Ensuring the sustainability of the world’s forests in these times of rapid environmental, economic, social, and political change presents considerable challenges. In particular, rapid and unprecedented change portends a future where many of the principles and conditions that we’ve relied on to guide future management may never exist again, rendering traditional approaches to forest conservation and management inadequate.
To help address this dilemma, U.S. Forest Service scientists and collaborators developed a new risk-based framework for contemplating and guiding forest conservation and management in a way that focuses on anticipating and guiding ecological responses to change. At the core of the new approach is mapping out the Achievable Future Conditions (AFCs) in relation to biophysical, socioeconomic, and political scenarios that frame the future.
The new thinking underlying the AFC approach took place at the Ichuaway Conference held in Georgia in 2013. Co-authors of the recently published article in the journal Forest Ecology and Management include Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS) scientists Jim Vose, David Wear, Katie Martin, and Kier Klepzig. Stephen Golladay from the J.W. Jones Ecological Research Center served as lead author of the article, with additional co-authors from the University of Western Australia and several U.S. universities.
“We have to realize that things are likely to be very different and that management approaches need to adapt. The AFC approach gives managers novel and flexible approaches for sustaining forests in the South under rapidly changing conditions,” said Vose, project leader, with Wear, of the SRS Center for Integrated Forest Science and Synthesis. “We’re trying to establish a management framework that more effectively anticipates and responds to changing biophysical, socioeconomic, and political conditions.”
From the USFS Southern Research Station: https://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/compass/2016/01/12/conserving-the-souths-forests-in-a-rapidly-changing-future/