The strategies on sustainable management of man-made forest
At the start of the 21st century, protection of ecological environments and conservation of nature resources are some of the prevailing issues of concern in Taiwan. Therefore, a moratorium on the cutting of natural forest tends to persist. Under the circumstance, how to improve current man-made forests through alternative silvicultural or tending strategies to increase the health of stands and productivity of forest land has become an important issue in man-made forest management. Through intensive management of man-made forests, creased amounts of wood produced domestically will increase and pressure to cut natural forests in Taiwan will be exdueced.
During the past decade, Taiwan red cypress (chamaecypar formasana),Taiwania(Taiwania cryptomerioides), Taiwan incense cedar(Calocedrus formosana), and Taiwan zelkova(Zelkova serrata ) were the major species used in man-made forests. Some problems associated with these species must be dealt by forest managers.
- What is the optimum stand intensity with increasing stand age for different species?
- The change tendency of growth and harvest on different site index.
- How should the problem of many stem forks and lateral branches be resolved? So as to improve wood properties and avoid infection by wood decay fungi on pruning wounds, what is the correct method and intensity of pruning practices?
- How can wood properties be improved by controlling stand density?
- What are optimal timing and level of thinning and pruning?
- How does tending intensity impact microsite environment, ground coverage, animal habitant and nutrient fluxes?
- If the man-made forest had been damaged by climate or animal, how to match with thinning, filler or natural regeneration, established uneven-aged, multicohort stands. In order to resolve these questions, according to the various management goals, a series of alternative silviculture practices in man-made forests will be carried out to maintain steady states of the ecosystems and sustainable productivity of the plantations.
Application of remote sensing for estimating plantation productivity
Spatial distribution and structural complexity of forest are major factors for forest ecosystems stability and healthy. And they affect the ecological functions, social and economic. forest structure varies in landscape, that leads to ground measurements and quantification quite spending time and money to work. Recently, remote sensing was become important tool for forest management that has high efficiency and economic advantages for investigation of large spatial scales of forest resources. United Nations organizations calls upon to use remote sensing techniques to monitor and assess the large-scale changes in forest resources. Therefore, we should use the advantages of remote sensing technology, to research and development mapping the plantation productivity map, monitoring and evaluation of the technology in different forest types for improve understanding resource productivity current situation. Large-scale distribution of forest resources and the amount of stand volume and increment information, that is the basic data for sustainable management of forestry. Quantify the status of large-scale plantation resources data, and mapping productivity stand structure map, provided to the project planning and preparation of plantation harvesting policy adjustment and management.