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Author(s):
Dan Brinkley, Mark A. Adams, Todd Fredericksen, Jean Paul Laclau, Harri Mäkinen, Cindy E. Prescott
Year Published:

Cataloging Information

Topic(s):
Human Dimensions of Fire Management

NRFSN number: 16725
Record updated:

The structures, patterns, and processes of the forests of the world develop from ecological interactions among hugely diverse types of organisms interacting with environmental factors at specific places and times on the Earth’s surface. The science of ecology helps us develop frameworks for understanding these structures, patterns and processes, leading to descriptive studies and experiments that increase our insights into the nature of forests across space and time. Forest management changes the structure, patterns, and processes of forests, produce goods and services for people. These activities may be informed by scientific insights, though forest management has a much longer history than ecological science. Modern forest management relies heavily on insights from ecological science. Management approaches may call for the use of “the best available science,” but the dynamics of real forests may not be very deterministic and more flexible views of science and management may be productive (cf. Aplet and McKinley, 2017, Matonis et al., 2017). Various simple characterizations might represent the classical framework of ecological insight informing forest management (Fig. 1). In this Editors Note from the IUFRO Regional Congress for Asia and Oceania in Beijing in 2016, we suggest that a more effective framing is possible, where science and management are developed in interacting, powerful ways. We develop these ideas with two examples where science was used to inform management, and then flip the direction with two examples of how landscape-scale managed forests led to improved scientific understanding. The idea of “pocket science” is developed as an explicit approach that helps forest managers pull science and management together at the scale of forest operations, enhancing both understanding and management.

Citation

Brinkley D, Adams M, Fredericksen T, Laclau JP, Mäkinen H, Prescott C. 2018. Editorial: Connecting ecological science and management in forests for scientists, managers and pocket scientists. Forest Ecology and Management 410, p. 157-163. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2017.11.022

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