8.00.00 – Forest Environment

Environment is a major concern for all stake-holders involved in forest management and planning, including conservation of forested areas. As much as possible, management and conservation practises should rely on a sound ecological basis, provided by biological sciences such as ecology of vegetation communities, ecology of forest communities, including wildlife, soil sciences, landscape ecology, conservation biology, biodiversity, and physical environment. A key process as well is a deeper understanding of hazards and disturbances which could affect forest dynamics, such as fire, climate change, pollution and winds.

Division 8 activities aim at providing a platform and a network for scientific progress and exchange on all those subjects, through organization of meetings, symposiums, electronic conferences, state of the art reports, etc. An important effort is to link the efforts maturing in forest science communities with those parallel for more global problems, such as global change and biodiversity. All forested bioma of the world, including boreal, temperate, Mediterranean, tropical humid and tropical dry forest are taken in consideration. Connections with Divisions and Task Forces dealing with complementary topics such as silviculture, physiology, genetics, forest operations, modelling, wood products, social sciences and forest health are ALSO at the core of the activity of D8.

Under construction.