Dealing with non-linearity and uncertainty in forest management

Forest managers today are struggling with the great uncertainties and rapid changes in many biophysical and socioeconomic aspects of their work. We argue in this review that viewing forests and forest management as complex adaptive systems and acknowledging non-linearity and uncertainty in forest dynamics and management provide an alternative for both production- and conservation-oriented forests to the traditional command and control approaches that have been advocated so far in forestry.We first discuss the concepts of nonlinearity and uncertainty in forest dynamics and management. We then propose a set of broad principles and approaches that are required for forest managers to better incorporate these new concepts into practices. These span from (1) relaxing and expanding the sustained-yield and single-good paradigm, (2) moving the target for assessing success in silviculture from predetermined strict outcomes for each and every stand to an envelope of possible outcomes that are acceptable for one or multiple stands, and (3) using approaches and modeling tools to assess as large a range of possible outcomes as possible instead of the traditional mainly deterministic and static modeling tools

From management to stewardship: Viewing forests as complex adaptive systems in an uncertain world

The world's forests and forestry sector are facing unprecedented biological, political, social, and climatic challenges. The development of appropriate, novel forest management and restoration approaches that adequately consider uncertainty and adaptability are hampered by a continuing focus on production of a few goods or objectives, strong control of forest structure and composition, and most importantly the absence of a global scientific framework and long-term vision. Ecosystem-based approaches represent a step in the right direction, but are limited in their ability to deal with the rapid pace of social, climatic, and environmental changes. We argue here that viewing forest ecosystems as complex adaptive system provides a better alternative for both production- and conservation-oriented forests and forestry. We propose a set of broad principles and changes to increase the adaptive capacity of forests in the face of future uncertainties. These span from expanding the sustained-yield, single-good paradigm to developing policy incentives and interventions that promote self-organization and integrated social-ecological adaptation

Viewing forests through the lens of complex systems science

Complex systems science provides a transdisciplinary framework to study systems characterized by (1) heterogeneity, (2) hierarchy, (3) self-organization, (4) openness, (5) adaptation, (6) memory, (7) non-linearity, and (8) uncertainty. Complex systems thinking has inspired both theory and applied strategies for improving ecosystem resilience and adaptability, but applications in forest ecology and management are just beginning to emerge. We review the properties of complex systems using four well-studied forest biomes (temperate, boreal, tropical and Mediterranean) as examples. The lens of complex systems science yields insights into facets of forest structure and dynamics that facilitate comparisons among ecosystems. These biomes share the main properties of complex systems but differ in specific ecological properties, disturbance regimes, and human uses. We show how this approach can help forest scientists and managers to conceptualize forests as integrated social-ecological systems and provide concrete examples of how to manage forests as complex adaptive systems. © 2014 Filotas et al