Conserving forest biodiversity: A comprehensive multiscaled approach.

Abstract

DAVID Lindenmayer and Jerry Franklin are the two most influential forest conservation biologists of the past decade and will probably remain so for the coming decade. Each has contributed significantly to forest research, management, biodiversity conservation and policy. Lindenmayer is an Australian based at the Australian National University in Canberra who has worked mainly in the temperate eucalypt forests of Victoria and southeastern New South Wales. Most of his research is wildlife oriented, with an emphasis on arboreal marsupials and the impacts of forest management on forest vertebrates. Franklin is an American at the University of Washington, Seattle in the Pacific Northwest. His research is more botanically oriented, with an emphasis on the impacts of forest management on forest structures (e.g., large trees and logs) and processes. Of the two, Franklin has had the greatest involvement in the political, economic and social processes driving the modern change in forestry practices and attitudes. Together they form a formidable team to present a summary and an analysis of how temperate forests globally can and should be managed. Their goal is not just to enhance biodiversity and other ecological values, but to ensure the long-term sustainability of forest ecosystems. Only when forests are managed sustainably to protect biodiversity can forest managers guarantee the many social and economic benefits derived from the world’s forests, including wood production.