Fire, Forest Health, and Biodiversity: A Summary of the Proceedings of the Second Annual Symposium of the National Commission on Science and Sustainable Forestry

• Explore the variations in forest biodiversity and associated patterns of climate and ge o g ra p hy that influence fire regimes; • Evaluate the influence of past and current management (e.g., fire exclusion) and land use on forest biodiversity; and • Consider the likely impacts of fire management alternatives, including suppression, post-fire remediation, prescribed fire, and mechanical thinning for fuel restoration, on various elements of biological diversity. E.O. Wilson (1992) defined biodiversity as “the variety of organisms ... and the physical conditions under which they live.” The Montréal Process on sustainable forest mana gement asserts that “biological dive rs i t y includes the elements of the dive rsity of e co s ys te m s , the dive rsity between species, and genetic diversity in species.” Within this broad vision of biodiversity necessary for sustainable manage m e n t , symposium participants focused particularly on the following elements: