When is a forest a forest? Forest concepts and definitions in the era of forest and landscape restoration

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• 作者：Robin L. Chazdon ; Pedro H. S. Brancalion ; Lars Laestadius ; Aoife Bennett-Curry…
• 刊名：AMBIO
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：September 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：45
• 期：5
• 页码：538-550
• 全文大小：4,584 KB
• 刊物类别：Earth and Environmental Science
• 出版者：Springer Netherlands
• ISSN：1654-7209
• 卷排序：45

文摘

We present a historical overview of forest concepts and definitions, linking these changes with distinct perspectives and management objectives. Policies dealing with a broad range of forest issues are often based on definitions created for the purpose of assessing global forest stocks, which do not distinguish between natural and planted forests or reforests, and which have not proved useful in assessing national and global rates of forest regrowth and restoration. Implementing and monitoring forest and landscape restoration requires additional approaches to defining and assessing forests that reveal the qualities and trajectories of forest patches in a spatially and temporally dynamic landscape matrix. New technologies and participatory assessment of forest states and trajectories offer the potential to operationalize such definitions. Purpose-built and contextualized definitions are needed to support policies that successfully protect, sustain, and regrow forests at national and global scales. We provide a framework to illustrate how different management objectives drive the relative importance of different aspects of forest state, dynamics, and landscape context.KeywordsDeforestationForest assessmentForest managementLandscapePlantationReforestationRestoration