ABSTRACT
Our first book, A Critique of Silviculture: Managing for Complexity (Puettmann et al., 2009), raised a variety of challenges and questions. Two of these questions led us to tackle this second book: (1) Can complexity science provide a useful framework to understand the functioning of various and seemingly very different forest biomes, and (2) can it be useful in reconciling the variety of recently developing forest management and restoration practices that are emerging in numerous regions of the world? These are developing in response to limitations of the traditional views of forests as stable and unchanging and the dominant forestry paradigm of command and control (sensu Holling and Meffe, 1996). Following a description of necessary background information on complexity science and complex adaptive systems in Part I (Chapters 1 and 2), these two questions were explored in detail in the various chapters of Parts II and III. This final chapter reviews the main findings and proposes viewing forests as complex adaptive systems as an ‘emergent’ useful framework for established and newly developing forest management approaches.
