Talk:Forest management

Forest as property
There is little here about the value of forest land as property. Land management needs more material. Despite its ecological value, it also has economic value. Not all land is public land which the article seems to assume. --71.245.164.83 (talk) 04:38, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

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 * Sugarcane Deforestation, Bolivia, 2016-06-15 by Planet Labs.jpg

Should sustainable forest management be merged to here?
A discussion has been started on whether sustainable forest management should be merged to here? The discussion is at the talk page of WikiProject Climate Change. I am not sure what to think of that proposal. For now, I have added an excerpt under "types". The question is: what are other types of forest management that are "not sustainable"? Probably every type of forest management will want to be sustainable? Pinging User:InformationToKnowledge. EMsmile (talk) 09:37, 23 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Update: this merger has now been carried out. EMsmile (talk) 11:26, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Merge proposal
I propose merging sustainable forest management and Afforestation and Proforestation into Forest management. I think the content in those articles can easily be explained in the context of Forest management, and a merge would not cause any article-size or weighting problems in Forest management.Chidgk1 (talk) 06:42, 28 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Support: Agree with all of the above. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 16:40, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Undecided: I've voiced my concern about merging sustainable forest management into forest management in the section just above this section. This is an unanswered question to me. Also, have you purposefully left reforestation out of your list of articles to be merged in? I look forward to some forestry people weighing in soon, hopefully. The current setup is certainly rather messy with many similar, overlapping articles. EMsmile (talk) 17:45, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I do agree that the first step is to merge sustainable forest management with forest management. There is no justification for a separate article on just the sustainable aspects alone. The next merge I would vote for is to add proforestation to forest management - there is no justification for keeping a separate article on this curious side term. Then we can tackle the other 2 possible mergers ie afforestation and reforestation. Reforestation deals with rehabilitation of natural forest so I would vote it can be merged with forest management. But afforestation is a rather different beast since it deals with the culturing of forests in areas that have never been naturally forested. And there are some very big afforestation projects. What then about the article on forestry which is all inclusive covering both the science and management of forests? Forestry in principle should be the mother article and the ones discussed above sub-articles. The article forest which delineates the ecosystem should remain a standalone. There are several other articles dealing with forestry which might be added to this discussion - Forest farming, the ecosystem approach to forest management -Forest Principles - Forest produce - Forest protection - Forest transition ..... ASRASR (talk) 12:15, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for this detailed comment! It's true that forestry article is in an inexplicably poor state right now, but it's probably a good idea to keep it mostly focused on the science, and have it point here for the established practices - whether traditional or derived from forestry research.
 * With afforestation and reforestation, the first step is probably to figure out what content belongs in which article, since it seems like there a lot of overlap, with some paragraphs in afforestation really talking about restoring recently lost forest and vice versa.
 * It is possible that we might keep afforestation as a good, separate article if we move paragraphs like the one on Trillion Tree Program out of Deforestation and climate change and simply merge that article (a lot of which is just long excerpts anyway) back into deforestation itself, but that requires further investigation.
 * As for the others, there is now a whole discussion about merging forest farming and a lot of other such articles into agroforestry, which seems reasonable to me.
 * Forest protection seems like an obvious merge into this article.
 * Forest product should be merged somewhere too, but it seems like the (cited) content there isn't very cohesive, and is probably better off being pulled into better-organized existing articles. (I.e. everything under the "Forest Products in Sustainability") heading. Once that is done, the article title might be best merged to a subheading in Forest, rather than here?
 * Forest transition is described as an observed, but still somewhat theoretical trend that is a not-fully-intended outcome of disparate forest management actions, so keeping it as a separate article looks reasonable - particularly if it can be updated with proper references beyond 2000s.
 * And lastly, Forest Principles seems like it would do best as a subsection in United Nations Forum on Forests. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 19:45, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
 * @EMsmile Yes I left reforestation out on purpose as it is well-known so I thought proposing merging would generate  too much opposition   Chidgk1 (talk) 09:29, 2 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Oppose: The key to me is the following sentence in the forest management introduction: "Management objectives can be for conservation, utilisation, or a mixture of the two." Conceptually, there *are* forms of forest management which are unsustainable, including clearcutting, deforestation, etc. The sustainable forest management article is a fairly well developed, while forest management is not much more than a stub. I would leave them as-is for now. DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 13:45, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
 * @DASonnenfeld Sorry I don’t quite understand your reasoning here. I take your point that that some forest management is unsustainable but surely merging the sustainable forest management article in would vastly improve the forest management article would it not? Chidgk1 (talk) 09:25, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Do you also oppose merging proforestation and afforestation into here? Chidgk1 (talk) 09:32, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
 * An analogy might be economic development and sustainable development. While logically the latter is a variation of the former, they are sufficiently different to merit their own articles. As I read the lead, proforestation would seem to be synonymous with forest conservation; since the latter redirects to sustainable forest management, I think it would be okay to merge those two articles. And, indeed, clearcutting remains an active (and still debated) forest management practice. Rather than having one huge article, I would suggest thinking about ways of making forest management a broad, meta-entry; while maintaining subtopics such as sustainable forest management as standalone articles. My two cents... DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 12:10, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Hi DA Sonnenfeld, Would you be able to help with making forest management a broad, meta-entry? Can you adapt its current structure accordingly, perhaps by using excerpts like I did for the section on "sustainable forest management" within forest management? This would help bring clarity. EMsmile (talk) 16:00, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Hi @Emsmile, I'm flat out now for a bit. But here is where one might start (from the 'See also' section of the article): Community forestry; Coppicing; Even-aged timber management; Forest farming. One could reasonably add Clearcutting, as well, I think. Thanks, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 19:38, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I've continued this discussion in a separate section below. EMsmile (talk) 07:44, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
 *  Comment: it's true that if we merged sustainable forest management to here then it would take up about 80% of the space of this article. This could be a bit imbalanced. The question is though, how do we want to describe any other forest management types in the section on Types? Which other types are there exactly if "sustainable forest management" is just one type of many? We can't really say that clearcutting, deforestation is a type of forest management, or is it? If we did identify other clear types and if they had sub-articles then we could also use excerpts from there, instead of a merger. EMsmile (talk) 15:07, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Agree to merge proforestation: And I agree to merge proforestation to forest management. That article is rather bad so will need some condensing. It was set up in 2019 by an editor who never edited since then. When you put the term "proforestation" into Google it gets about 215,000 results only. Probably not really a notable topic for a stand-alone Wikipedia article. EMsmile (talk) 15:12, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose: This will create confusion, this is a specific term. The other terms have multiple definitions. Also the number of google hits is irrelevant; proforestation is a topic contained in dozens of scientific papers. Alli Wells (talk) 19:35, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Hi Alli Wells, just because the term is used in many scientific papers doesn't per se mean it needs to be a stand-alone article. The topic is sufficiently similar to other topics describing the same thing. As was pointed out above: "As I read the lead, proforestation would seem to be synonymous with forest conservation; since the latter redirects to sustainable forest management, I think it would be okay to merge those two articles.". Merging doesn't mean the term or content would disappear from Wikipedia. Quite the contrary, it could mean that more people find out about it if it's merged (and redirected) into a broader article. EMsmile (talk) 19:56, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Merging sustainable forest management into forest management makes sense; merging afforestation and/or proforestation to subsume them under forest management does not. These terms can certainly be included on a forest management page and while retaining their own page (and can both cross reference. Alli Wells (talk) 16:33, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose: they are large articles in their own right, and being distinct subjects, they warrant separate treatment. I've expanded the article, pulling in many subtopics that were missing, using excerpt, and the subject still has many gaps.  By the time it is completed, adding the proposed merge topics would make the article way too long.    &mdash; The Transhumanist   12:34, 10 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Thank for the closure. Copied from the closure request page so that we know how to go forward: "I would advice against merging everything as there was clearly no consensus on some of the proposed merges. I would say where there is a local consensus, you can move forward with the merge keeping in mind the considerations and pitfalls that have been highlighted in the discussion (and my remarks). On some of the proposals, there was no proper consensus (and I have mentioned as such) - avoid making any changes on those. In short, don't just act on the basis of the 1-word status at the top. Instead, read my entire closing remarks along with the context of the discussion to see which merges you can move forward with. Goldenarrow9 (talk) 11:22, 22 May 2024 (UTC)" EMsmile (talk) 10:43, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Update: the merger of sustainable forest management to here has already been carried out. EMsmile (talk) 11:27, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Possibility to convert this to overview article
I am starting a new section on this, following on from the discussion above. If we want to make this into an overview article then what other types of forest management should we include? I had a look at the list article outline of forestry and there it says: Forest management – comprises the overall administrative, economic, legal, and social aspects of forest regulation
 * Analog forestry – a management focus that seeks to establish a tree-dominated ecosystem that is similar in architectural structure and ecological function to the naturally occurring climax and sub-climax vegetation community
 * Bamboo cultivation – farming and harvesting bamboo for commercial purposes such as construction.
 * ✅ Community forestry – combination of forest conservation with rural development and poverty reduction objectives, accomplished through instating a legal framework that favors profitable and sustainable forest management
 * Continuous cover forestry
 * Ecoforestry – emphasizes practices which strive to protect and restore ecosystems
 * Hardwood timber production – process of managing stands of deciduous trees to maximize woody output
 * Tree breeding – method of genetically modifying/selecting forest stock for improved growth or vigor characteristics


 * Mycoforestry – ecological forest management system implemented to enhance forest ecosystems and plant communities through the introduction of mycorrhizal and saprotrophic fungi
 * Permaforestry – approach to the wildcrafting and harvesting of the forest biomass that uses cultivation to improve the natural harmonious systems. It is a relationship of interdependence between humans and the natural systems in which the amount of biomass available from the forest increases with the health of its natural systems.
 * Plantation forestry – industrial plantations are established to produce a high volume of wood in a short period of time. Some plantations are managed by state forestry authorities (for example, the Forestry Commission in Britain) and others by paper and wood companies (such as Weyerhaeuser, Rayonier and Plum Creek Timber in the United States, Asia Pulp & Paper in Indonesia).
 * Short rotation forestry – managing a forest that utilizes fast-growing species as a bio-based energy crop for use in power stations, alone or in combination with other fuels such as coal
 * Short rotation coppice (SRC) – focus on species that are able to naturally regenerate through stump sprouts to maximize economic productivity


 * ✅ Sustainable forest management – emphasizes practices that maintain forest biodiversity, productivity, regeneration capacity, and vitality, while continuing to fulfill relevant ecological, economic and social functions
 * Tree farm – a forest or woodland owned privately where timber crop production is a major management goal

Does this help us? So we add all of these as sections under "types" and with excerpts? Or just as a listing. EMsmile (talk) 07:41, 3 May 2024 (UTC)


 * In addition, these were the types that DA Sonnenfeld mentioned above: Coppicing; Even-aged timber management; Forest farming; Clearcutting.
 * Which of all these are really types of forest management, apart from sustainable forest management? EMsmile (talk) 07:43, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Two of them definitely fall under problems that forest management has to deal with, that I've added to the article, under "Problems". ✅ Even-aged timber management ✅ Clearcutting What the article needs the most right now from a development perspective is a comprehensive heading tree. Once we have that, we'll have the framework upon which to attach excerpts and new content. I've expanded it some, but there are certainly still gaps in coverage. Feel free to rework anything and everything that I've done to the article. ;) Cheers,   &mdash; The Transhumanist   20:23, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I now think plantation forestry would be the main counterpart to sustainable foresting practices, and should be excerpted as the main counterpart to them here. Further, a lot of the sustainable forest management article is either unreferenced/poorly referenced, seems to take content directly from the source (i.e. the bullet point lists), or is not actually specific to the sustainable aspects (i.e. some paragraphs seem to belong in Agroforestry, while "By region" could easily function as an overview of forest management practices in general at the end of this article.) After this clean-up, it would be a lot more balanced here.
 * Further, there is now a proposal to merge many of the aforementioned articles into either ecoforestry (i.e. analog forestry) or agroforestry (i.e. forest farming), which I support. For the articles mentioned in the last comment, Even-aged timber management seems like it could be readily merged here, while Clearcutting probably belongs in deforestation once the dubious content (i.e. "Positive perspectives" section, where next to nothing appears to come from reliable sources) is stripped out.
 * Coppicing definitely seems like it deserves to stay standalone, but can be excerpted here. I'm not sure whether short rotation coppice is better off there or in one of the energy crop/biomass articles, but neither it nor short rotation forestry seem like they deserve to be standalone.
 * Hardwood timber production is an obvious merge somewhere - the only real question is any of it can even be verified in the first place. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 20:06, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Hardwood timber production is an obvious merge somewhere - the only real question is any of it can even be verified in the first place. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 20:06, 4 May 2024 (UTC)


 * EMsmile, since it is a parent topic, it follows that its natural progression of development is to cover its offspring. In other words, it is an overview article, just not a fully developed one. Looks like you've made a good start on gathering its subtopics from around Wikipedia.  &mdash; The Transhumanist   05:07, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Building the heading tree
What subsections are missing? To answer this question, it may be helpful to gather URLs to sources around the Web on forest management. I've started a structured list, below. Feel free to add resources and potential headings to it. By skimming the URL sources, we can ascertain how the subject breaks down... &mdash; The Transhumanist  20:51, 10 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Forest management
 * Bibliographies with classifications (potential headings)
 * Forest Management
 * Defining forest management
 * Forest Management | US Forest Service
 * Forest management
 * Forest Management | Ohioline
 * Forest Management Definition, Types & Practices | Study.com
 * Forest Management - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics
 * What is forest management? · Idaho Forests Products Commission
 * Forest Management: Definition, Strategies, Benefits and Jobs | Indeed.com
 * Forest management planning
 * Forest Management: Planning, Practices, And Implementation
 * https://www.fao.org/sustainable-forest-management/toolbox/modules/forest-management-planning/tools/en/?type=111
 * Forest Management and Planning | ScienceDirect
 * Forest Management Planning | SpringerLink
 * _ - tfc2017-026
 * Guide on multi-use forest management planning published | SFM Toolbox | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
 * Forest landscape planning and management: A state-of-the-art review - ScienceDirect
 * Forest Management Planning - 003-forest-management-planning.pdf
 * Forest management planning
 * An Overview of Forest Management Planning and Information Management | SpringerLink
 * Forest management objectives
 * Production of...
 * Timber
 * Fiber
 * Bioenergy
 * Non-wood forest products
 * Protection of soil and water
 * Conservation of biodiversity
 * In protected areas
 * Everywhere else
 * Social services
 * Recreation
 * Tourism
 * Education
 * Research
 * Conservation of cultural sites
 * Multiple use (multiple objectives from above, simultaneously)
 * Forest management practices
 * General sources
 * The Economics and Practices of Forest Management | SpringerLink
 * Timber stand improvement
 * Timber harvesting
 * Regeneration
 * Natural regeneration
 * Coppicing
 * Artificial regeneration
 * Research forests
 * About | Research Forests
 * Mitigating climate change
 * General sources
 * Managing existing forests can mitigate climate change - ScienceDirect
 * Impact of climate change on forests (what needs to be mitigated)
 * Joint forest management
 * Forest policies and laws
 * Role of NGOs in forest management
 * NGOs active in forest management
 * Forest management by region (country) — Preceding unsigned comment added by The Transhumanist (talk • contribs)


 * Thanks for starting this. Do you have time and energy to work on this article? Would be great! Regarding your listing, I've converted it to possible main level headings like this:


 * Definition and terminology
 * Objectives
 * Planning
 * Methods and practices
 * Research areas
 * Role in climate change mitigation
 * Policies and laws
 * Stakeholders and actors (this is where the info on NGOs would go)
 * By region and country

I don't know what you had in mind with "Joint forest management" - should that be under "policies and laws" maybe?

Compare to the current structure which is like this:
 * Definition
 * Wildlife considerations --> move to where in the new structure?
 * Management intensity --> move to "Methods and practices" in the new structure?
 * Public input and awareness --> move to "Stakeholders and actors" in the new structure?
 * Sustainable forest management --> move to "Methods and practices" in the new structure?
 * Problems --> this is a new section that we do need
 * Mitigation of deforestation and climate change --> is already in "Role in climate change mitigation" in the new structure (although what about the "mitigation of deforestation" part?) EMsmile (talk) 07:28, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

How does this article relate to forestry?
Copied from above: What then about the article on forestry which is all inclusive covering both the science and management of forests? Forestry in principle should be the mother article and the ones discussed above sub-articles. The article forest which delineates the ecosystem should remain a standalone. There are several other articles dealing with forestry which might be added to this discussion - Forest farming, the ecosystem approach to forest management -Forest Principles - Forest produce - Forest protection - Forest transition ..... ASRASR (talk) 12:15, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for this detailed comment! It's true that forestry article is in an inexplicably poor state right now, but it's probably a good idea to keep it mostly focused on the science, and have it point here for the established practices - whether traditional or derived from forestry research. (this was by User:InformationToKnowledge)
 * I think when we rework the structure of Forest management we should also in parallel think about the forestry article (which is in a terrible state). Is it perhaps better to merge them? If not, which is the parent article, is it forestry? For what it's worth, Chat-GPT explained it as follows: "In summary, forestry is the broader field encompassing the science and practice of managing forests, while forest management is a specific component of forestry focused on the planning and implementation of management activities within forests." EMsmile (talk) 09:24, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Far too many excerpts
We currently have 31 excerpts. I think this is far too many and does not make for comfortable reading. I do like excerpts (in principle) but 31 excerpts in one article is too many. There has to be a better solution for this. In some cases, it could rather be a list of bullet points with wikilinks. EMsmile (talk) 12:55, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Merge forestation to here?
I propose to merge forestation to here. That article is really just the parent page of afforestation and reforestation together. Alternatively, we could suggest to merge afforestation and reforestation into forestation. But I think as "forestation" is not a commonly used term, this is not ideal.

I asked Chat-GPT about this and got this answer which I thought was useful: "The term "forestation" is not as commonly used as its specific subsets "afforestation" and "reforestation." These latter terms are more frequently employed to describe the actions of planting trees in non-forested areas and replanting trees in previously forested areas, respectively. In academic and environmental discourse, you are more likely to encounter "afforestation" and "reforestation" because they provide a clearer description of the specific type of tree-planting activity being discussed. "Forestation" is a broader term that encompasses both of these activities but is less commonly used in everyday language and technical literature. Instead, people often use the more precise terms to avoid ambiguity." EMsmile (talk) 09:51, 18 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Support: Non-experts would be unlikely to search for “forestation” as “reforestation” is a far more common word. Anyone who knows to search for the word “forestation” must know enough about forests to find what they are looking for without the article. Chidgk1 (talk) 17:10, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I've started the merger process now. I am about half way through. EMsmile (talk) 11:16, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I've completed the merger. EMsmile (talk) 09:47, 17 July 2024 (UTC)