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A Scientific Perspective for Silviculture

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Sustainable Forest Management in a Changing World

Part of the book series: Managing Forest Ecosystems ((MAFE,volume 19))

Abstract

Silviculture is an extremely application-oriented discipline without a clear scientific profile. A concentration on biological and ecological research, while the economic side of silvicultural operations has largely been ignored, has led to weakened management relevance. This paper develops a management-oriented scientific profile for silviculture that integrates economic, ecologic, and other aspects of procedures for securing sustainability. The paper starts by identifying a scientific object for silviculture, illustrates the role of theory, and develops “silvicultural economics” as one scientific perspective for silviculture. The proposed concept is based on biologically realistic economic modelling (bioeconomics) and the consideration of uncertainty in order to assure sustainability.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the German Science Foundation (DFG) for generously financing a project on “silvicultural economics” and one anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Forest Management, Center of Life Sciences Weihenstephan, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany

    Thomas Knoke

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  1. Thomas Knoke
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Correspondence to Thomas Knoke .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Forest and Environment, University of Applied Sciences Eberswalde, Alfred-Möller Str. 1, Eberswalde, 16225, Germany

    Peter Spathelf

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Knoke, T. (2009). A Scientific Perspective for Silviculture. In: Spathelf, P. (eds) Sustainable Forest Management in a Changing World. Managing Forest Ecosystems, vol 19. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3301-7_9

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