Treesearch

Citizen science and sustainability science promise the more just and democratic production of environmental knowledge and politics. In this review, we evaluate these participatory traditions within the context of (a) our theorization of how the valuation and devaluation of nature, knowledge, and people help to produce socio-ecological hierarchies, the uneven distribution of harms and benefits, and inequitable engagement within environmental politics, and (b) our analysis of how neoliberalism is reworking science and environmental governance. We find that citizen and sustainability science...

We applied an integrative framework to illuminate and discuss the complexities of exurbanization in Macon County, North Carolina. The case of Macon County, North Carolina, highlights the complexity involved in addressing issues of exurbanization in the Southern Appalachian region. Exurbanization, the process by which urban residents move into rural areas in search of unique natural amenities and idealized lifestyles, can often have a dramatic impact on the local economy, culture, and environment. Within Macon County, complex debates and tensions among multiple stakeholders struggle to...

Oak cover types comprise half of the forestlands in the eastern United States. There is a great desire to sustain these highly valued forests. Unfortunately, reports of the successional replacement of oak are all too common, as they are throughout the world. Sustaining the oak resource requires the ability to both regenerate and recruit oak into the overstory as dominant mature trees. Too often these two critical processes are disconnected in oak management, thwarting the best of intentions to sustain oak. Restoring and sustaining oak forests require active management and long-term...

This essay addresses the conservation issues facing mangroves in the Anthropocene, defined as the era of human domination over the world. We review the laws, policies, international agreements, and local actions that address the conservation of mangrove forests in the Neotropics and relate them to the Anthropocene. Collaboration between governments, non-governmental organizations, and communities that depend on mangroves for their livelihood will be critical in the Anthropocene. The essay also reviews recent developments in mangrove ecology and ecophysiology that enlighten how mangroves...

Larch tree species (Larix Mill.) are both ecologically and commercially valuable in their native range and are the focus of many restoration, afforestation, and commercial reforestation efforts in the boreal forests of the northern hemisphere. Land use change, shifting climate, and poor natural regeneration are making it increasingly difficult to establish the species; therefore, artificial regeneration is critical to ensure this timber species maintains its productive role on the landscape. New stocktypes are continually being developed to aid target seedlings for difficult sites, and...

The BehavePlus Fire Modeling System is among the most widely used systems for wildland fire prediction. It is designed for use in a range of tasks including wildfire behaviour prediction, prescribed fire planning, fire investigation, fuel hazard assessment, fire model understanding, communication and research. BehavePlus is based on mathematical models for fire behaviour, fire effects and fire environment. It is a point system for which conditions are constant for each calculation, but is designed to encourage examination of the effect of a range of conditions through tables and graphs....

Four Experimental Forests were pivotal in piloting the long-term soil productivity (LTSP) cooperative research program - one of the most successful and extensive collaborative science efforts yet undertaken by the USDA Forest Service. Launched on the Palustris, Challenge, Marcell, and Priest River Experimental Forests, LTSP traces to a seminal discussion during a field tour in central Louisiana in 1986. P. E. Avers, National Soils Program Leader in Washington DC, described to D. H. Alban and R. F. Powers a problem arising from the National Forest Management Act of 1976 (NFMA). That...

This paper was aimed at establishing the relations between some soil properties and the growth of P. taeda on its main area of commercial plantation in Argentine Mesopotamia. It was hypothesized that main cause of productivity reduction is soil depth and effective plant- available soil volume rather than nutrient content. The study area was located in Corrientes and Misiones provinces from 28º 30’ S to 25º 30’ S. Thirty-one sites were selected , in all of which : 1- soil samples were obtained for nutrients and bulk density determination, 2- dasometric variables were measured and Site Index...

The reality confronting ecosystem managers today is one of heterogeneous, rapidly transforming landscapes, particularly in the areas more affected by urban and agricultural development. A landscape management framework that incorporates all systems, across the spectrum of degrees of alteration, provides a fuller set of options for how and when to intervene, uses limited resources more effectively, and increases the chances of achieving management goals. That many ecosystems have departed so substantially from their historical trajectory that they defy conventional restoration is not in...

Hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons are common disturbances in many island and coastal forests. There is a lack of understanding of the importance to forest biota of the two major physical aspects that occur simultaneously during a hurricane: canopy disturbance and detritus (debris) deposition onto the ground. Using a replicated factorial design, our study involved experimentally determining the independent and interactive effects of canopy opening and debris additions to the forest floor on densities of coqui frogs (Eleutherodactylus coqui). Coquies are the dominant amphibian, and second...