ABSTRACT
So far we have focussed on habitat management for individual species. And for some forest wildlife goals, that is an appropriate approach. But oftentimes, especially on public lands, conservation of the full suite of living organisms present on a site, on an ownership, or in a watershed is an objective while also meeting other societal objectives such as drinking water, recreation, aesthetics, and timber production. So by now you must be asking, “How in the world can we possibly manage forests to conserve the hundreds if not thousands of species that occur within a forest with one owner, let alone multiple owners?” Using a species-by-species approach is clearly untenable. Consequently, biologists propose approaches for biodiversity conservation that consider a hierarchical set of steps that are designed to minimize risk of losing a species while taking into account uncertainty in our decision-making process.
