fire restoration and carbon sequestration. The former strategy would reduce fuel (and therefore C) that has accumulated through a century of fire suppression and exclusion which has led to extreme fire risk in some areas. The latter strategy would manage forests for enhanced C sequestration as a method of reducing atmospheric CO2 and associated threats from global climate change. We explored the trade-off between these two strategies by employing a forest ecosystem simulation model, STANDCARB, to examine the effects of fuel reduction on fire severity and the resulting long-term C dynamics among three Pacific Northwest ecosystems: the east Cascades ponderosa pine forests, the west Cascades western hemlock–Douglas-fir forests, and the Coast Range western hemlock–Sitka spruce forests. Our simulations indicate that fuel reduction treatments in these ecosystems consistently reduced fire severity. However, reducing the fraction by which C is lost in a wildfire requires the removal of a much greater amount of C, since most of the C stored in forest biomass (stem wood, branches, coarse woody debris) remains unconsumed even by high-severity wildfires. For this reason, all of the fuel reduction treatments simulated for the west Cascades and Coast Range ecosystems as well as most of the treatments simulated for the east Cascades resulted in a reduced mean stand C storage. One suggested method of compensating for such losses in C storage is to utilize C harvested in fuel reduction treatments as biofuels. Our analysis indicates that this will not be an effective strategy in the west Cascades and Coast Range over the next 100 years. We suggest that forest management plans aimed solely at ameliorating increases in atmospheric CO2 should forgo fuel reduction treatments in these ecosystems, with the possible exception of some east Cascades ponderosa pine stands with uncharacteristic levels of understory fuel accumulation. Balancing a demand for maximal landscape C storage with the demand for reduced wildfire severity will likely require treatments to be applied strategically throughout the landscape rather than indiscriminately treating all stands.
Key words: biofuels; carbon sequestration; fire ecology; fuel reduction treatment; Pacific Northwest, USA; Picea sitchensis; Pinus ponderosa; Pseudotsuga menziesii.
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Forest Management for bobwhites
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Trees play an important role in the well-being of bobwhites. Michael Hook of the SCDNR talks about how to manage forested land for both bobwhites and dollars.
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Bobwhite Quail Seminar Series
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Forest Management for Northern Bobwhite Quail
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In this webinar, Steve Chapman, NBCI Forestry Coordinator, will discuss pine forest management opportunities and practices that can not only help to bring back the bobwhite but also can have an impact on slowing the decline of those numerous songbird, pollinator and other wildlife species.
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NBCI Bobwhite Seminars
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Forester 1980.pdf
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FIN-GEN
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Forests fuel fish growth in freshwater deltas
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Aquatic ecosystems are fuelled by biogeochemical inputs from surrounding lands and within- lake primary production. Disturbances that change these inputs may affect how aquatic ecosystems function and deliver services vital to humans. Here we test, using a forest cover gradient across eight separate catchments, whether disturbances that remove terrestrial biomass lower organic matter inputs into freshwater lakes, thereby reducing food web productivity. We focus on deltas formed at the stream-lake interface where terrestrial-derived particulate material is deposited. We find that organic matter export increases from more forested catchments, enhancing bacterial biomass. This transfers energy upwards through communities of heavier zooplankton, leading to a fourfold increase in weights of plankti- vorous young-of-the-year fish. At least 34% of fish biomass is supported by terrestrial primary production, increasing to 66% with greater forest cover. Habitat tracers confirm fish were closely associated with individual catchments, demonstrating that watershed protection and restoration increase biomass in critical life-stages of fish.
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Forests in Decline: Yellow-Cedar Research Yields Prototype for Climate Change Adaptation Planning
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Yellow-cedar has been dying across
600 miles of North Pacific coastal rain
forest—from Alaska to British Columbia—since
about 1880. Thirty years
ago, a small group of pathologists began
investigating possible biotic causes
of the decline. When no biotic cause
could be found, the scope broadened
into a research program that eventually
encompassed the fields of ecology,
soils, hydrology, ecophysiology, dendrochronology,
climatology, and landscape
analysis. Combined studies ultimately
revealed that the loss of this culturally,
economically, and ecologically valuable
tree is caused by a warming climate,
reduced snowpack, poor soil drainage,
and the species’ shallow roots. These
factors lead to fine-root freezing, which
eventually kills the trees.
The considerable knowledge gained
while researchers sought the cause
of widespread yellow-cedar mortality
forms the basis for a conservation
and adaptive management strategy. A
new approach to mapping that overlays
topography, cedar populations, soil
drainage, and snow enables land managers
to pinpoint locations where yellowcedar
habitat is expected to be suitable
or threatened in the future, thereby
bringing climate change predictions into
management scenarios.
The research program serves as a
prototype for evaluating the effects of
climate change in other landscapes. It
shows the value of long-term, multidisciplinary
research that encourages scientists
and land managers to work together
toward developing adaptive management
strategies
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Forests Videos and Webinars
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Forsyth McCallum 1978 New Zealand.pdf
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FIN-GEN
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Four-year response of underplanted American chestnut (Castanea dentata) and three competitors to midstory removal, root trenching, and weeding treatments in an oak-hickory forest
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American chestnut (Castanea dentata) has been killed or reduced to recurrent stump sprouts throughout its range following the importation of multiple pathogens in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Under- standing what drives chestnut growth and survival would aid the development of appropriate silvicultural guidelines for restoring the species once blight resistant stock is available. Here we compare the response of planted American and hybrid chestnut seedlings to that of important competitors, northern red oak (Quercus rubra), sugar maple (Acer saccharum) and red maple (A. rubrum), under treatments designed to evaluate the effects of various sources of competition on seedling growth and survival. After four years, American and hybrid chestnut was significantly taller in trenched plots (181.8 ± 12.4 cm; mean ± SE) compared to untrenched plots (127.5 ± 7.9 cm), weeded plots (174.5 ± 12.7 cm) compared to unweeded plots (130.1 ± 6.5 cm) and in midstory removal plots (156.6 ± 7.8) versus full canopy (88.8 ± 11.7 cm), and had outperformed the other species in most competitive environments. Chestnut was the only species to respond to every treatment with significant growth increases, displaying a nota- ble ability to capture growing space when it became available. We suggest that American chestnut res- toration may be more successful where early stand management provides chestnut a brief period of reduced competition. Specifically, midstory removal can increase survival and growth of underplanted American chestnut, and when combined with multi-stage shelterwood removals of the overstory and some amount of competition control, may constitute a viable restoration strategy for chestnut in many of the eastern oak-hickory forests where it was originally dominant.
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