Forest Resources Management and Sustainability: The Specific Case of European Union Countries

Abstract

Forest land provides several environmental services and goods with significant implications for different socioeconomic and environmental dimensions. Forestry and its management are determinant activities for sustainable development, specifically in the current context of urgent mitigation of climate change. In this perspective, one objective of this research was to survey the main insights from the literature about the forest and management dimensions put together, highlighting the contributions of these activities to mitigate climate change. Another objective was to explore indicators related to forest management (land, employment, output, and net emissions) in order to obtain a forest sustainability index through factor analysis. As main insights from this study, we can quote that the literature survey pinpoints the most relevant factors framing forest management: soil characteristics, ecology, ecosystems, biodiversity, deforestation, climate change, socioeconomic frameworks, local knowledge, public policies, institutional context, and new technologies. Forest indicators reveal a strong relationship between forest land, employment and output, and a weaker relation with net emissions. We concluded that there is a need for stakeholders to explore and improve the interlinkage with climate change impact, specifically with regard to improving the relationships of forestry greenhouse gas emissions impacts with forest size and output.

Research on the Temporal and Spatial Distribution and Influencing Factors of Forestry Output Efficiency in China

“…Moreover, research in terms of forestry development and the interaction between forestry and socioeconomic development provides a wider scope of reference for the research on forestry output. Martinho Vítor João Pereira Domingues and Ferreira António José Dinis (2020) explored indicators related to forest management, including land, employment, output, and net emissions, in order to obtain a forest sustainability index through factor analysis, and they found that forest indicators revealed a strong relationship between forest land, employment, and output, which is a significant support for the points of this paper [16]. Wang Chia-Nan and Lin Han-Sung (2016) proposed a hybrid model, including a grey model (GM) and a Malmquist productivity index (MPI), to assess the output efficiency of Vietnamese agro-forestry enterprises over several time periods, which verified the applicability of temporal analysis of output efficiency in forestry in this paper [17].…”

Temporal and Spatial Variation of Aboveground Biomass of Pinus densata and Its Drivers in Shangri-La, CHINA

“…The importance of forest AGB to the whole ecosystem and global carbon cycle [ 3 ] means there are many studies on the drivers of forest AGB change. Nevertheless, forest resources are often affected by various factors [ 4 , 5 ], including natural disasters [ 6 , 7 ], climate change [ 8 , 9 ], and human activities [ 10 , 11 ]. Therefore, studying the drivers of forest AGB change in the ecologically fragile area can provide scientific references for the conservation and utilization of forest resources in other regions, especially in the selection of drivers and the establishment of drivers’ relationships.…”