Orientation of forest management towards strategic management

The paper deals with the necessity of the further development of forest man agement in Germany towards strategic management. Firstly, relevant elements of the instruments of strategic management are stated and it is analysed i n which way traditional forest management, the classical combined method, i mplies strategic components and which importance these components lastly ha d in the practical application of forest management. It is obvious that for est management has been widely reduced to operative, single-stand oriented planning and that the strategic components have been completely neglected. Mainly the overall planning (sustainability control) that is still relying on inherited sustainability control indices is thereby degenerated to a rit ual. This general insufficiency in the strategic area cannot be compensated by planning on strata level that has recently been introduced in some part s of Germany. Central part of the paper is the presentation of a new concep t of forest management as a strategic management tool. Within this new conc ept strata-planning, co-ordination of utilization and simulation replace th e classical elements (single-stand planning, domain-planning and overall pl anning). Within the co-ordination of utilization the technical progress in the field of GIS-planning and 3-D-visualization should be used to develop a n integrated planning system for participatory planning. Methods of multi-c riteria decision making should be used to take into account and weight argu ments and preferences of different stakeholders within a participatory plan ning approach.