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FOREST MANAGEMENT No part of this digital document may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means. The publisher has taken reasonable care in the preparation of this digital document, but makes no expressed or implied warranty of any kind and assumes no responsibility for any errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for incidental or consequential damages in connection with or arising out of information contained herein. This digital document is sold with the clear understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, medical or any other professional services. FOREST MANAGEMENT STEVEN P. GROSSBERG EDITOR Nova Science Publishers, Inc. New York Copyright © 2009 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. 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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Grossberg, Steven P. Forest management / Steven P. Grossberg. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-1-61209-697-1 (eBook) 1. Forest management. 2. Forests and forestry. I. Title. SD373.G84 2009 634.9'2--dc22 2009002409  CONTENTS Preface vii Review and Research Articles Chapter 1 A Decomposition Approach to Integrated Forest Harvest Scheduling and Access Planning 1 David M. Nanang and Grant K. Hauer Chapter 2 Reduced-Impact Logging and Post-Harvest Management in the Atlantic Forest of Argentina: Alternative Approaches to Enhance Regeneration and Growth of Canopy Trees 39 Paula I. Campanello, Lía Montti, Patricio Mac Donagh and Guillermo Goldstein Chapter 3 A Decision Support System Linking Forest Policy with Sustainable Forest Management Planning in Private Forests in Ireland 61 Frank Barrett and Maarten Nieuwenhuis Chapter 4 Ecological Restoration in Degraded Drylands: The Need to Improve the Seedling Quality and Site Conditions in the Field 85 E. Chirino, A. Vilagrosa, J. Cortina, A. Valdecantos, D. Fuentes, R. Trubat, V.C. Luis, J. Puértolas, S. Bautista, M.J. Baeza, J.L. Peñuelas and V. R. Vallejo Chapter 5 Selection of Restoration and Conservation Areas Using Species Ecological Niche Modeling: A Case Study of the River Otter Lontra Longicaudis Annectens in Central Mexico 159 Verónica Cirelli and Víctor Sánchez-Cordero Chapter 6 Environmental Impacts of Caatinga Forest Management - A Study Case 179 Frans Pareyn, Enrique Riegelhaupt and Maria Auxiliadora Gariglio vi Contents Chapter 7 Forest Management within Protected Areas: The Social Production of Nature in the Dadia Forest Reserve, Greece 203 Tasos Hovardas Chapter 8 A Comparison of Forest Resources in Selected Jurisdictions of North America and Europe: Some Implications for Macro- Sustainability Assessment 223 Gordon M. Hickey Chapter 9 Semi-Arid Zone Afforestation in Northern Israel: A Review 249 Paul Ginsberg and Nir Atzmon Chapter 10 Olive Tree Growth in Tunisia: Types, Limitations and Influences 272 Ben Ahmed, B. Ben Rouina and M. Boukhris Short Communications Communication A Rotation Age Determination for Even-Aged Forest Plantations 293 Pete Bettinger and Rongxia Li Communication B Moving Targets and Rolling Milestones in Forest Management 305 Sen Wang Index 309 PREFACE Forest management includes a range of human interventions that affect forest ecosystems. These activities include both conservation and economic activities, such as extraction of timber, planting and replanting of various species, cutting roads and pathways through forests, and techniques for preventing or making outbreaks of fire. In developed countries, the environment has increased public awareness of natural resource policy, including forest management. As a direct result, primary concerns regarding forest management have shifted from the extraction of timber to other forest resources including wildlife, watershed management, and recreation. This shift in public values has also caused many in the public to mistrust resource management professionals. This new book presents the latest research in this field. Chapter 1 - This chapter presents the results of a mixed-integer non-linear programming (MINLP) model that integrates access road development with forest harvest scheduling. A Model II forest scheduling model that maximized net present value of timber products subject to mill capacity, multiple mill and product demands, regeneration, area, and access constraints was specified. The model was applied to an operationally-sized Forest Management Agreement (FMA) area in central Alberta, Canada. The resulting model had approximately 2.6 million decision variables and about 96,000 constraints, and was used to examine the impacts of access development on harvest scheduling. The results show that the inclusion of road access costs concentrated forest management activities to fewer locations over the planning period compared to when road construction costs were zero. Also, positive access costs reduced the frequency with which locations are accessed during the planning horizon. The model provides important shadow price information on the various constraints in the model that gives insights into future production costs or timber prices, which are valuable for determining supply planning as well as silvicultural and road building investment decisions. Chapter 2 - Selective logging is the most common method of timber extraction in native tropical and subtropical forests, including the Atlantic Forest of South America. Uncontrolled conventional logging has resulted in impoverished forests that have lost much of their economical value and biodiversity. In poorly logged forests in sub-tropical Argentina, bamboos colonize felling gaps and inhibit canopy tree regeneration while lianas slow the growth rate of most canopy trees. Reduced impact logging techniques along with post-harvest silvicultural treatments to enhance canopy tree growth and regeneration have been shown to be effective in the Atlantic Forest eco-region, but destructive timber mining practices nevertheless continue. viii Steven P. Grossberg Chapter 3 - During the last 20 years, the size of the forest estate in Ireland has increased dramatically. Inventory and management information on the (FSC-certified) publicly-owned forest is widely available, however details on the rapidly expanding private estate, both in terms of inventory data and management objectives, are missing. The developed PractiSFM Decision Support System comprises Microsoft ExcelTM based inventory and decision support components that permit the collection and quantification of data for multiple forest resources and facilitates the production of 10-year sustainable forest management plans. The inventory component consists of a standardised set of protocols for observing, assessing and recording multi-resource forest inventory data at the stand-level scale, based on local measures of Criteria and Indicators identified in the Irish National Forest Standard. This paper describes the PractiSFM DSS, which provides a means to integrate, tabulate, forecast, map and analyse multi-resource inventory data through the use of interactive and visual tools. The DSS can be used to generate planning scenario information at a forest and stand level, such as timber volume/value assortments, area of visually or environmentally sensitive forest, area affected by harvesting operations, changes in deer cover and food habitat, cumulative deadwood volumes, productive man hours and operational cash flow. The outputs from the PractiSFM system have the additional potential to facilitate the standardisation of management plan reporting and feed into the national forest information system. The system provides practical and efficient tools for the implementation of sustainable forest management, based on the Irish SFM policy initiative. Chapter 4 - Ecological restoration represents an important tool for combating land degradation and increasing ecosystem resistance and resilience to disturbance, thus favoring the recovery of functions and services. Degraded drylands constitute very harsh conditions for the natural regeneration and rangeland restoration of the ecosystems. Scarcity of rainfall after planting, inappropriate seedling quality and unfavorable hydro-physic and chemical characteristics of the soil often affect the success of ecological restoration projects. Therefore, there is a need to improve ecological restoration techniques in degraded drylands. In this paper the authors analyze innovative nursery and field techniques oriented to reduce outplanting stress on the basis of the researcher experience of the CEAM Foundation‘s Forest Restoration Programme and the Ecosystems Management and Biodiversity group in the University of Alicante‘s Department of Ecology though several RTD projects funded by the Valencia Regional Government, the Government of Spain and the European Commission. In the nursery, the main research lines are directed towards improving seedling quality, especially its resistance to water stress, by means of the use of containers gauged to the different root growth patterns of the species, the use of hydrogel to improve the water holding capacity of the substrate and reduce post-planting stress, the use of drought preconditioning to induce mechanisms for drought resistance, the use of fertilization according to field conditions and target seedlings for restoration projects and the use of growth regulators to control the biomass distribution within the seedlings. Other research lines are focused on ameliorating site conditions in the field, particularly soil and microclimatic conditions, by using: microcatchments to improve runoff harvesting and soil water availability to seedlings, deeper planting holes according to species growth patterns, treeshelters to reduce environmental stress, hydrogels to improve soil water-holding capacity, organic amendments like biosolids to improve soil fertility, and biotic interactions to facilitate seedling establishment. Then, the authors present the demonstration project on the restoration and management of semi-arid areas affected by desertification in Albatera (Spain) as an example Preface ix of the implementation of these innovative techniques. This project has shown that increased technological investment in forest restoration ensures acceptable results in seedling survival and growth, and gradual ecosystem recovery. Finally, the challenges and opportunities for ecological restoration in dryland are discussed on the basis of the results shown and future climate projections. Chapter 5 - The authors used ecological niche modeling and place prioritization procedures to identify areas for conservation and restoration for the river otter, Lontra longicaudis annectens Major 1897, in central Mexico. This species is highly sensible to fluvial ecosystem degradation, and large areas of the Apatlaco-Tembembe basin fluvial ecosystems have been highly transformed. The authors selected ecological indicators (EI) from literature and own field work to determine variables best describing the fluvial ecosystem degradation, relating them to the species‘ presence or absence. Field data of EI, species records, and digital thematic information of hydrology, geomorphology and climate were used in ResNet Place Prioritization algorithm for the selection of potential conservation and restoration areas. The authors generated a spatial model considering a hierarchy of key areas based on river otter‘s ecological niche requirements and habitat ad hoc conditions for the species permanence. This allowed identifying areas to be included in landscape management plans for conservation and restoration. The sequential integration of species´ potential distribution and place prioritization modeling allows merging biodiversity conservation and ecological restoration strategies at different ecological scales, helping adaptive management in land planning to be more flexible and feasible. Chapter 6 - Caatinga is the typical semi-arid native forest of the Brazilian northeast covering still about 40% of the total of 850.103 km2. Due to high pressure for forest fuels and forage, sustainable forest management would be the most indicated alternative as reforestation potentialities are limited. From the other hand, global awareness and worries urge for efficient biodiversity conservation at different levels. This case study evaluates tree growth and biodiversity dynamics in two commercial forest management plans (350 hectares each) in order to assess production capacity on one hand, and the contribution of forest management to biodiversity conservation on the other. Forest inventory in a total of 53 plots in different age stands allowed evaluating growth rates and tree diversity along several stages of caatinga regeneration. Growth rates were very high in young stands and MAI ranged from 4.5 – 5.1 m3.ha-1.a-1. Original biomass, at this rate, can be recovered in about 10 years. However, forest structure, expressed by volume distribution per diameter class, is recovered more slowly, being necessary 15 to 20 years or more. These results indicate that native forest management can be an excellent means for supplying the wood fuel needs of the region. Biodiversity studies considered different biological groups: trees, herbaceous plants, native bees, mammals, amphibians and reptiles. Caatinga forest management did not cause loss of tree diversity. Original dominant species maintain dominance in the regeneration stands and new species occur. Herbaceous plant diversity was similar to the one in preserved areas despite lower Shannon values. The initial impact of forest management on the native bees was strong but after 9-14 years, original diversity is mainly recovered. Apparently, diversity of amphibians and reptiles depends more on habitat diversity than on the management activities. Total diversity found in the commercial managed areas was similar or higher than the one in preserved areas.