Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
While most efforts at biodiversity conservation have focused primarily on protected areas and reserves, the unprotected lands surrounding those area--the matrix--are equally important to preserving global biodiversity and maintaining forest health. In Conserving Forest Biodiversity, leading forest scientists David B. Lindenmayer and Jerry F. Franklin argue that the conservation of forest biodiversity requires a comprehensive and multiscaled approach that includes both reserve and nonreserve areas. They lay the foundations for such a strategy, bringing together the latest scientific information on landscape ecology, forestry, conservation biology, and related disciplines as they examine:
- the importance of the matrix in key areas of ecology such as metapopulation dynamics, habitat fragmentation, and landscape connectivity
- general principles for matrix management
- using natural disturbance regimes to guide human disturbance
- landscape-level and stand-level elements of matrix management
- the role of adaptive management and monitoring
- social dimensions and tensions in implementing matrix-based forest management
In addition, they present five case studies that illustrate aspects and elements of applied matrix management in forests. The case studies cover a wide variety of conservation planning and management issues from North America, South America, and Australia, ranging from relatively intact forest ecosystems to an intensively managed plantation.
Conserving Forest Biodiversity presents strategies for enhancing matrix management that can play a vital role in the development of more effective approaches to maintaining forest biodiversity. It examines the key issues and gives practical guidelines for sustained forest management, highlighting the critical role of the matrix for scientists, managers, decisionmakers, and other stakeholders involved in efforts to sustain biodiversity and ecosystem processes in forest landscapes.
About the Author
David B. Lindenmayer is senior research fellow and associate professor at the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies at The Australian National University in Canberra.
Jerry F. Franklin is professor of ecosystem science in the College of Forest Resources at the University of Washington in Seattle and co-author of Creating a Forestry for the Twenty-First Century (Island Press, 1998).
Table of Contents
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I-Principles for Biodiversity
Conservation in the Matrix
1. Critical Roles for the Matrix
2. The Matrix and Major Themes
in Landscape Ecology and
Conservation Biology
3. Objectives and Principles for
Developing Comprehensive Plans for
Forest Biodiversity Conservation
4. Using Information about
Natural Forests, Landscapes, and Disturbance Regimes
Part II-Biodiversity Conservation
Across Multiple Spatial Scales
5. Importance and Limitations of Large
Ecological Reserves
6. Landscape-Level Considerations within
the Matrix: Protected Habitat
at the Patch Level
8. Matrix Management in the Harvested Stand
9. Revisiting a Multiscaled Approach to
Forest Biodiversity Conservation
10. Matrix Management in
Plantation Landscapes
Part III-Case Studies in Developing
Multiscaled Plans for Biodiversity
Conservation
11. Case Study 1: Northern, California,
and Mexican Spotted Owls
12. Case Study 2: Leadbeater's Possum and
Biodiversity Conservation in
Mountain Ash Forests
13. Case Study 3: The Tumet
Fragmentation Experiment
14. Case Study 4: The Biological Dynamics
of Forest Fragments Project
15. Case Study 5: The Rio Condor Project
Part IV-Adaptive Management
and the Human Aspects
of Matrix Management
16. Adaptive Management and
Long-Term Monitoring
17. Knowledge Gaps in Forest
and Biodiversity Management:
Areas for Future Research
18. Social and Other Dimensions
Associated with Matrix Management
19. Future Directions
Literature Cited
About the Authors
Index