DESIGNING FOREST MANAGEMENT TO CONTROL SPATIAL STRUCTURE OF LANDSCAPES

Characterising and regulating spatial structure of forested landscapes is an important step towards shifting the traditional focus of forest management from managing resource hows, such as timber and wildlife h abitat, to managing forests. Concerns about maintenance of forest ecos ystems, biodiversity and wildlife, as well as economic benefits have l ead to the concept of forest landscape management. The focus of forest landscape management, like contemporary management, is the management of forest structure. Forest landscape management, however, is based u pon the premise that resource Bows as well as biodiversity levels and ecosystem processes are determined by the array and spatial arrangemen t of forest conditions, i.e. spatial structure, and its change over ti me. Using a quantitative description of spatial forest structure, we d eveloped a forest landscape management design process. A geographic in formation system (GIS) based landscape management model was developed that incorporated harvesting intervention patterns (i.e. geographicall y referenced format of intervention) and forest performance indicators using spatial structure measurements. We demonstrate that geographica lly based harvesting patterns and performance indicators have the pote ntial to design management for the creation of alternative forest land scapes of significantly different spatial structure. We conclude that forest landscape management, with its spatial structure focus, is a de sirable evolution in forest management planning. It represents a commo n basis that various interest groups can use to communicate their valu es and objectives. Forest landscape management, however, is only possi ble with a GIS-based management design process in place. This must inc lude: (i) a means of quantitatively measuring spatial structure so tha t objectives may be set and performance evaluated; (ii) a knowledge of what constitutes performance in spatial structure; (iii) a design too lkit of geographically referenced interventions; (iv) understanding of spatial forest dynamics; (v) a computer model.