1.
Forestry
–
Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, using, conserving, and repairing forests and associated resources to meet desired goals, needs, and values for human and environment benefits. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands, the science of forestry has elements that belong to the biological, physical, social, political and managerial sciences. A practitioner of forestry is known as a forester, other terms are used a verderer and a silviculturalist being common ones. Silviculture is narrower than forestry, being concerned only with forest plants, Forest ecosystems have come to be seen as the most important component of the biosphere, and forestry has emerged as a vital applied science, craft, and technology. Forestry is an important economic segment in various industrial countries, the preindustrial age has been dubbed by Werner Sombart and others as the wooden age, as timber and firewood were the basic resources for energy, construction and housing. The development of forestry is closely connected with the rise of capitalism, economy as a science and varying notions of land use. Roman Latifundiae, large estates, were quite successful in maintaining the large supply of wood that was necessary for the Roman Empire. Large deforestations came with respectively after the decline of the Romans, however already in the 5th century, monks in the then Byzantine Romagna on the Adriatic coast, were able to establish stone pine plantations to provide fuelwood and food. This was the beginning of the massive forest mentioned by Dante Alighieri in his 1308 poem Divine Comedy, the use and management of many forest resources has a long history in China as well, dating back to the Han Dynasty and taking place under the landowning gentry. A similar approach was used in Japan and it was also later written about by the Ming Dynasty Chinese scholar Xu Guangqi. In Europe, land rights in medieval and early modern times allowed different users to access forests. The notion of commons refers to the traditional legal term of common land. The idea of enclosed private property came about during modern times, however, most hunting rights were retained by members of the nobility which preserved the right of the nobility to access and use common land for recreation, like fox hunting. Systematic management of forests for a yield of timber is said to have begun in the German states in the 14th century, e. g. in Nuremberg. Typically, a forest was divided into sections and mapped. Large firs in the black forest were called „Holländer“, as they were traded to the Dutch ship yards, large timber rafts on the Rhine were 200 to 400m in length, 40m in width and consisted of several thousand logs. The crew consisted of 400 to 500 men, including shelter, bakeries, ovens, timber rafting infrastructure allowed for large interconnected networks all over continental Europe and is still of importance in Finland. The notion of Nachhaltigkeit, sustainability in forestry, is connected to the work of Hans Carl von Carlowitz
2.
Forest restoration
–
Climax forest is therefore the target ecosystem, which defines the ultimate aim of forest restoration. Since climate is a factor that determines climax forest composition. Forest restoration is a form of reforestation, but it differs from conventional tree plantations in that its primary goals are biodiversity recovery. Tree species planted are those that are typical of, or provide a critical function in. However, wherever people live in or near restoration sites, restoration projects include economic species amongst the planted trees. Economic indices of success include the value of forest products and ecological services generated, payments for such ecological services and forest products can provide strong incentives for local people to implement restoration projects. Even in protected areas, there are often large deforested sites, if protected areas are to act as Earth’s last wildlife refuges, restoration of such areas will be needed. FLR recognizes that forest restoration has social and economic functions and it aims to achieve the best possible compromise between meeting both conservation goals and the needs of rural communities. As human pressure on landscapes increases, forest restoration will most commonly be practiced within a mosaic of other forms of forest management, tree planting is not always essential to restore forest ecosystems. A lot can be achieved by studying how forests regenerate naturally, identifying the factors that limit regeneration and these can include weeding and adding fertilizer around natural tree seedlings, preventing fire, removing cattle and so on. This is accelerated or assisted natural regeneration and it is simple and cost-effective, but it can only operate on trees that are already present, mostly light-loving pioneer species. Because this is a process, biodiversity recovery can usually be accelerated by planting some climax forest tree species, especially large-seeded. It is not feasible to plant all the species that may have formerly grown in the original primary forest and it is usually unnecessary to do so. In large parts of the world, forest fires cover a heavy toll on forests and that can be because of provoked deforestation in order to substitute forests by crop areas, or in dry areas, because of wild fires occurring naturally or intentionally. This indeed has dire consequences on both the quality of the habitats and their related fauna, the primary stakeholders in this cooperative restoration effort are the U. S. Forest Service, the City of Ashland, Lomaktsi Restoration Project, and the Nature Conservancy. Located in the dry forests of southern Oregon, the threat of wildfire is a reality for land managers, the boundaries of the city of Ashland intersect with the surrounding forest in what is referred to as the wildland-urban interface. Historically, the forests of this region experienced a relatively frequent fire return interval, a century of fire exclusion and suppression on federal lands in the Pacific Northwest has led to increased forest density and fuel loads, and thus a more persistent threat of devastating wildfire. The AFR project has implemented restoration techniques and prescriptions that aim to replicate the process of succession in dry
3.
Forest
–
A forest is a large area dominated by trees. Hundreds of more precise definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as density, tree height, land use, legal standing. According to the widely used Food and Agriculture Organization definition, forests covered four billion hectares or approximately 30 percent of the land area in 2006. Forests are the dominant terrestrial ecosystem of Earth, and are distributed across the globe, Forests account for 75% of the gross primary productivity of the Earths biosphere, and contain 80% of the Earths plant biomass. Forests at different latitudes and elevations form distinctly different ecozones, boreal forests near the poles, tropical forests near the equator, higher elevation areas tend to support forests similar to those at higher latitudes, and amount of precipitation also affects forest composition. Human society and forests influence each other in both positive and negative ways, Forests provide ecosystem services to humans and serve as tourist attractions. Forests can also affect peoples health, human activities, including harvesting forest resources, can negatively affect forest ecosystems. Although forest is a term of common parlance, there is no universally recognised precise definition, there are three broad categories of forest definitions in use, administrative, land use, and land cover. Land use definitions are based upon the purpose that the land serves. For example, a forest may be defined as any land that is used primarily for production of timber, land cover definitions define forests based upon the type and density of vegetation growing on the land. Such definitions typically define a forest as an area growing trees above some threshold and these thresholds are typically the number of trees per area, the area of ground under the tree canopy or the section of land that is occupied by the cross-section of tree trunks. Under such land cover definitions, and area of land only be defined as forest if it is growing trees, areas that fail to meet the land cover definition may be still included under while immature trees are establishing if they are expected to meet the definition at maturity. Under land use definitions, there is variation on where the cutoff points are between a forest, woodland, and savanna. Under some definitions, forests require high levels of tree canopy cover, from 60% to 100%, excluding savannas. Other definitions consider savannas to be a type of forest, the term was not endemic to Romance languages, and cognates in Romance languages, such as Italian foresta, Spanish and Portuguese floresta, etc. are all ultimately borrowings of the French word. The exact origin of Medieval Latin foresta is obscure, uses of the word forest in English to denote any uninhabited area of non-enclosure are now considered archaic. The word was introduced by the Norman rulers of England as a term denoting an uncultivated area legally set aside for hunting by feudal nobility. These hunting forests were not necessarily wooded much, if at all, however, as hunting forests did often include considerable areas of woodland, the word forest eventually came to mean wooded land more generally
4.
Sustainability
–
In ecology, sustainability is the property of biological systems to remain diverse and productive indefinitely. Long-lived and healthy wetlands and forests are examples of biological systems. In more general terms, sustainability is the endurance of systems, the organizing principle for sustainability is sustainable development, which includes the four interconnected domains, ecology, economics, politics and culture. Sustainability science is the study of development and environmental science. Sustainability can also be defined as a process characterized by the pursuit of a common ideal. An ideal is by definition unattainable in a time and space. However, by persistently and dynamically approaching it, the results in a sustainable system. Healthy ecosystems and environments are necessary to the survival of humans, ways of reducing negative human impact are environmentally-friendly chemical engineering, environmental resources management and environmental protection. Information is gained from green chemistry, earth science, environmental science, Ecological economics studies the fields of academic research that aim to address human economies and natural ecosystems. Moving towards sustainability is also a challenge that entails international and national law, urban planning and transport, local and individual lifestyles. The name sustainability is derived from the Latin sustinere, sustain can mean “maintain, support, or endure”. ”The 2005 World Summit on Social Development identified sustainable development goals, such as economic development, social development and environmental protection. This view has been expressed as an illustration using three overlapping ellipses indicating that the three pillars of sustainability are not mutually exclusive and can be mutually reinforcing, in fact, the three pillars are interdependent, and in the long run none can exist without the others. The three pillars have served as a ground for numerous sustainability standards and certification systems in recent years. Standards which today explicitly refer to the bottom line include Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade. Some sustainability experts and practitioners have illustrated four pillars of sustainability, one such pillar is future generations, which emphasizes the long-term thinking associated with sustainability. There is also an opinion that considers resource use and financial sustainability as two pillars of sustainability. Sustainable development consists of balancing local and global efforts to meet human needs without destroying or degrading the natural environment. The question then becomes how to represent the relationship between those needs and the environment, a study from 2005 pointed out that environmental justice is as important as sustainable development
5.
Holism
–
Holism is the idea that systems and their properties should be viewed as wholes, not just as a collection of parts. The term Holism was coined by J C Smuts in Holism and it was Smuts opinion that Holism is a concept that represents all of the wholes in the universe, and these wholes are the real factors in the universe. Further, that Holism also denoted a theory of the universe in the vein as Materialism and Spiritualism. The derived adjective holistic has been applied to a range of fields where they incorporate the concept of holism. The field characterizes a whole as a unified and synthesised event in the system of Relativity, as such, the concept of field entails both activity and structure. Darwins theory of organic descent placed primary emphasis on the role of natural selection, the whole exhibits a discernible regulatory function as it relates to cooperation and coordination of the structure and activity of parts, and to the selection and deselection of variations. The result is a correlation of organs and functions. The activities of the parts are directed to central ends, co-operation and it is the intermingling of fields which is creative or causal in nature. This is seen in matter, where if not for its dynamic structural creative character matter could not have been the mother of the universe, with minds the regulatory function of Holism acquires consciousness and freedom, demonstrating a creative power of the most far-reaching character. Holism is not only creative but self-creative, and its structures are far more holistic than its initial structures. Holism exemplifies this idea while emphasizing the holistic character of the process. The whole completely transforms the concept of Causality, results are not directly a function of causes, the whole absorbs and integrates the cause into its own activity, results appear as the consequence of the activity of the whole. It is the edition of Holism and Evolution that provides the most recent. In philosophy, any doctrine that emphasizes the priority of a whole over its parts is holism, some suggest that such a definition owes its origins to a non-holistic view of language and places it in the reductivist camp. Alternately, a definition of holism denies the necessity of a division between the function of separate parts and the workings of the whole. It suggests that the key characteristic of a concept of holism is a sense of the fundamental truth of any particular experience. This exists in contradistinction to what is perceived as the reductivist reliance on inductive method as the key to verification of its concept of how the function within the whole. In the philosophy of mind, a state may be identified only in terms of its relations with others
6.
Ecosystem
–
An ecosystem is a community of living organisms in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment, interacting as a system. These biotic and abiotic components are regarded as linked together through nutrient cycles, as ecosystems are defined by the network of interactions among organisms, and between organisms and their environment, they can be of any size but usually encompass specific, limited spaces. Energy, water, nitrogen and soil minerals are other essential components of an ecosystem. The energy that flows through ecosystems is obtained primarily from the sun and it generally enters the system through photosynthesis, a process that also captures carbon from the atmosphere. By feeding on plants and on one another, animals play an important role in the movement of matter and they also influence the quantity of plant and microbial biomass present. Ecosystems are controlled both by external and internal factors, other external factors include time and potential biota. Ecosystems are dynamic entities—invariably, they are subject to disturbances and are in the process of recovering from some past disturbance. Ecosystems in similar environments that are located in different parts of the world can have different characteristics simply because they contain different species. The introduction of species can cause substantial shifts in ecosystem function. Internal factors not only control ecosystem processes but are controlled by them and are often subject to feedback loops. Other internal factors include disturbance, succession and the types of species present, although humans exist and operate within ecosystems, their cumulative effects are large enough to influence external factors like climate. Biodiversity affects ecosystem function, as do the processes of disturbance, classifying ecosystems into ecologically homogeneous units is an important step towards effective ecosystem management, but there is no single, agreed-upon way to do this. The term ecosystem was first used in 1935 in a publication by British ecologist Arthur Tansley, Tansley devised the concept to draw attention to the importance of transfers of materials between organisms and their environment. He later refined the term, describing it as The whole system, including not only the organism-complex, but also the whole complex of physical factors forming what we call the environment. Tansley regarded ecosystems not simply as natural units, but as mental isolates, Tansley later defined the spatial extent of ecosystems using the term ecotope. G. Raymond Lindeman took these ideas one step further to suggest that the flow of energy through a lake was the driver of the ecosystem. Most mineral nutrients, on the hand, are recycled within ecosystems. Ecosystems are controlled both by external and internal factors, external factors, also called state factors, control the overall structure of an ecosystem and the way things work within it, but are not themselves influenced by the ecosystem
7.
Productivity
–
Productivity describes various measures of the efficiency of production. A productivity measure is expressed as the ratio of output to inputs used in a production process, Productivity is a crucial factor in production performance of firms and nations. Productivity growth also helps businesses to be more profitable, there are many different definitions of productivity and the choice among them depends on the purpose of the productivity measurement and/or data availability. Productivity measures that use one class of inputs or factors, in practice, measurement in production means measures of partial productivity. Interpreted correctly, these components are indicative of productivity development, and approximate the efficiency with which inputs are used in an economy to produce goods, however, productivity is only measured partially – or approximately. At the company level, typical partial productivity measures are such things as worker hours, before widespread use of computer networks, partial productivity was tracked in tabular form and with hand-drawn graphs. Tabulating machines for data processing began being used in the 1920s and 1930s. By the late 1970s inexpensive computers allowed industrial operations to process control. Today data collection is largely computerized and almost any variable can be viewed graphically in real time or retrieved for selected time periods, in macroeconomics, a common partial productivity measure is labour productivity. Labour productivity is an indicator of several economic indicators as it offers a dynamic measure of economic growth, competitiveness. It is the measure of productivity which helps explain the principal economic foundations that are necessary for both economic growth and social development. In general labour productivity is equal to the ratio between a measure of volume and a measure of input use. This is done in order to avoid double-counting when an output of one firm is used as an input by another in the same measurement, in macroeconomics the most well-known and used measure of value-added is the Gross Domestic Product or GDP. It is widely used as a measure of the growth of nations. GDP is the income available for paying capital costs, labor compensation, taxes, some economists instead use gross value added, there is normally a strong correlation between GDP and GVA. The measure of input use reflects the time, effort and skills of the workforce, denominator of the ratio of labour productivity, the input measure is the most important factor that influences the measure of labour productivity. Labour input is measured either by the number of hours worked of all persons employed or total employment. There are both advantages and disadvantages associated with the different input measures that are used in the calculation of labour productivity, however, the quality of hours-worked estimates is not always clear
8.
Photosynthesis
–
Photosynthesis is a process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy that can later be released to fuel the organisms activities. In most cases, oxygen is released as a waste product. Most plants, most algae, and cyanobacteria perform photosynthesis, such organisms are called photoautotrophs, in plants, these proteins are held inside organelles called chloroplasts, which are most abundant in leaf cells, while in bacteria they are embedded in the plasma membrane. In these light-dependent reactions, some energy is used to strip electrons from suitable substances, such as water, in the Calvin cycle, atmospheric carbon dioxide is incorporated into already existing organic carbon compounds, such as ribulose bisphosphate. Using the ATP and NADPH produced by the light-dependent reactions, the compounds are then reduced and removed to form further carbohydrates. Cyanobacteria appeared later, the oxygen they produced contributed directly to the oxygenation of the Earth. Today, the rate of energy capture by photosynthesis globally is approximately 130 terawatts. Photosynthetic organisms also convert around 100–115 thousand million tonnes of carbon into biomass per year. Photosynthetic organisms are photoautotrophs, which means that they are able to synthesize food directly from carbon dioxide, however, not all organisms that use light as a source of energy carry out photosynthesis, photoheterotrophs use organic compounds, rather than carbon dioxide, as a source of carbon. In plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, photosynthesis releases oxygen and this is called oxygenic photosynthesis and is by far the most common type of photosynthesis used by living organisms. Although there are differences between oxygenic photosynthesis in plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, the overall process is quite similar in these organisms. There are also varieties of anoxygenic photosynthesis, used mostly by certain types of bacteria. Carbon dioxide is converted into sugars in a process called carbon fixation, photosynthesis provides the energy in the form of free electrons that are used to split carbon from carbon dioxide that is then used to fix that carbon once again as carbohydrate. Carbon fixation is a redox reaction, so photosynthesis supplies the energy that drives both process. In the first stage, light-dependent reactions or light reactions capture the energy of light and use it to make the energy-storage molecules ATP, during the second stage, the light-independent reactions use these products to capture and reduce carbon dioxide. Most organisms that utilize oxygenic photosynthesis use visible light for the light-dependent reactions, some organisms employ even more radical variants of photosynthesis. Some archea use a method that employs a pigment similar to those used for vision in animals. The bacteriorhodopsin changes its configuration in response to sunlight, acting as a proton pump and this produces a proton gradient more directly, which is then converted to chemical energy
9.
Primary production
–
In ecology, primary production is the synthesis of organic compounds from atmospheric or aqueous carbon dioxide. Almost all life on Earth relies directly or indirectly on primary production, the organisms responsible for primary production are known as primary producers or autotrophs, and form the base of the food chain. In terrestrial ecoregions, these are mainly plants, while in aquatic ecoregions algae predominate in this role, ecologists distinguish primary production as either net or gross, the former accounting for losses to processes such as cellular respiration, the latter not. Primary production is the production of energy in organic compounds by living organisms. The main source of energy is sunlight but a minute fraction of primary production is driven by lithotrophic organisms using the chemical energy of inorganic molecules. Regardless of its source, this energy is used to complex organic molecules from simpler inorganic compounds such as carbon dioxide. Consumption of primary producers by heterotrophic organisms, such as animals, then transfers these organic molecules up the food web, gross primary production is the amount of chemical energy as biomass that primary producers create in a given length of time. Some fraction of this energy is used by primary producers for cellular respiration. The remaining fixed energy is referred to as net primary production, some net primary production goes toward growth and reproduction of primary producers, while some is consumed by herbivores. Both gross and net primary production are in units of mass per area per unit time interval. In terrestrial ecosystems, mass of carbon per area per year is most often used as the unit of measurement. On the land, almost all production is now performed by vascular plants, with a small fraction coming from algae and non-vascular plants such as mosses. Before the evolution of plants, non-vascular plants likely played a more significant role. Primary production on land is a function of many factors, but principally local hydrology, while plants cover much of the Earths surface, they are strongly curtailed wherever temperatures are too extreme or where necessary plant resources are limiting, such as deserts or polar regions. Water is consumed in plants by the processes of photosynthesis and transpiration, the latter process is driven by the evaporation of water from the leaves of plants. Transpiration allows plants to transport water and mineral nutrients from the soil to growth regions, diffusion of water vapour out of a leaf, the force that drives transpiration, is regulated by structures known as stomata. These structure also regulate the diffusion of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into the leaf, certain plants use alternative forms of photosynthesis, called Crassulacean acid metabolism and C4. In a reversal of the pattern on land, in the oceans, almost all photosynthesis is performed by algae, with a small fraction contributed by vascular plants, algae encompass a diverse range of organisms, ranging from single floating cells to attached seaweeds
