Monitoring And Indicators Of Forest Biodiversity In Europe

Forest biodiversity is crucial to the ecological, economic, and social well-being of earth’s civilisations. Unfortunately, however, forest biodiversity is threatened to a serious degree in nearly all countries. Therefore, many countries have agreed to be parties to international agreements focused on maintaining, restoring, and monitoring biodiversity; further, these countries have agreed to report to international bodies on forest biodiversity status and trends. NFIs are the primary source of large-scale information available for this purpose, but the large variety of definitions, protocols, sampling designs, and plot configurations used by NFIs makes comparable international reporting extremely difficult. This book presents the results of Working Group 3 of COST Action E43 in the development of harmonization techniques for common reporting of estimates of forest biodiversity indicators using NFI data. Harmonization tests were carried out on a large common data base containing raw NFI data from 13 European countries and the USA. With its collection of practical examples for the estimation of forest biodiversity indicators, it's a practical tool for anyone involved in forest inventories and in forest resource monitoring and management as well as for those involved in biodiversity assessment and reporting.

This publication offers a comprehensive assessment of the variety of forests present in Europe. Aimed at a broad readership, including politicians and environmentalists, the study examines forest biodiversity, in particular diversity by type of forest, and the different species of animals and plants that exist there, and how the ongoing natural societal influences effect and change these worlds. Jointly produced by the Economic Commission for Europe and the EC's Joint Research Centre, the publication brings together data that sets a baseline for developing processes of monitoring and protecting the bioversity of European forests.

Forest biodiversity is crucial to the ecological, economic, and social well-being of earth’s civilisations. Unfortunately, however, forest biodiversity is threatened to a serious degree in nearly all countries. Therefore, many countries have agreed to be parties to international agreements focused on maintaining, restoring, and monitoring biodiversity; further, these countries have agreed to report to international bodies on forest biodiversity status and trends. NFIs are the primary source of large-scale information available for this purpose, but the large variety of definitions, protocols, sampling designs, and plot configurations used by NFIs makes comparable international reporting extremely difficult. This book presents the results of Working Group 3 of COST Action E43 in the development of harmonization techniques for common reporting of estimates of forest biodiversity indicators using NFI data. Harmonization tests were carried out on a large common data base containing raw NFI data from 13 European countries and the USA. With its collection of practical examples for the estimation of forest biodiversity indicators, it's a practical tool for anyone involved in forest inventories and in forest resource monitoring and management as well as for those involved in biodiversity assessment and reporting.

The demand for comparable, long-term, high quality data on forest ecosystems' status and changes is increasing at the international and global level. Yet, sources for such data are limited and in many case it is not possible to compare data from different monitoring initiatives across space and time because of methodological differences. Apart from technical manuals, there is no comprehensive multidisciplinary, scientific, peer-reviewed reference for forest monitoring methods that can serve and support the user community. This book provides in a single reference the state-of-the-art of monitoring methods as applied at the international level. The book present scientific concepts and methods that form the basis of the transnational, long-term forest monitoring in Europe and looks at other initiatives at the global level. Standardized methods that have been developed over two decades in international forest monitoring projects are presented. Emphasis is put on trans-nationally harmonized methods, related data quality issues, current achievements and on remaining open questions. A comprehensive overview of needs, requirements, organization and possible outcomes of an integrated monitoring program Tested and quality assured, internationally harmonized methodologies based on a complete revision of existing methods carried out in 2009-2011 Connection with monitoring results allows assessment of the potential of the monitoring method

Forest biodiversity is crucial to the ecological, economic, and social well-being of earth’s civilisations. Unfortunately, however, forest biodiversity is threatened to a serious degree in nearly all countries. Therefore, many countries have agreed to be parties to international agreements focused on maintaining, restoring, and monitoring biodiversity; further, these countries have agreed to report to international bodies on forest biodiversity status and trends. NFIs are the primary source of large-scale information available for this purpose, but the large variety of definitions, protocols, sampling designs, and plot configurations used by NFIs makes comparable international reporting extremely difficult. This book presents the results of Working Group 3 of COST Action E43 in the development of harmonization techniques for common reporting of estimates of forest biodiversity indicators using NFI data. Harmonization tests were carried out on a large common data base containing raw NFI data from 13 European countries and the USA. With its collection of practical examples for the estimation of forest biodiversity indicators, it's a practical tool for anyone involved in forest inventories and in forest resource monitoring and management as well as for those involved in biodiversity assessment and reporting.

Despite political commitment, Europe is struggling to halt the loss of biodiversity by 2010. Forests, as the hosts of much of the biological diversity in Europe, are vital to this debate. Any initiative designed to halt the biodiversity loss in Europe must take forests into account.

Forests represent a remnant wilderness of high recreational value in the densely populated industrial societies, a threatened natural resource in some regions of the world and a renewable reservoir of essential raw materials for the wood processing industry. In June 1992 the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro initiated a world-wide process of negotiation with the aim of ensuring sustainable management, conservation and development of forest resources. Although there seems to be unanimous support for sustainable development from all quarters, there is no generally accepted set of indicators which allows comparisons to be made between a given situation and a desirable one. In a recent summary paper prepared by the FAO Forestry and Planning Division, Ljungman et al. (1999) find that forest resources continue to diminish, while being called upon to produce a greater range of goods and services and that calls for sustainable forest management will simply go unheeded if the legal, policy and administrative environment do not effectively control undesirable practices. Does the concept of sustainable forest management represent not much more than a magic formula for achieving consensus, a vague idea which makes it difficult to match action to rhetoric? The concept of sustainable forest management is likely to remain an imprecise one, but we can contribute to avoiding management practices that are clearly unsustainable.