Treesearch

Perceptions of public forests’ acceptability can be infl uenced by aesthetic qualities, at both broad and project levels, aff ecting managers’ social license to act. Legal and methodological issues related to measuring and managing forest aesthetics in NEPA and NFMA decision-making are discussed. It is argued that conventional visual impact assessments—using descriptive pictorial qualities against a naturalistic scenery standard—have limitations as legal evidence, in addressing other popular aesthetic values, and helping public participation in planning processes. But such descriptive...

Density management is implemented at a local (stand) scale, but is based on conservation goals that address a broader landscape. Although regional conservation eff orts such as the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) focus primarily on public lands, all land ownerships and allocations contribute unique benefi ts over the regional landscape that need to be considered as context for federal land management. In addition, whereas the NWFP emphasizes older forest and associated species, an ecosystem and multi-species management approach encompasses the full sequence of forest development. Recent...

REDD+ and Forest Degradation REDD+ implementation requires two key steps: (1) establish a reference emission level or reference level (RL); and (2) monitor performance against the reference level (RL). A monitoring system must be able to monitor the performance of implementing action plans to reduce emissions. Degradation activities are of concern because it is unknown to what degree they are contributing to emissions, with potentially and in some cases likely significant contributions to emissions. For REDD+ the key feature is the need to estimate the net emissions from anthropogenic-cause...

In relation to REDD+ implementation, two key steps are needed: (1) establishing a reference emission level or reference level (RL) and (2) monitoring performance against the RL. The RL is based on historic emissions and this can serve as a key starting point for designing any system for future monitoring. A monitoring system must be able to monitor the performance of implementing action plans to reduce emissions. Thus there is a need to know what actions are causing emissions. So designing a system for establishing the RL is the first step---need to know where, by which drivers, over what...

Degradation is emerging as a common outcome of forest activities, and associated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have the potential to be significant. Understanding the activities and drivers of degradation is central to the ability to effectively measure, monitor, and mitigate associated emissions. Current inventories of GHG emissions do not effectively account for degradation because emissions are difficult to detect. We conducted an assessment of degradation activities and monitoring options at the subnational scale within three countries in Southeast Asia: Viet Nam, Cambodia and Lao...

Increased greening of northern forests, measured by the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), has been presented as evidence that a warmer climate has increased both net primary productivity (NPP) and the carbon sink in boreal forests. However, higher production and greener canopies may accompany changes in carbon allocation that favor foliage or fine roots over less decomposable woody biomass. Furthermore, tree core data throughout mid- and northern latitudes have revealed a divergence problem (DP), a weakening in tree ring responses to warming over the past half century that is...

Remote sensing is an important data source for monitoring the change of forest cover, in terms of both total removal of forest cover (deforestation), and change of canopy cover, structure and forest ecosystem services that result in forest degradation. In the context of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), forest degradation monitoring requires information regarding the degree of forest disturbance that results in a reduction in carbon stock within a specific time interval. Currently, remote sensing data does not directly provide readily available information on how much...