Synopses & Reviews
At last a really useful book telling us how all the rhetoric about ecosystem approaches and sustainable forest management is being translated into practical solutions on the ground CLAUDE MARTIN, WWF INTERNATIONAL For too long, foresters have seen forests as logs waiting to be turned into something useful. This book demonstrates that forests in fact have multiple values, and managing them as ecosystems will bring more benefits to a greater cross-section of the public JEFFREY A. MCNEELY, CHIEF SCIENTIST, IUCN This book demonstrates that ecosystem approaches and sustainable forest management] are neither alternative methods of forest management nor are they simply complicated ways of saying the same thing. They are both emerging concepts for more integrated and holistic ways of managing forests within larger landscapes in ways that optimize benefits to all stakeholders ACHIM STEINER AND IAN JOHNSON, FROM THE FOREWORD Recent innovations in Sustainable Forest Management and Ecosystem Approaches are resulting in forests increasingly being managed as part of the broader social-ecological systems in which they exist. Forests in Landscapes reviews changes that have occurred in forest management in recent decades. Case studies from Europe, Canada, the United States, Russia, Australia, the Congo and Central America provide a wealth of international examples of innovative practices. Cross-cutting chapters examine the political ecology and economics of forest management, and review the information needs and the use and misuse of criteria and indicators to achieve broad societal goals for forests. A concluding chapter draws out the key lessons of changes in forest management in recent decades and sets out some thoughts for the future. This book is a must-read for practitioners, researchers and policy makers concerned with forests and land use. It contains lessons for all those concerned with forests as sources of people's livelihoods and as part of rural landscapes. Published with IUCN and PROFOR
Synopsis
* Edited by Jeff Sayer, Founding Director General of CIFOR and Stewart Maginnis, Head of Forest Conservation at IUCN, and authored by top international researchers and practitioners * Provides the first full examination and explanation of ecosystem approaches to sustainable forest management at the levels of policy and practice * Case study material of forest practice in western Europe, Australia, Canada, the US, Russia, India and central and east Africa Practical forestry is developing in the direction of the emerging consensus that forests should be managed as part of the broader social-ecological systems in which they exist. This book is the first to take forest management forward using ecosystem approaches. The book combines an overview of ecological approaches to sustainable forestry and lays out the conundrums, while cross cutting chapters examine the key issues and themes of institutional arrangements and structures, including forest ownership, access and property rights, decentralization, legal frameworks, governmental/departmental structures and institutions, joint/community management, precision forestry, and payment for forest services, as well as subsidies and drivers of change for ecosystem approaches such as climate change, and criteria and indicators for codifying forest practices at all levels. Case studies provide a wealth of international examples of best practices and a concluding chapter draws out salient points and recommends how policy-makers and foresters can move forward on ecological approaches to sustainable forest management.