Multifunctional Forest Management

Abstract

Forests provide a variety of ecosystem goods and services. Multifunctional forest management attempts to control natural processes in a sustainable and near-natural way so that various requirements from the society can be met. Adaptivity to changing conditions (global changes), handling of conflicting goals and the development of alternative management strategies are of central importance.

Objective

At the end of this course students will be able: - To describe forest management and silvicultural measures for enhancing forest resilience to climate change, increased disturbances, and invasive species, and evaluate their feasibility and effectiveness in various situations; - To concisely describe silvicultural options for the management of multifunctional forests and critically evaluate their feasibility and suitability; - To explain the various social expectations towards forest functions and their implications for multifunctional forest management and critically analyse conflicts and synergies resulting from different forest functions; - To carry out research on a given topic, identify relevant literature and present the results in a structured presentation and discuss the implications for forest management.

Content

The course will cover important topics for the sustainable management of multifunctional forests and present silvicultural strategies to fulfil a variety of forest ecosystem goods and services. Current and future challenges of forest management will be presented. The course is structured into the following sub-topics: 1) Global change and adaptive forest management 2) Invasive species: implications and mitigation measures 3) Introduced tree species: risks and opportunities 4) Silvicultural and forest management options the provisioning of multi-dimensional ecosystem goods and services. 5) Challenges and silvicultural strategies for wood production. 6) Integrative and segregative forest management approaches for biodiversity conservation.

Resources