When is a forest a forest? Forest concepts and definitions in the era of forest and landscape restoration
Background
This article highlights the importance of creating forest definitions--what is meant by forest, what is meant by forest loss, what is meant by forest restoration--in order to create a conceptual, institutional, legal and operational basis for forest policies and interventions.
Conclusions & Takeaways
The authors emphasize how forests can be perceived and valued differently depending on the vantage point of each actor involved. Those different values and perspectives can then lead to very different, and sometime competing, management objectives. Furthermore, the authors argue that stakeholders within the realm of forest policy should adopt a definition of a forest that is richer and more multi-dimensional than the dominant FAO definition that has been overwhelmingly been used up to this point.
Reference:
When is a forest a forest? Forest concepts and definitions in the era of forest and landscape restoration. Ambio. 2016;45:538–550. doi:10.1007/s13280-016-0772-y.
Affiliation:
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut
- International Institute of Sustainability, Rio de Janeiro, Braz
- Department of Forest Sciences, College of Agriculture, University of São Paulo
- World Resources Institute, Washington DC
- School of Geography and the Environment, Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
- CIFOR, Bogor, Indonesia
- International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Washington DC
- IFFRI, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI