Millennium International Limited
Applied Intelligent Systems
Sustainable, Climate-Smart, Forest Management Systems
The forest is a natural system that can supply different products and services. Forests supply water, mitigate climate change, provide habitats for wildlife including many pollinators which are essential for sustainable food production, provide timber and fuelwood, serve as a source of non-wood forest products including food and medicine, and contribute to rural livelihoods (FAO).
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Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) Systems enhance the resilience of forest ecosystems to climate change. ​
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This is the goal of Sustainable Forestry Management Systems.
Since 1990, it is estimated that 420 million hectares of forest have been lost through conversion to other land uses, although the rate of deforestation has decreased over the past three decades.
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Between 2015 and 2020, the rate of deforestation was estimated at 10 million hectares per year, down from 16 million hectares per year in the 1990s. The area of primary forest worldwide has decreased by over 80 million hectares since 1990 (FAO).
The science of sustainable forest management and wildlife conservation
Sustainable forest management (SFM) is the management of forests according to the principles of sustainable development. Sustainable forest management has to keep the balance between three main pillars: ecological, economic and socio-cultural.
Forest conservation is essential to stop climate change.
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Economic analysis provide a systematic approach to optimise rotation and harvest times, inform forest management processes such as planning cycles: objectives, strategy, planning, implementing, monitoring and reappraisal.
Forest Economics and Engineering
The economic value of forests is not merely the production of timber. Forests provide key ecosystem services, absorb greenhouse gases, hosts biodiversity, serve tourism and recreation. Forests also prevent soil erosion and controlling water supplies, as well as providing non-timber forest products and supporting the livelihoods of many local people.
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Forest engineering is the analysis of operations, work methods, logistics and economics in the utilization of forest resources and includes safety and health-related issues, work science, accident analysis and reporting, heat stress. Precision forestry engineering and mapping is enabled by emerging technologies, such as drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), infrared and laser scanning (lidar), soil multi-variable remote sensors, and software analytics and intelligence monitoring and reporting.
Dynamic Forest Management Optimisation
Countries bear a global responsibility for managing their forest resources in a sustainable manner, not only for what forests provide, but most importantly for the externalities forests provide for natural ecosystems, humans and animals, which include carbon sequestration, moderation of climatic conditions, purified oxygen that sustain life, spiritual and aesthetic values, ecotourism enjoyment and financial gains for developing local economies, soil and water conservation, wildlife habitat, and recreational activities.
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In the last 5 years, research has expanded to demonstrate how complex, non-linear relationships can be recognised and incorporated into planning processes at the tree, stand, forest and landscape levels. In addition to an overview of the use of optimisation in forestry. Landscape-level optimisation is a relatively new and expanding area of research, most often performed by one large public landowner in regions where the resulting plan of action has an effect on all landowners and resources.
At the forest level, exact methods for optimising systems mainly continue to be used, and at the stand level, optimisation seems to now involve exploration of a variety of analytical methods. A large portion of the recent research in the optimisation of forest management have involved European forests, which is a function of large public ownership of land and the tradition and requirements for management planning, and roughly half of the effort has arisen from researchers located in Nordic countries. (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden). *
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*Optimisation in Forest Management [2016] - Kaya, AbdulÄŸaffar; Bettinger, Pete; Boston, Kevin; Akbulut, Ramazan; et al.
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