The global need for ecological forestry is more important today than ever. But despite a century of technical advancements from forestry leaders—especially in North America and Europe—the world's forest ecosystem is declining at a time when carbon levels are rising, and biodiversity is at risk. Unfortunately, even the world's innovation leaders are struggling to change industry practices in their home countries. Undeterred by the lack of progress, new efforts are being attempted with Europe taking a markedly different path than the U.S. In the U.S., the pursuit of ecological forestry has embraced natural disturbance frameworks and stresses customized goals for local environments and social demands. In Europe, a broad application of low-intensity harvest protocols and canopy protection is being promoted for many forest types. The U.S. approach shows strong ecological promise at local and regional scales, but its broad adoption within the industry as a whole is limited and inconsistent. For the European approach, the broadly elevated priority of continuous canopy draws scientific critics, but their forestry industry is adopting and applying the concept. Although lower-intensity harvests are common to both regions, evidence suggests that Europe may be using low-intensity methods too broadly, while the U.S. is using them too little. The objective of this perspective is to describe the historical development of ecological forestry in Europe and the United States, and to propose research adjustments to help America pursue broader ecological forestry application. By understanding the historical precedents that influence forestry perceptions and the differences in contemporary approaches among forestry leaders, forestry scientists may be better equipped to design research and promote practices that can influence industry behavior for better ecosystem implications.
Over the last half-century, North American forest birds have experienced staggering declines, while at the same time, many metrics indicate that North American forest health has improved. While the United States has been recognised for global leadership in innovation and research in forestry, the negative impacts of high-severity harvesting methods and forest fragmentation are sometimes overlooked, and a dearth of research studies exist that assess the impacts of lower-severity forestry practices on birds. Globally, some regions are pursuing markedly different forestry practices, and one example is Europe’s Close-To-Nature Forestry (CTNF) that protects forest canopies. Historically, CTNF methods have not been promoted to help avian abundance or diversity; however, forest bird populations in Europe have increased 7% over the last two decades, and we posit whether similar forest management approaches in the eastern USA could benefit North American birds. Therefore, we sought to 1) assess the effects of forest structural characteristics on avian species richness in a CTNF-managed forest in the eastern USA; 2) compare our results to county-level eBird data to identify the challenges of assessing the impacts of forestry practices on birds at landscape scales; 3) highlight the ambiguities in current forest management guidelines for improving avian habitats in the USA and 4) suggest long-term direction for evaluating the impacts of alternative forest management practices on birds. Our case study provides preliminary evidence that CTNF-managed forests may support diverse birds of high conservation value that are normally drawn to different forest management extremes. We also provide recommendations for utilising eBird data to assess alternative forest management strategies at landscape scales and a synthesised look at the forest management guidelines provided by many of the major players in American ornithology. While there may be multiple reasons for forest bird declines noted in the past 50 years in North America, long-standing forest management practices and policies should not be overlooked.
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