ALBERT

Description: Spatial segregation of different forest landscape functions can accommodate rival forestry objectives more comprehensively than integrated approaches. Russia has a unique history of forest zoning separating production and environmental functions. However, the Russian Forest Code of 2006 increased the focus on wood production. We reviewed the history of zoning policy in Russia and assessed if the recent policy change affected logging rates and conservation of riparian forests. Using Russia’s Komi Republic as a case study, we specifically assessed (i) if policy change led to increased logging near streams, (ii) if logging rates were different in headwaters vs. main rivers, and (iii) how logging changed among catchments with different accessibility to logging. Using a global open-access remote sensing dataset, we compared mean annual forest loss as a proxy of logging rates in 10 large forested catchments in the Komi Republic in one period with strict zoning policy (2000–2006) and one with moderate zoning policy (2007–2014). Harvesting rate was positively related to the distance from streams. On the other hand, it increased after the policy change in the buffer zone but decreased outside it. Forests were harvested more in headwater buffers than along larger rivers, and harvest in the catchments near industries was higher and increasing; remote catchments had low forest loss. We discuss the opportunity for adopting forest zoning policy in different governance contexts.

Description: In an attempt to quantitatively evaluate the natural versus anthropogenic signal in site fire histories, the statistical relationship between dendrochronologically dated fire events and tree-ring chronologies (deemed to be an independent proxy for climate variation) was analyzed for 14 sites in a 2600-km2 area of pine-dominated forests in the Komi Republic (East European Russia) over the period from 1424 to 1954. We developed a cumulative measure of statistical fit between two types of fire events (early- and late-season fires) and ring-width chronologies of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) (total ring- and latewood-width chronologies). For a given site, the statistical fit between fires and tree-ring data tended to decrease with an increasing proportion of unique fire years. Distance from a site to the nearest village (deemed to be a proxy of human impact) explained 50% of the variation in statistical fit between fires and tree-ring data. The fit decreased in the majority of the sites from the earlier (14241700) to the later (17001960) periods. We interpret this to be a result of increased human impact on the fire regime since 1700 due to intensified colonization of the area.

Description: Global forest area is declining rapidly, along with degradation of the ecological condition of remaining forests. Hence it is necessary to adopt forest management approaches that can achieve a balance between (1) human management designs based on homogenization of forest structure to efficiently deliver economic values and (2) naturally emerging self-organized ecosystem dynamics that foster heterogeneity, biodiversity, resilience and adaptive capacity. Natural disturbance-based management is suggested to provide such an approach. It is grounded on the premise that disturbance is a key process maintaining diversity of ecosystem structures, species and functions, and adaptive and evolutionary potential, which functionally link to sustainability of ecosystem services supporting human well-being. We review the development, ecological and evolutionary foundations and applications of natural disturbance-based forest management. With emphasis on boreal forests, we compare this approach with two mainstream approaches to sustainable forest management, retention and continuous-cover forestry. Compared with these approaches, natural disturbance-based management provides a more comprehensive framework, which is compatible with current understanding of multiple-scale ecological processes and structures, which underlie biodiversity, resilience and adaptive potential of forest ecosystems. We conclude that natural disturbance-based management provides a comprehensive ecosystem-based framework for managing forests for human needs of commodity production and immaterial values, while maintaining forest health in the rapidly changing global environment.