Module 13. Forest Landscape Planning

course_banner.jpg

Content

Introduction & Outcomes

Introduction

Up to this point in the course most of the emphasis has been on individual trees and stands of trees, but now we will broaden the perspective to consider entire forested landscapes. The focus of this module is on how mixtures of mostly forested land uses can be designed to best promote sustainability. The landscape to be considered might contain natural forests managed at different intensities, protected areas, plantations, and forest restoration areas.

Given the diversity of silvicultural options, each with its own inherent tradeoffs, as well as the diversity of forest conditions in even a small area, a landscape approach seems appropriate as a first step towards figuring out how the undesired outcomes of management can be minimized overall. Explicit recognition of tradeoffs among land uses allows increased rationality in their assessment, as opposed to attempts to maintain all values everywhere all the time.  Sizes of landscapes to be managed are likely to be dictated by existing natural constraints, negotiation, geography, and politics, but local values may bound all the others at the upper end of the spatial scale.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

  • Disaggregate the impacts of a management interventions so as to understand the associated tradeoffs.
  • Recognize the tradeoffs associated with the most common management interventions in mostly forested landscapes, including protection, which does not mean lack of management.
  • Describe the principal biophysical, socio-economic, and operational factors that determine the optimal distribution of land uses across a forested landscape.

FODE014