Forest Operations for Ecosystem Management

The evolution of mod& forest resource management is focusing on ecologically-sensitive forest operations. This shift in management strategies is producing a new set of functional requirements for forest operations. Systems to implement ecosystem management prescriptionsmay need to be economically viable over a wider range of piece sizes, for example. Increasing demands for more efficient fiber utilization and recovery from forest operations also put pressure on merchandizing the resource for maximum value recovery. Conventional forest operations are often not well-suited to meet these constraints. This paper reviews the development of functional requirements for forest operations in ecosystem management and summarizes regional investigations in the northeast, south, and Pacific Northwest.