Resolving contradictions in forestry: Back to science

摘要

From the very start of our profession, the goal of forestry has been sustained yield, which implies sustainable environment. Although ecosystem management shares this goal, its philosophy and methods are different. A crucial difference is that, unlike traditional forestry, ecosystem management does not know where to manage (we cannot delineate the ecosystem), how to manage (approaches and techniques designed for a highly coordinated whole may be irrelevant to a patchwork of plants and animals), what to manage (since biodiversity remains undefined), and why to manage (ecocentrism is suicidal; our ethics have to be anthropocentric).