"Emperor's Power Far Away from the Countryside"and"Town in Charge of Village Affairs":The Extreme Grass-roots Management System is Not Conducive to the Healthy Development of the Countryside

This paper compares the two different rural management methods of"emperor’s power far away from the countryside"and"town in charge of village affairs",which shows that the extreme grass-roots management system is not conducive to rural development.This paper also points out that rural development needs to find a road of sustainable development in line with its own characteristics,which is the fundamental shortcut to change poverty and become rich for a long time.

A Geographic Information Systems approach for classifying and mapping forest management category in Baihe Forestry Bureau, Northeast China

This paper demonstrates a Geographic Information Systems （GIS） procedure of classifying and mapping forest management category in Baihe Forestry Burea, Jilin Province, China. Within the study area, Baihe Forestry Bureau land was classified into a two-hierarchy system. The top-level class included the non-forest and forest. Over 96% of land area is forest in the study area, which was further divided into key ecological service forest （KES）, general ecological service forest （GES）, and commodity forest （COM）. COM covered 45.0% of the total land area and was the major forest management type in Baihe Forest Bureau. KES and GES accounted for 21.2% and 29.9% of the total land area, respectively. The forest management zones designed with GIS in this study were then compared with the forest management zones established using the hand draw by the local agency. There were obvious differences between the two products. It suggested that the differences had some to do with the data sources, basic unit and mapping procedures. It also suggested that the GIS method was a useful tool in integrating forest inventory data and other data for classifying and mapping forest zones to meet the needs of the classified forest management system.

Ecosystem Management and Forestry

In this paper, the conceptions and developments of ecosystem and ecosystem ecology were reviewed and summarized. Then, the conception, connotation, objective, and development of ecosystem management were expounded. Based on these discussions, forest ecosystem management was discussed. The viewpoint was that the former unreasonable forest resources management should be changed, and forest ecosystem management was a suitable way to sustainable development of forestry. The chief research contents were also pointed out in this paper.

Forestry under Climate Change. Is Time a Tool for Sustainable Forest Management?

Changing climate conditions are known to influence forest tree growth response and the CO2 cycle. Dendroclimatological research has shown that the climate signal, species composition, and growth trends have changed in different types of forest ecosystems during the last century. Under current and demonstrated changes in climate variability at the geographic, regional, and local levels tree growth shows also variability and trends that can be non-stationary during time even at relatively short distance between sites. In forest planning and management, yield tables, site quality indices, age class, rate of growth, and spatial distribution are some of the most used tools and parameters. However, these methods do not involve climate variability during time although climate is the main driver in trends of forest and tree growth. Previous research warns about the risk that forest management under changing climatic conditions could amplify their negative effects. For example, changing climate conditions may impact on temperature and/or precipitation thresholds critical to forest tree growth. Forest biomass, resilience, and CO2 storage may be damaged unless forest planning and management implement the relationships between climate variability and trends of tree growth. A positive aspect is that, periods of favorable climate conditions may allow harvesting higher amount of wood mass and storing more CO2 than traditional planning methods. And, the average length of both favorable and adverse periods appears to occur within the validity period of a forest management plan. Here, we show a conceptual development to implement climate variability in forest management in the view of continuing the research.

Educational Reform in Management Courses of Agricultural & Forestry Higher Vocational Schools from the Perspective of Microblog

At present there are many socialized microblog platforms.With powerful mobility,real-time information,fragment of information dissemination,and innovation of interaction,the microblog has become a socialized interaction mode in recent years.Since microblog is very popular with students of agricultural and forestry higher vocational schools,with the rising and development of network education,the microblog as a new information platform will be used by more and more teachers in education.From the perspective of microblog,this paper studied educational reform in management courses of agricultural and forestry higher vocational schools,in the hope of providing certain reference and help for current education practice of agricultural and forestry management courses.

Research on the Construction of the Management Mechanism for Forestry Cadres' Education and Training

For the basic condition that the quality and efficiency of forestry cadres' education and training in China are not high at present, this paper first analyzes the necessity of constructing the management mechanism for forestry cadres' education and training from two aspects: improve the quality of forestry cadres' education and training and the inherent needs of forestry development, and also summarizes the existing problems in the management of forestry cadres' education and training in China at present, and finally, this paper puts forward the corresponding solutions from four aspects: strengthen macro planning, strengthen the construction of the quality supervision mechanism, reform the incentive system and safeguard the mechanism.

Optimizing any-aged management of mixed boreal forest under residual basal area constraints

The current trend of forest management in many countries is reduced use of clear-felling and planting, and increased use of continuous cover management. In Finland, the new forest act of 2014 made all types of cuttings equally allowable on the condition that if the post-cutting residual stand basal area is too low, the stand must be regenerated within certain time frame. Forest landowner can freely choose between even-and uneven-aged management. This study developed a method for opti-mizing the timing and type of cuttings without the need to categorize the management system as either even-aged or uneven-aged. A management system that does not set any requirements on the sequence of post-cutting diameter distributions is called any-aged management. Planting or sow-ing was used when stand basal area fell below the required minimum basal area and the amount of advance regeneration was less than required in the regulations. When the cuttings of 200 stands managed earlier with even-aged silviculture were optimized with the developed system, final felling followed by artificial regeneration was selected for almost 50%of stands. Reduction of the minimum basal area limit greatly decreased the use of artificial regeneration but improved profitability, suggesting that the truly optimal management would be to use natural regeneration in financially mature stands. The optimal type of thinning was high thinning in 97-99%of cases. It was calculated that the minimum basal area re-quirement reduced the mean net present value of the stands by 12-16%when discount rate was 3-5%.

Which type of forest management provides most ecosystem services？

Background： Forest ecosystems are increasingly seen as multi-functional production systems, which should provide, besides timber and economic benefits, also other ecosystem services related to biological diversity, recreational uses and environmental functions of forests. This study analyzed the performance of even-aged rotation forest management （RFM）, continuous cover forestry （CCF） and any-aged forestry （AAF） in the production of ecosystem services. AAF allows both even-aged and uneven-aged management schedules. The ecosystem services included in the analyses were net present value, volume of harvested timber, cowberry and bilberry yields, scenic value of the forest, carbon balance and suitability of the forest to Siberian jay. Methods： Data envelopment analysis was used to derive numerical efficiency ratios for the three management systems. Efficiency ratio is the sum of weighted outputs （ecosystem services） divided by the sum of weighted inputs. The linear programing model proposed by Charnes, Cooper and Rhodes was used to derive the weights for calculating efficiency scores for the silvicultural systems. Results and conclusions： CCF provided more ecosystem services than RFM, and CCF was more efficient than RFM and AAF in the production of ecosystem services. Multi-objective management provided more ecosystem services （except harvested timber） than single-objective management that maximized economic profitability. The use of low discount rate （resulting in low cutting level and high growing stock volume） led to better supply of most ecosystems services than the use of high discount rate. RFM where NPV was maximized with high discount rate led to particularly poor provision of most ecosystem services. In CCF the provision of ecosystem services was less sensitive to changes in discount rate and management objective than in RFM.

Young and old forest in the boreal:critical stages of ecosystem dynamics and management under global change

The circumboreal forest encompasses diverse landscape structures, dynamics and forest age distributions determined by their physical setting, and historical and current disturbance regimes. However, due to intensifying forest utilisation, and in certain areas due to increasing natural disturbances, boreal forest age-class structures have changed rapidly, so that the proportion of old forest has substantially declined, while that of young post-harvest and post-natural-disturbance forest proportions have increased. In the future, with a warming climate in certain boreal regions, this trend may further be enhanced due to an increase in natural disturbances and large-scale use of forest biomass to replace fossil-based fuels and products.The major drivers of change of forest age class distributions and structures include the use of clearcut shortrotation harvesting, more frequent and severe natural disturbances due to climate warming in certain regions. The decline in old forest area, and increase in managed young forest lacking natural post-disturbance structural legacies,represent a major transformation in the ecological conditions of the boreal forest beyond historical limits of variability.This may introduce a threat to biodiversity, ecosystem resilience and long-term adaptive capacity of the forest ecosystem.To safeguard boreal forest biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, and to maintain the multiple services provided to societies by this forest biome, it is pivotal to maintain an adequate share and the ecological qualities of young postdisturbance stages, along with mature forest stages with old-growth characteristics. This requires management for natural post-disturbance legacy structures, and innovative use of diverse uneven-aged and continuous cover management approaches to maintain critical late-successional forest structures in landscapes.

A review of ecological mechanisms for management practices of protective forests

A protective forest,including shelterbelt,windbreak,and shelter forest as its synonyms,is characterized by the protective functions of various forest types distributed or planted on ecologically fragile areas or nearby the objects that need to be protected using the ecological effects of forests.Ecological mechanisms for management practices of protective forests is one of the disciplinary orientations in forest ecology and management.Most protective forest studies are dependent on forestry eco-engineering,such as the Great Plains Shelterbelt Project in the United States,the Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature in the Soviet Union,and the Three-North Afforestation Program in China.The development of sustainable management of protective forests has been given increasing attention by governments,scientists,and media due to their impacts on environment conservation and global change.We introduce forestry ecoengineering and provide a review of their main ecological mechanisms for management practices of protective forests.Ecological mechanisms for management systems currently applied are emphasized,i.e.,the theory of protection maturity and phase-directional management;the relationship between structure and protective functions and structural optimization measures;and,the decline mechanism and ecological restoration strategies.In addition,several unresolved problems in management practices of protective forests are discussed as well as the prospects for ecological mechanisms for management practices of protective forests in the future,which include:(1)theories and technologies for management practices of protective forests at the landscape or regional scale;(2)the decline mechanisms and corresponding ecological restoration approaches across multiple scales;and,(3)the comprehensive assessment of forestry eco-engineering at large-scales based on ecosystem principles.

Stand management optimization——the role of simplifications

Background:Studies on optimal stand management often make simplifications or restrict the choice of treatments,Examples of simplifications are neglecting natural regeneration that appears on a plantation site,omitting advance regeneration in simulations,or restricting thinning treatments to low thinning(thinning from below).Methods:This study analyzed the imparts of simplifications on the optimization results for Fennoscandian boreal forests.Management of pine and spruce plantations was optimized by gradually reducing the number of simplifying assumptions.Results:Forced low thinning,cleaning the plantation from the natural regeneration of mixed species and ignoring advance regeneration all had a major impact on optimization results.High thinning(thinning from above) resulted in higher NPV and longer rotation length than thinning from below.It was profitable to leave a mixed stand in the tending treatment of young plantation.When advance regeneration was taken into account,it was profitable to increase the number of thinnings and postpone final felling.In the optimal management,both pine and spruce plantation was gradually converted into uneven-aged mixture of spruce and birch.Conclusions:The results suggest that,with the current management costs and timber price level,it may be profitable to switch to continuous cover management on medium growing sites of Fennoscandian boreal forests.

The challenge of applying governance and sustainable development to wildland fire management in Southern Europe

This paper discusses participatory processes in wildland fire management （WFM）. Participation is an essential element of both the European Sustainable Development （SD） Strategy and the White Paper on Governance. Governance end SD have thus become an interconnected challenge to be applied to WFM （as a sub-area in forest policy）, amongst other policies. An overspread weakness in WFM is lack of real participation of stakeholders. Absence of （or deficient） participation can seriously impair contribution of this group to WFM in high-risk areas and runs counter governance and the SDS. Further, this weakness might prevent an efficient use of fire as a land management tool （prescribed burning, PB） and as a technique for fighting wildfire （suppression fire, SF）. Even though these fire practices have been well known in many different places, they have been increasingly neglected or Prohibited over time in Southern Europe. At present, forest and fire fighting administrations are turning their eyes back on them and analyzing the benefits of using fire in relation to preventive and suppressive actions. Therefore, participatory and diffusion mechanisms （the latter adopting the shape of national and international experts＇ networks） are required in order to solve the so- called fire paradox： that is, the need to move from a one-dimensinnal perception of the negative impacts of fire to a more sophisticated one that also stresses its positive effects. Governance, based on broad social participation, and diffusion, through fire networks, are of utmost importance in order, first, to diminish long-standing suspicion amongst different interests as to the use of fire and, secondly, to diffuse best practices associated with PB and SF. Most importantly, the ELI should exercise its environmental leadership so that these new fire practices and sustainable WFM are diffused across the international arena.

Shifting Private Timberland Ownership in South Carolina: Implications for Management Intensity

Beginning in the late 1970’s forest industry timberland gained the eye of financial investors. Diamond International and Crown Zellerbach were early firms that were purchased for the “break-up value” of their timberland. Timberland was perceived as undervalued by investors and made forest industry firms attractive takeover targets. This started a process where forest industry divested of its timberland. Some firms formed separate entities for its timberland base. Acquisitions and mergers became popular in the industry. Some forest industry companies converted to real estate investment trusts, for tax and defensive reasons. Large institutional investors became interested in timberland as means to diversify their portfolios and increase financial performance. Timber management investment organizations developed to manage and procure timberland for these institutional investors. Today little of the forest industry timberland remains with vertically-integrated forest products companies. South Carolina’s forest industry timberland decreased by about 800,000 ha since 1993 (or nearly 90%). This has implications for the state’s timber supply. Forest industry timberlands were some of the most productive and intensively managed forests in the state. We address how forest management might change on this timberland and how long-term timber supply might be impacted in the state.

Is adaptive management helpful for developing new harvesting technique and equipment

Faced with the conflict between the environmental protection and timber production, the concept of new forestry and the effect of new forestry objectives on existing harvesting techniques and equipment have been introduced. Adaptive management-a help tool for developing new harvesting techniques and equipment has been proposed. An adaptive approach for developing a forest harvesting for new forestry should be composed of careful planing, considerable hypotheses, detailed testing and evaluating as well as correct and fast feedback. New forestry practices are by no means easy because the complexity of the problem and almost every thing is new. We will see more successful new harvesting techniques and equipment being developing by adaptive approach for new forestry in the future.

Development and evaluation of local communities incentive programs for improving the traditional forest management:A case study of Northern Zagros forests,Iran

We examined the local community incentive programs to improve traditional forest management in three forested villages in Baneh city, Kurdistan province in the northern Zagros forests of western Iran. Zagros forests cover 6.07 million ha and support rich plant and animal diversity. Changes in local community social and economic sys-tems and the inefficiency of traditional forest management led to a criti-cal situation in the stability of forest regeneration in recent decades. Due to a shortage of productive and arable lands and resulting unemployment and poverty, people overexploited the Zagros forests. Outside interven-tion in traditional forest management creates conflicts between local peoples and forest management organizations. To achieve sustainable forest management, including forest resources conservation and im-provement of natural resource based livelihoods of communities, it is desirable to implement Forestry Incentive Programs （FIP） based on the important functions of forests. Detailed information on the so-cio-economics of communities, the effect of forests on local livelihoods, and lists of products extracted from the forest were obtained from a sur-vey of local communities though questionnaire, interview and observa-tion. We studied 276 households in three villages and completed 76 ques-tionnaires by householders in the quantitative analysis. Sampling was performed by simple random sampling （SRS）. The needs of rural com-munities, such as livestock husbandry, mainly arise from the characteris-tics and environmental features of villages. We identified the driving forces, pressures, status, impacts and responses （DPSIR） to design incen-tive programs, by DPSIR analysis and interaction analysis. Evaluation of local community benefits from forests showed that in order to improve forest management, 319 dollars per year would be needed by each family as an incentive in 2010 to prevent lopping and firewood collecting, the main causes of forest degradation.

Optimal Management of the Spare Parts Stock at Their Regular Distribution

The article presents a model for optimal management of the SP(Spare Parts)stock at their regular distribution.The present research discussion is a multi-nomenclature model with a fixed limit of the stock's value.A study was carried out on the optimal value of storage cost for a unit of stock at a unit of time(hj),optimal value of the demand intensity(λj)and the optimal price of a stock unit(cj),subject to the restriction for the upper limit K of the total value of stocks.

Model for Optimal Management of the Spare Parts Stock at an Irregular Distribution of Spare Parts

The article presents a model for optimal management of the SP(Spare Parts)stock when they are irregularly distributed.The SPs are distributed irregularly and the supply and purchase costs depend on the number of elements.It is necessary to fix the optimal number of supplies,for which the total purchase and storage are minimal.

Family Forest Owners’ Motivation to Control Understory Vegetation: Implications for Consulting Forestry

Forest vegetation management has evolved as a recognized component of intensive forest management practice. It involves the management of competing vegetation necessary to obtain the high yields expected in modern forest plantations via control of interfering plants that influence regeneration outcome, impact timber stand development, and limit native plant and wildlife diversity. It includes cultural control, fire control, mechanical control, biological control, and chemical control. The public perception of forest vegetation management, especially chemical control, is sometimes negative due to health and environmental concerns. It is an important tool in the forest management alternatives available to consulting foresters managing family forest lands (the vast majority of private forest land in the United States). We report on a study that addresses the motivations of family forest owners that implement forest vegetation management practices and the motivation of those who chose not to implement after forester recommendations to do so. For those who do implement forest vegetation management, improvement of wildlife habitat and increased timber growth was the main motivation. For those who did not, cost was the main concern. Size of forest holding plays a major role in determining who will practice intensive forestry.

Changing Forestry Policy by Integrating Water Aspects into Forest/Vegetation Restoration in Dryland Areas in China

Restoration forestry （forest rehabilitation） or re-vegetation is one effective measure to solve environmental problems, notably soil erosion. It may be further stimulated by the Clean Development Mechanism for carbon sequestration. However, there is an intensive and on-going debate about the adverse effects arising from afforestation in dryland areas, such as soil drying up which may cause further damage to the success of forest restoration, and the water yield reduction from watershed which may harm the regional development. On other hand, some preliminary studies showed a possibility that these adverse effects may be diminished more or less by properly designing the system structure and spatial distribution of forest/vegetation in a watershed. However, it is urgent to develop an evidence-based and sustainable new forestry policy for harmonizing forest-water interrelation. As a leading country in afforestation, China is beginning to develop a more trans-disciplinary and cross-sectoral forestry policy for harmonizing forestry development with water management. The main points of the changing new forestry policy should include： （1） Establishing a regional development strategy focusing on harmonized forest-water relations; （2） Taking forest-water interactions as an important part of evaluation; （3） Reducing the ＇eco-water＇ quota of forests through technical advancement; （4） Developing and extending water-adaptive forest management practices; （S） Strengthening forest ecohydrological research and decision support ability.

Delivering forestry courses online:experiences,lessons learned,and future of forestry online education in the Asia Pacifi c

Innovation in forestry education is needed to address changing contexts of the positionality of forests.This is particularly signifi cant in the Asia–Pacifi c region,where deforestation and degradation are high.However,the accessibility of high-quality forestry education to address changing regional and global contexts is lacking.A series of innovative sustainable forest management(SFM)open education resource(OER)courses were developed and implemented to improve the accessibility of SFM education to enhance teaching quality,curriculum,and research capacity of universities in the Asia-Pacifi c Region.To evaluate the SFM-OER program in terms of student experiences,this study investigated student achievement,perceived success of the pedagogical approach and instructional design,and perceived eff ectiveness of the learning activities in promoting active and transformative learning through the assessment of a 1,191-course feedback survey between 2018 and 2020,including the global pandemic.This study revealed that the program attracted diverse student demographics,including a higher proportion of female students majoring in forestry,ecology,and other environmental studies.Their primary motivation to participate in the courses was to gain international experience,followed by the fl exibility of online learning,mandatory course requirements,and earning course credits.Students were satisfi ed with the Canvas learning management system.Most students spent less than 5 to 10 h of their weekly time in the course and agreed or strongly agreed that the workloads were manageable.Students refl ected positively on various learning activities and assignments,such as watching lecture videos,taking quizzes,reading and summarizing,having discussions,and peer review writing.However,they did not clearly prefer specifi c learning activities,signifying the importance of using diverse learning activities to satisfy diverse individual learning styles in online settings.This analysis contributes to the further development of student-centered pedagogical development for online learning and provides insight into the ways forward for online higher forestry education,while repurposing existing OER courses in a post-Covid-19 era.