The Practice of Silviculture

Applied Forest Ecology

Mark S. Ashton, Matthew J. Kelty

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781119271307
• Edition: 10
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Ecology
• Index: Biological Sciences

The most up-to-date, comprehensive resource on silviculture that covers the range of topics and issues facing today's foresters and resource professionals

The tenth edition of the classic work, The Practice of Silviculture: Applied Forest Ecology, includes the most current information and the results of research on the many issues that are relevant to forests and forestry. The text covers such timely topics as biofuels and intensive timber production, ecosystem and landscape scale management of public lands, ecosystem services, surface drinking water supplies, urban and community greenspace, forest carbon, fire and climate, and much more.

In recent years, silvicultural systems have become more sophisticated and complex in application, particularly with a focus on multi-aged silviculture. There have been paradigm shifts toward managing for more complex structures and age-classes for integrated and complementary values including wildlife, water and open space recreation. Extensively revised and updated, this new edition covers a wide range of topics and challenges relevant to the forester or resource professional today. This full-color text offers the most expansive book on silviculture and:

• Includes a revised and expanded text with clear language and explanations
• Covers the many cutting-edge resource issues that are relevant to forests and forestry
• Contains boxes within each chapter to provide greater detail on particular silvicultural treatments and examples of their use
• Features a completely updated bibliography plus new photographs, tables and figures

The Practice of Silviculture: Applied Forest Ecology, Tenth Edition is an invaluable resource for students and professionals in forestry and natural resource management.

Part 1
Introduction to Silviculture

A history of silviculture and the philosophical approach taken in this book.

1
The History and Philosophy of Silviculture

Introduction

There are three parts to this chapter that describe silviculture as an evolving sub‐discipline of applied ecology and its contribution to the well‐being of society. The three parts include: (1) history, (2) philosophy, and (3) the literature and sub‐disciplines of research relevant to current resource issues. The first part summarizes the origins and evolution of silviculture as a part of an ancient indigenous agricultural practice used by many peoples for production of food and shelter in combination. Silviculture was originally the forest part of swidden systems where forest patches were cleared for agricultural use for a period of years to provide food, before being left fallow and allowed to grow back to trees, and secondary forest that was harvested for timber, fiber, fruits, and medicinals. With the development of permanent agricultural and pastoral fields, silvicultural systems followed suit and forests and woodlands were managed separately from agriculture. There is then a discussion of silviculture’s systematic evolution as a science in response to the degeneration and degradation of forest lands associated with the industrialization of economies in central Europe, then in North America, and subsequently elsewhere. A synopsis of silviculture’s roots to reforestation and restoration in Germany, British India, and the United States follows. Finally there is a discussion of silviculture as it is practiced at present.

The second part comprises a discussion of the different philosophical approaches of silviculture. It first describes silviculture as an ecological technology. It shows that silviculture has a relationship with the social sciences and contributes to the management discipline of forests and woodlands. It describes how silviculture should be used as part of a long‐term economic view for the betterment and sustainability of social values obtained from trees. It then discusses the variations in the intensity of practice in relation to circumstance. This part of the chapter concludes with a philosophical perspective of how silviculture should be applied to forests.

The third part comprises a synthesis of the silvicultural literature as a body of scientific knowledge. It uses the literature to discuss modern day developments in silvicultural research as a sub‐discipline of ecology, and then relates this body of research to today’s resource issues.

Silviculture, its Origin and Development as an Applied Ecology

Silviculture is the oldest application of the science of ecology and is a field that was recognized before the term ecology was coined (Toumey, 1928). Many of the ways of developing forest stands rest heavily on cuttings that alter or modify the stand environment in order to regulate the growth of remaining vegetation. The reliance on ecological knowledge in silviculture is therefore all the better for not simply resting on philosophical principle. The economic returns from forestry are usually not great enough to protect forests from all the shifts and changes of nature. Therefore, silviculture is usually far more the imitation of the natural processes of forest growth and development, than of completely substituting a new stand for them.

Silviculture as a Preindustrial Construct

Silviculture, as a practice of cultivating and growing vegetation within forests and woodlands, has a much longer history of development and learning over thousands of years than its more recent transformation into a science. The most ancient form of silviculture was, and still is in the more remote forests of the world, a part of what is called swidden agriculture. It is a temporary intensive cultivation of a patch of cleared forest for food crops, which is then either abruptly or more slowly relinquished back to forest through succession. It is widely practiced in the more remote forest regions of the world and can be a very sustainable form of agri‐silviculture.

Such systems have different lengths of successional development before returning back for cultivation. They are largely dependent upon the soil’s inherent capacity to become fertile again. After cultivation of arable crops is stopped, many swidden systems incorporate tree plantings and intentional natural regeneration methods that are then followed up with the tending and harvesting of tree crops. Trees that provide fruits, medicinals, and building materials can be harvested with the growth of the new forest into the future until the next cycle of forest clearance and cultivation (Box 1.1). People who practiced swidden agriculture knew exactly where, when, and what tree species to cultivate within a swidden. Many swidden systems can be regarded as very sophisticated, much more so than the credit given them by western science and the modern day practice of agriculture and forestry.

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Box 1.1 Examples of preindustrial silviculture.

Swidden Cultivation System of the Yanomami in Brazil

The Yanomami Native Americans are one of the largest tribes in Latin America, straddling the borderlands of northern Brazil and southern Venezuela. The combined Yanomami territories of Brazil, comprising 23.7 million acres (9.6 million ha), and Venezuela, comprising 20.3 million acres (8.2 million ha), form the largest indigenous lands in the world (Chagnon and Gross, 1973). The lands are under threat from goldminers, cattle ranchers, and poor national government enforcement. The Yanomami live in relatively large communal houses called yanos. Men hunt and fish for game, providing about 10% of the food; women farm, providing about 80%. Only about 4 hours of work per day is necessary to maintain their way of life. Villages periodically move within the territory about every 30 years to accommodate the shifting agricultural systems. Large gardens are cleared by the men from primary forest (old‐growth) and crops (cassava, sweet potatoes, plantains, beans, corn, squash) are cultivated by the women for only 2–3 years because the soils are so infertile (Fig. 1). New gardens are then created in another patch of primary forest. Old gardens are used for hunting animals that like early successional habitat, harvesting insect grubs feeding upon young growth, and harvesting fruit, medicinals, and vines for cordage and basketry (Nilsson and Fearnside, 2011). It usually takes no longer than 2 hours walk to get to a garden from the village. Several gardens are worked at the same time. In other areas, the Yanomami have old groves of fruit trees planted and then protected from years ago. The total number of plant species used by the Yanomami is well over 500 and cater to every necessity of life ranging from toothpicks, to foods, to medicines, to fish poisons. Hunting for different purposes is carefully zoned across the forest for different kinds of game and for hunting at different seasons and even times of day. Other zones are restricted as game preserves. All of this means there is an extensive trail network for the different hunting and gardening practices.

Box 1.1 Figure 1 An aerial view of swidden cultivation in the Amazon comprising a patchwork of current and abandoned fields.

Source: R. Butler, 2008. Reproduced with permission from Rhett Butler/mongabay.com.

Cultivation Systems of Native Americans in Eastern North American Oak Forests

Indigenous peoples of North America strongly influenced the landscape vegetation of the eastern oak forests of the United States. They did this by cultivating crops. However they also manipulated tree density and species composition to increase mast and game populations, to encourage easy woodland travel, and to reduce pests and disea...