Monitoring, Assessment and Management of Forest Resource

Dear Colleagues,

A continuous monitoring process of the forest dynamics by permanent plot inventories is the most effective strategy for managers learning and understanding their forests. This knowledge refers to the floristic structure, the dynamics of new recruitments (inputs) mortalities (outputs), and the growth of each species by periodically returning to and measuring the same plots, consequently building an understanding and knowledge about the structure, dynamics, and floristic composition of these forests. In Brazil, the implementation of sustainable forest management plans (SFMP) in parallel with the monitoring of forest dynamics is a practice recommended using permanent plots installments by the regulatory environmental agencies. However, in the great majority of SFMPs carried out by private companies and/or concessionaries contracts, this practice results only as an obligatory activity, very often being inadequately performed and generating little information of little value due to inadequate species identification, imprecise measurements, abandonment of these plots after their installation, and the first measurement data recording. Additionally, these data are not currently used in connection with available forest management practices and knowledge. The SFMP adopted, as a rule, is somewhat out of date, according to research information available, but managers can implement innovations. Nevertheless, the main focus seems to be only an adequacy to the licensing rules required by the environmental agency responsible for these forests’ production activities. Knowledge of forest botany needs to be strongly stimulated, since the inventories are based mainly from the local knowledge of the people as tree's identifiers, called "mateiros". This gap between scientific and vernacular names can generate harmful inconsistencies (< 70%) in the correct identification of species.

The rules for the SMFP in the Brazilian legislation are very strict, but in general, due to the volume restriction of the harvest (maximum of 30 m³/ha), are distributed among the species of highest commercial value. There are exceptions for situations based on results and technical published references; however, the environmental licensing agency does not have its technical staff prepared for these situations. SFMPs main's premise/assumption is the conservation of species, however, with incorrect identification, a rare species with strict rules to be harvested continues to be widely exploited, compromising its conservation and, consequently, the forest quality as a whole. As an example, Hymenolobium excelsum Ducke is a rare species, included in the list of endangered species, the exploitation of which is prohibited. When applying the vernacular identification, this species is more commonly called "angelim-pedra", and this same denomination is used for at least four other distinct species, without rules for logging restriction.

It is recommended, therefore, that continuous botanical training of these "mateiros" be conducted and a direct connection be established between their local knowledge and the forest manager/ technicians’ knowledge as a way to considerably improve the quality of the forest information. A good strategy is to implement an exsiccate collection (small herbarium), and the companies should conduct their botanical collections of the managed species and adequately prepare them with identified exsiccates for consultation when necessary. This will provide a complete list of the species identified by vernacular and translated into the correct scientific name. This practice will allow for continuous learning and knowledge appropriation by the company and their staff, and will certainly be less affected by the rotations of “mateiros” and /or the forest managers.

Prof. Dr. Ademir Roberto Ruschel
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.