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Forest as a vital natural resource in China plays an irreplaceable important role in safeguarding ecological security and human survival and development. Due to the vast territory, huge population and widespread forest landscape of China, forest management is a complex system involving massive data and various management activities. To effectively implement sustainable forest management, the big data technology has been utilized to analyze China’s forestry resources. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to clarify the role of big data technology in China’s forest management.

In this paper, the authors revisited the roles of big data in forest ecosystem monitoring, forestry management system development, and forest policy implementation.

It demonstrates that big data technology has a great potential in forest ecosystem protection and management, as well as the government’s determination for forest ecosystem protection. However, to deepen the application of big data in forest management, several challenges still need to be tackled.

Thus, enhancing modern science and technology to improve big data, cloud computing, and information technologies and their combinations will contribute to tackle the challenges and achieve wisdom of forest management.

This chapter analyzes the building of environmental governance in two post-socialist countries of Southeastern Europe, Albania, and Croatia, with a focus on forest policy reforms. After the end of the socialist era, the countries have rapidly adopted new policies and legislation directed at sustainable forest management. The main driver of policy reform is the European and international influence. Yet the developments in the countries cannot be adequately described as a mere adoption of Western-style methods and solutions, as suggested in arguments on the catch-up development of transition states. The capacities needed in post-socialist countries to deal with environmental issues differ from those in industrial societies. On the contrary, there is no essentialistic link between environmental problems and solutions to these problems in post-socialist countries. The outline of the policy reforms in Croatia and Albania reveals very different approaches to sustainable forest management and different paths in the post-socialist transition process. It is argued that capacity development in forestry in transition states needs to be based on country-specific socio-political, economic, and cultural features to be successful.

The main objectives of collective forest tenure reform in China are to stimulate rural households to invest in forestry management, protect the ecosystem and improve their livelihood. By constructing the unbalanced panel data of household investment, this study discusses the dynamic changes and influencing factors of household investment, which will lay a foundation for further research and provide a reference for decision-making.

Based on 3,500 samples from rural households in the provinces of Fujian, Hunan, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Jiangxi, Gansu, and Liaoning collected during field investigations from 2010 to 2015, this study conducts an empirical analysis of the household investment in forestry management and its factors with nonbalanced panels.

According to the analysis, the average investment in forestry management per household from 2010 to 2015 fluctuates greatly; the age of the householder, increased forestry area, subsidies, joining professional cooperatives, and forest tenure mortgage show positive effects on achieving the objectives.

The discussions are drawn from the study that supporting policies such as the forest tenure transfer system, professional cooperatives, financial services and subsidies should be further improved to sustain a positive in the forestry industry.

The purpose of this paper is to do an in-depth comprehension about local wisdom values related to the forest management in Nagari Koto Malintang, Tanjung Raya District, Agam Regency, West Sumatra Province, and to find a communication model in the forest management based on environmental awareness. Research on indigenous forest management has been widely done, but information related to information flow and communication pattern of indigenous people in conveying local wisdom values to the management of forests is little to find.

The design employed in this research was case study and field research. Field research is the research to intensively examine the background of current state of the environmental interaction according to these social units: individual, group, institution or society. The research was undertaken in Nagari Koto Malintang, Tanjung Raya District, Agam Regency. The location selection was conducted purposively under the preserved condition of the forests in Koto Malintang, despite the damages occurring to most of forests in Indonesia. The preserved condition of Nagari Koto Malintang forest is characterized by many trees with diameter of 2–3 meters left undisturbed by the communities, so that they are protected from the danger of landslides. The determination of informants in this research was made by purposive sampling.

The community and government of Nagari Koto Malintang has arranged the space and land of Nagari, by making a division as follows: the upper area is made into catchment area, middle area is made into a plantation area and settlement area and the lower area is made into cultivated land. The ecologic benefits of the forest for the community of Nagari Koto Malintang are: liberating the community from the threats of flood and galodo, providing sufficient water availability, providing good air quality and maintain and preserve flora and fauna. The perceived economic benefits are: the availability of adequate irrigation for agriculture, plantations, tabek and ponds of which crops provide economic benefits to the community. Socially, forests make the community members’ relationship grow closer, improve community participation in forest management, create jobs and maintain local knowledge and institutions.

This is one of few studies resulted from different customs and norms of each indigenous community, thus it is necessary to study the uniqueness of Nagari Koto Malintang community in managing the forest. This research was conducted to obtain complete description of how indigenous people of Nagari Koto Malintang community build communications and disseminate information related to wisdom, thus giving rise to common awareness in the sustainable forest management and ultimately bringing up a model of forest management communication.

After the Collective Forest Tenure Reform (CFTR) in China, the enthusiasm of farmers for forestry management is stimulated. However, the forest tenure security varies among farmers, making the research conclusions of its impact on forestry management efficiency inconsistent. Based on the survey data of 1,627 households from the collective forest regions in 6 provinces of China in 2017, this paper not only discusses the differences of farmers' forestry management efficiency after the reform, but also further explores the heterogeneous impact of forest tenure security on forestry management efficiency in combination with different forest management types.

This study employed the stochastic frontier production function model to measure the forestry management efficiency of farmers. Then, Tobit models were used to discuss the influencing factors of farmers' forestry management efficiency.

The results demonstrate that the improvement of farmers' forest tenure security can effectively improve forestry management efficiency, but the effect is affected by forest management types. For farmers who manage economic forests and non-timber forests, safe tenure promotes the forestry management efficiency; while for those who manage ecological public welfare forests, tenure security plays an opposite role.

Therefore, satisfying farmers' differentiated demands for forest tenure according to forest management types to improve forest tenure security and further refining supporting policies of collective forestry reform is of great significance to improve the efficiency of farmers' forestry management in collective forest regions.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse sustainable forest management in Poland in the years 2009-2015. The concept of sustainable development itself has also been analysed as the starting point for sustainable forest management development. Based on the conducted analysis of statistical data, it was attempted to answer the question about the condition of sustainable forest management in Poland.

Two basic research methods were used in the presented paper. The first of them was the analysis of existing data. The conducted analysis covered the subject literature, reports and analyses referring to forest management. The second applied research method was the statistical analysis which covered structure analysis and dynamics analysis.

It can be adopted, within the framework of general conclusions, that the condition of sustainable forest management in Poland is moderately satisfactory, with the reservation of the need to maintain and intensify all processes and projects aimed at the implementation of the broadly approached concept of sustainable development.

The core of the study is focused on the statistical analysis of selected forest management aspects in Poland in the context of the assessment of sustainable forest management condition, with particular emphasis on forest cover, defoliation, forest area, restoration and afforestation, tree planting, wood harvesting, average wood sales price, excluding land from forest production for non-forest purposes. The importance of environmental education was also highlighted.

Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) offers a framework for open and participatory forest management for forest actors, particularly communities fringing forest reserves. This paper aimed to determine the factors influencing the participation of local communities in the implementation and monitoring of Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade-Voluntary Partnership Agreement (FLEGT-VPA) activities.

The study was conducted in three communities in Goaso Forest District in the Ahafo Region of Ghana. Based on a cross-sectional design, 105 (n = 105) community members were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. Logistic regression analysis was performed to identify socio-demographic and cultural factors that influence people's participation in FLEGT-VPA activities. Friedman and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were conducted to analyse the influence of the environmental role of the forest and participation in FLEGT-VPA activities.

The study found a significant association between the leadership status of respondents' local customs/taboo days and participation in both implementation and monitoring activities. At the same time, a significant association was found between respondents' participation in previous training programs and FLEGT-VPA monitoring activities. The environmental role of the forest was also found to have a significant association with respondents' participation in FLEGT-VPA activities.

Studies on the factors that influence the participation of forest fringe communities in Ghana in implementing and monitoring FLEGT-VPA activities are non-existent or scarce. This study identified significant socio-demographic and environmental factors contributing to participatory forest conservation modules such as FLEGT-VPA which will guide future forest conservation initiatives that are inclusive of stakeholders’ interests/concerns.

The recent impasse over federal forest management in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States has been a living laboratory of conflict and its management, and provides the context for this case study. While most of the media attention has been focused on regional or national events such as President Clinton's Forest Conference of April 1993, a larger number of localized conflicts have shaped the controversy at the grassroots level. This case study focuses on a pivotal meeting in one such conflict: the Shasta Costa planning process. Outside intervenors mediated the meeting, and USDA Forest Service personnel, timber industry representatives, and environmentalists participated Participant observation and a supplemental survey led to the following conclusions: (1) measures of standing (the legal and social basis for legitimate participation) differed between the industry and environmental representatives, (2) reliance on science differed between groups, and (3) the process was not able to overcome a power imbalance. These findings suggest that there may be little hope for local dispute efforts if there is substantial policy uncertainty at the national level. Implications for managing forestry conflict in the region are discussed.

This paper aims to examine the effects of the use of environmental easements and forest certification on the output of ecosystems services from private forestlands in the USA.

The discussion of the changes in ownership and management of private forest lands in the USA is based on a review of the literature, the degree of recent activity in the innovative changes, and an assessment of the extent of ownership and management changes.

The use of environmental easements, resulting from ownership changes, and forest certification have facilitated, indeed mandated, forest management that is consistent with an increase in the provision of environmental and ecosystem services from private forests. The rapid expansion of environmental easements has been accommodated by the dramatic changes in forest ownership patterns in the USA, as traditional corporate ownerships have sold off large land areas to other private ownership types. Forest certification, which provides for improved management of ecosystem services, also has expanded rapidly in recent years.

This study suggests forest management to provide environmental and ecosystem services can be achieve through environmental easements and forest certification. These changes can occur as the result of environmental interests entering forest land markets and affixing easements to the land. This finding suggests an alternative to the approach to establishing separate markets for ecosystem services, as is often suggested, and requires no increased governmental actions or new regulations. Rather these improvements are driven by voluntary forest certification and/or environmental groups entering the private markets for forest lands.

This study suggests an alternative to the commonly held notion that separate markets for environmental and ecosystem services are required to increased their outputs. Rather, environmental easements and voluntary certification, in the face of changing ownership can provide the incentives for management changes that increase the outputs of environment and ecosystem services.

This article aims to compare the LiDAR handheld mobile laser scanner (HMLS) scans with traditional survey methods, as the tree gauge and the hypsometer, to study the efficiency of the new technology in relation to the accuracy of structural forest attributes estimation useful to support a sustainable forest management.

A case study was carried out in a high forest located in Tuscany (Italy), by considering 5 forest types, in 20 different survey plots. A comparative analysis between two survey methods will be shown in order to verify the potential limits and the viability of the LiDAR HMLS in the forest field.

This research demonstrates that LiDAR HMLS technology allows to obtain a large amount of valuable data on forest structural parameters in a short span of time with a high level of accuracy and with obvious impact in terms of organisational efficiency.

Findings could be useful for forest owners highlighting the importance of investing in science and technology to improve the overall efficiency of forest resources management.

This article adds to the current knowledge on the precision forestry topic by providing insight on the feasibility and effectiveness of using precision technologies for monitoring forest ecosystems and dynamics. In particular, this study fills the gap in the literature linked to the need to have practical examples of the use of innovative technologies in forestry.