Resilient Forest Management

Global forest management is now grappling with ways to address the many dimensions of global change, including a warming climate and increasing forest disturbance from fires and pest outbreaks, along with changes in public values.However, the dominant forest management paradigms still assume a constant and predictable world in which command-and-control (i.e., treating long-lived forests much like short-lived agricultural crops) and single-value (i.e., timber) optimization still prevail.This novel text argues for new approaches to forest management that focus on resilience and embracing adaptability to the changing socio-ecological environment as it unfolds.Resilience is the ability of a system to maintain its essential attributes (in the form of composition, structure, and/or function) in response to stress, disruption, or disturbance.Managing a system for resilience places an emphasis on persistence rather than growth, efficiency, or profitability, which can be fulfilled by enhancing