WHAT IS FORESTRY ???

Forestry is the science of understanding to manage forest resources for the benefit of man. Forestry practices to help maintain an adequate supply of wood for timber, plywood, paper, and other wood products. In addition, understanding the value of forestry include managing forest resources such as water, wildlife, grazing areas, and recreational areas.

In general, the forest provides maximum benefit when administered with the goal of providing multiple benefits at once. This concept is called "multiple use forest management" or forest management with multiple benefits. In addition to producing lumber, forests can provide clean water for people, food and shelter for wildlife; land livestock grazing, and recreation for campers, hikers, and picnics.

Each person has different interests in forests. For example, a company that manufactures wood products primarily manage their forests for commercial timber production. Or forests can be protected as a protected area and conservation area.
Countries that have forests have one government agency to manage the forest lands and conducting research.

DEFINITION OF FOREST STANDS | FOREST PATCHES

Definition of Forest Stands or Forest Patches refer to the ecosystem scale at which a relatively homogenous forest unit can be identified. The composition, structure, and ecological functions within a stand are similar enough that an ecologically responsible forest use prescription can be applied uniformly within the stand, without encountering changes in ecological parameters that may produce unexpected or undesirable results.

In conventional forestry, “stands” have largely been defined by narrow timber characteristics, which were in turn driven by short-term economic variables. However, in order to plan and carry out ecologically responsible forest uses within an ecosystem-based approach, stands must be defined in relation to whole ecosystem factors that are required to maintain fully functioning forests at the landscape and stand levels.

In other words, the boundaries of a stand are not determined by rigid human management criteria such as timber size and timber quality, but by the full spectrum of ecosystem parameters that have been shaped by natural disturbance patterns and that reflect the movement of energy, nutrients, water, and animals into and out of a particular ecosystem.

Human scales are closest to forest scales at the stand or patch level. For example, the stand or patch level is the scale where visible human modification occurs. However, an ecosystem-based approach must always consider that what occurs at the stand or visible scale will also have impacts on a variety of other scales, from the large landscape to the microscopic.

Forest succession

In forests and other natural areas, a series of orderly changes may occur in the kinds of plants and animals that live in the area. This series of changes is called ecological succession. Areas undergoing succession pass through one or more intermediate stages until a final climax stage is reached. Forests exist in intermediate or climax stages of ecological succession in a great number of places.

To illustrate how a forest develops and succession occurs, let us imagine an area of abandoned farmland in the Southeastern United States. The abandoned land will first support communities of low-growing weeds, insects, and mice. The land then gradually becomes a meadow as grasses and larger herbs and shrubs begin to appear. At the same time, rabbits, snakes, and ground-nesting birds begin to move into the area.

In a few years, young pine trees stand throughout the meadow. As the trees mature, the meadow becomes an intermediate forest of pines. The meadow herbs and shrubs die and are replaced by plants that grow better in the shade of the pine canopy. As the meadow plants disappear, so do the food chains based on them. New herbivores and predators enter the area, forming food chains based on the plant life of the pine forest.

Years pass, and the pines grow old and large. But few young pines grow beneath them because pine seedlings need direct sunlight. Instead, broadleaf trees-particularly oaks-form the understory. As the old pines die, oaks fill the openings in the canopy. Gradually, a mixed deciduous-evergreen forest develops.

But the succession is still not complete. Young oaks grow well in the shade of the canopy, but pines do not. Therefore, a climax oak forest may eventually replace the mixed forest. However, pine wood is more valuable than oak wood. For this reason, foresters in the Southeastern United States use controlled fires to check the growth of oaks and so prevent climax forests from developing. 

Different successional series occur in different areas. In southern boreal regions, for instance, balsam fir and white spruce dominate the climax forests. If fire, disease, or windstorms destroy a coniferous forest, an intermediate forest of trembling aspen and white birch may develop in its place. These deciduous trees grow better in direct sunlight and on unprotected, bare ground than do fir and spruce.

The aspen-birch forest provides the protection young boreal conifers need, and soon spruce and fir seedlings make up most of the understory. In time, these conifers grow taller than the aspen and birch trees. Deciduous species cannot reproduce in the shade of the new canopy, and eventually the climax forest of fir and spruce trees is reestablished.