Instant Insights: Sustainable tropical forest management

Description

This book features five peer-reviewed reviews on sustainable tropical forest management.

The first chapter reviews environmental factors determining different types of tropical forest such as temperature, precipitation, sunlight, atmospheric and soil chemistry, as well as mechanical factors.

The second chapter discusses definitions of sustainable forest management (SFM) and reviews how the current scope of SFM can be expanded from individual stands to the scale of forested landscapes.

The third chapter considers the restoration of tropical forests, focusing specifically on forest landscape restoration (FLR). It begins by addressing the importance of implementing forest landscape restoration and provides an overview of different guides and tools for FLR.

The fourth chapter summarises the current state of knowledge on the interactions between forest ecosystems and the climate system and the way in which forests influence the water cycle.

The final chapter provides a detailed overview of recent research undertaken on achieving sustainable management of tropical forests. It discusses the importance of tropical forest ecology, as well as the role of SFM in contributing to achieving several of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Table of contents

• Chapter 1 - An overview of tropical forest formations: Alice Muchugi, World Agroforestry (ICRAF), Kenya; Sammy Muraguri, Kunming Institute of Botany, China; Hesti L. Tata, Forest Research & Development Centre, Indonesia; Jürgen Blaser, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland; and Patrick D. Hardcastle, Forestry Development Specialist, UK;
  • 1 Introduction
  • 2 The tropics: defining the enabling conditions for tropical forests
  • 3 Classifying tropical forest formations
  • 4 Structure and diversity of tropical forest ecosystems
  • 5 Conclusion
  • 6 References
• Chapter 2 - Defining sustainable forest management (SFM) in the tropics: Francis E. Putz, University of Florida-Gainesville, USA; and Ian D. Thompson, Thompson Forest Ltd.-Kelowna, Canada;
  • 1 Introduction
  • 2 Evolving concepts of sustainability
  • 3 Appropriate scales for assessment of SFM
  • 4 SFM trade-offs at different scales
  • 5 Defining terms in SFM
  • 6 Land-use types in SFM
  • 7 Challenges for SFM in the tropics
  • 8 Ways forward
  • 9 References
• Chapter 3 - Ecosystem services delivered by tropical forests: regulating services of tropical forests for climate and hydrological cycles: Oliver Gardi, Bern University of Applied Sciences and School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences HAFL, Switzerland;
  • 1 Introduction
  • 2 Forest-climate interactions
  • 3 Forests in the carbon cycle
  • 4 Climate change mitigation in the forestry and timber sector
  • 5 Forests in the water cycle (regional scale)
  • 6 Summary and future trends
  • 7 Where to look for further information
  • 8 References
• Chapter 4 - Forest landscape restoration (FLR) of tropical forests: Stephanie Mansourian, Mansourian.org/University of Geneva, Switzerland/IUFRO, Austria;
  • 1 Introduction
  • 2 Implementing forest landscape restoration (FLR)
  • 3 Case studies
  • 4 Challenges and opportunities in taking FLR forward
  • 5 Conclusion
  • 6 Where to look for further information
  • 7 References
• Chapter 5 - Achieving sustainable management of tropical forests: overview and conclusions: Jürgen Blaser, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland; Patrick D. Hardcastle, Forestry Development Specialist, UK; and Gillian Petrokofsky, University of Oxford, UK;
  • 1 Introduction: sustainable forest management (SFM)
  • 2 Importance of tropical forest ecology
  • 3 Forests, climate and climate change
  • 4 Forest loss and degradation
  • 5 Forest products and ecological services
  • 6 Community-based forest management (CBFM) and SFM
  • 7 SFM and the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs)
  • 8 Wood products, plantations and SFM
  • 9 Monitoring and measuring for SFM
  • 10 Shifting cultivation and SFM
  • 11 Forest landscape restoration (FLR)
  • 12 SFM in major tropical regions
  • 13 Conclusions
  • 14 References