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AMBIO 2012, 41:720737DOI 10.1007/s13280-012-0289-y
REVIEW PAPER
Even-Aged and Uneven-Aged Forest Management in Boreal
Fennoscandia: A Review
Timo Kuuluvainen, Olli Tahvonen, Tuomas Aakala
Received: 19 October 2011 / Revised: 25 January 2012 / Accepted: 11 April 2012 / Published online: 12 May 2012
Abstract Since WWII, forest management in Fennoscandia has primarily been based on even-aged stand management, clear cut harvesting and thinning from below. As an alternative, uneven-aged management, based on selection cutting of individual trees or small groups of trees, has been proposed. In this review we discuss the theoretical aspects of ecology and economics of the two management approaches. We also review peer-reviewed studies from boreal Fennoscandia, which have aimed at comparing the outcomes of uneven-aged and the conventional even-aged forest management. According to a common view the main obstacle of practicing uneven-aged forestry is its low economic performance. However, the reviewed studies did not offer any straightforward support for this view and several studies have found uneven-aged management to be fully competitive with existing even-aged management. Studies on the ecological aspects indicated that selection cuttings maintain mature or late-successional forest characteristics and species assemblages better than even-aged management, at least at the stand scale and in the short term. We conclude that although the number of relevant studies has increased in recent years, the ecological and economic performance of alternative management methods still remains poorly examined, especially for those stands with multiple tree species and also at wider spatial and temporal scales. For future research we advocate a strategy that fully takes into consideration the interdisciplinary nature of forest management and is better connected to social goals and latest theoretical and methodological developments in ecology and economics.
Keywords Even-aged forestry Uneven-aged forestry
Biodiversity Optimal harvesting Forest economics
Natural disturbance emulation
INTRODUCTION
Since the birth of industrial-scale forestry, timber harvesting throughout the circumboreal forest has been based on clear cutting, which has been seen either as a logistically efcient way to extract pristine timber resources (Canada, Russia) or as a means to organize sustained-yield forestry when most of the original pristine forests are logged (Norway, Sweden, Finland). However, recent policy demands for more sustainable forestry, including its ecological, economic and social goals, have raised questions about the dominant role of clear cutting and...