**Forest Management Overview:**
– Definition and importance of forest management.
– Influence of climate, topography, soil, and human activity on forest management.
– Progression towards managing forests for multiple uses.
– Tools like remote sensing, GIS, and photogrammetry for forest inventory and planning.
– Principles of sustainable forest management.
**Public Awareness and Input:**
– Concerns about deforestation and road-building in the Amazon Rainforest.
– Increased public awareness focusing on natural resource policy and forest management.
– Shift from timber extraction to maintaining ecosystem services.
– Role of environmental awareness in shaping public perception of forest management.
– Tools like remote sensing, GIS, and photogrammetry for improving forest inventory.
**Wildlife and Biodiversity Considerations:**
– Impact of forest management on wildlife abundance and diversity.
– Provision of food, space, and water for various wildlife species.
– European forest practices allocating land for biodiversity and ecosystem services.
– Conservation and utilization of forest resources for wildlife.
– Majority of the world’s forests having management plans for biodiversity.
**Forest Management Practices and Certification:**
– Range of forest management intensities from natural to highly intensive regimes.
– Global variation in forests with long-term management plans.
– Importance of forest certification for sustainable forest management.
– Evaluation of forest management quality through certification criteria.
– Significant global increase in forest area under management plans since 2000.
**Challenges and Innovations in Forest Management:**
– Challenges like illegal logging, deforestation, climate change effects, and invasive species.
– Balancing economic and environmental interests in forest management.
– Lack of funding for conservation efforts.
– Innovations such as technology for monitoring forests, agroforestry practices, carbon offset programs, and community-based forest management.
– Sustainable forest finance mechanisms to support conservation efforts.
Forest management is a branch of forestry concerned with overall administrative, legal, economic, and social aspects, as well as scientific and technical aspects, such as silviculture, forest protection, and forest regulation. This includes management for timber, aesthetics, recreation, urban values, water, wildlife, inland and nearshore fisheries, wood products, plant genetic resources, and other forest resource values. Management objectives can be for conservation, utilisation, or a mixture of the two. Techniques include timber extraction, planting and replanting of different species, building and maintenance of roads and pathways through forests, and preventing fire.
Many tools like remote sensing, GIS and photogrammetry modelling have been developed to improve forest inventory and management planning. Since 1953, the volume of standing trees in the United States has increased by 90% due to sustainable forest management.