The oak tree was a boon companion as humans expanded their presence across much of the globe. While oak woodlands (Quercus spp.) come today in stunningly diverse forms, the stately dehesas of Spain and the dramatic oak-dominated ranchlands of California are working landscapes where cultivation and manipulation for a couple of millennia have shaped Mediterranean-type ecosystems into a profoundly modified yet productive environment that is sought-after by every manner of species. The grazing of wildlife and livestock in oak woodlands yields a remarkable plant and animal biodiversity, creating a mosaic of habitats and visually pleasing savannas. Added products unique to Spain such as Iberian pigs and cork, and in California multiple landowner benefits, include valued ecosystem services that allow owners, visitors, and conservation supporters to experience the benefits of woodland life. With its 15 chapters a decade in the making, this handsomely illustrated book covers key topics in oak woodland policy, ecology, and management in Spain and California, presenting new research results and reviewing an existing expert literature.

This book is about the resilience of silvo-pastoral systems now, and in the future. As such, it is about people. The goal is to fill the gap in the knowledge on silvo-pastoral systems and their changing trends, by adding the human dimension, with enough detail to draw inferences about the new governance solutions that are needed to address the multiple challenges faced by silvo-pastoral systems. As such, the book provides knowledge applicable to current and future silvo-pastoral territories in other regions across the world. The volume is divided into three sections: people and institutions, the institutional framework, and governance models. Each section, composed of several chapters, draws on empirical work about the Iberian montado and dehesa as well as from other similar systems in the Mediterranean, both on the northern and on the southern sides, in order to broaden its scope and cover a wider range of situations and examples. Some of the chapters rely more strongly on empirical findings and current experiences, others on a literature review and reflection by the authors over many years working with these systems. The conclusion sums up the most relevant findings from each chapter and discusses how research can progress so that new scientific approaches and evidence can support better adapted governance models of silvopastoral systems to face future challenges. This text will be highly valuable to university and research institute libraries, academics, policy officials, and stakeholder groups, such as NGOs and sectoral organizations, who wish to better understand the relevance of the human factor and use this knowledge to find sustainable solutions. It will be a central reading for postgraduate students enrolled in rural planning, landscape management and governance, agronomy and forestry, as well as geography and socio-ecology programmes, that have a focus on sustainable land use management and supporting mixed farming systems.

This substantially updated new edition reflects the growing recognition that large areas of forests are degraded globally. This edition describes forest restoration in the context of rapid social, economic, environmental, and climate change. Covering the last decade's significant advances in forest restoration concepts and practice, this edition has 16 new chapters and 19 thoroughly revised chapters. This book is an excellent source of information for researchers, managers, policymakers, and graduate students in forestry and ecology.

Wood-pastures are important elements of European cultural identity and have an exceptional ecological value, yet they are in decline all over Europe. The structure of wood-pastures is strongly influenced by grazing and multiple other land uses and by local and regional environmental conditions. This book examines the diverse expressions of wood-pastures across Europe. It provides a new perspective, using a social-ecological framework to explore social and ecological values, governing institutions, threats and conservation approaches. It explores the major drivers of decline, which are shown to be related to accelerated cultural, institutional and developmental changes occurring across Europe over the past century. Case studies are included from North-Western, Southern, and Eastern Europe. Written by renowned scholars and conservationists, the book contributes to developing better, locally adapted conservation policies and management approaches for wood-pastures.

Climate change, urban sprawl, abandonment of agriculture, intensification of forestry and agriculture, changes in energy generation and use, expansion of infrastructure networks, habitat destruction and degradation, and other drivers of change occur at increasing rates. They affect patterns and processes in forest landscapes, and modify ecosystem services derived from those ecosystems. Consequently, rapidly changing landscapes present many new challenges to scientists and managers. While it is not uncommon to encounter the terms “global change” and “landscape” together in the ecological literature, a global analyses of drivers of change in forest landscapes, and their ecological consequences have not been addressed adequately. That is the goal of this volume: an exploration of the state of knowledge of global changes in forested landscapes with emphasis on causes and effects, and challenges faced by researchers and land managers. Initial chapters identify and describe major agents of landscape change: climate, fire, and human activities. The next series of chapters address implications of changes on ecosystem services, biodiversity conservation and carbon flux. A chapter that describes methodologies of detecting and monitoring landscape changes is presented followed by chapter that highlights the many challenges forest landscape managers face amidst of global change. Finally, we present a summary and a synthesis of the main points presented in the book. Each chapter will contain the individual research experiences of chapter authors, augmented by review and synthesis of global scientific literature on relevant topics, as well as critical input from multiple peer reviewers.

This book is open access under a CC BY-NC 2.5 license. This book provides an unprecedented synthesis of the current status of scientific and management knowledge regarding global rangelands and the major challenges that confront them. It has been organized around three major themes. The first summarizes the conceptual advances that have occurred in the rangeland profession. The second addresses the implications of these conceptual advances to management and policy. The third assesses several major challenges confronting global rangelands in the 21st century. This book will compliment applied range management textbooks by describing the conceptual foundation on which the rangeland profession is based. It has been written to be accessible to a broad audience, including ecosystem managers, educators, students and policy makers. The content is founded on the collective experience, knowledge and commitment of 80 authors who have worked in rangelands throughout the world. Their collective contributions indicate that a more comprehensive framework is necessary to address the complex challenges confronting global rangelands. Rangelands represent adaptive social-ecological systems, in which societal values, organizations and capacities are of equal importance to, and interact with, those of ecological processes. A more comprehensive framework for rangeland systems may enable management agencies, and educational, research and policy making organizations to more effectively assess complex problems and develop appropriate solutions.

This long-anticipated reference and sourcebook for California’s remarkable ecological abundance provides an integrated assessment of each major ecosystem type—its distribution, structure, function, and management. A comprehensive synthesis of our knowledge about this biologically diverse state, Ecosystems of California covers the state from oceans to mountaintops using multiple lenses: past and present, flora and fauna, aquatic and terrestrial, natural and managed. Each chapter evaluates natural processes for a specific ecosystem, describes drivers of change, and discusses how that ecosystem may be altered in the future. This book also explores the drivers of California’s ecological patterns and the history of the state’s various ecosystems, outlining how the challenges of climate change and invasive species and opportunities for regulation and stewardship could potentially affect the state’s ecosystems. The text explicitly incorporates both human impacts and conservation and restoration efforts and shows how ecosystems support human well-being. Edited by two esteemed ecosystem ecologists and with overviews by leading experts on each ecosystem, this definitive work will be indispensable for natural resource management and conservation professionals as well as for undergraduate or graduate students of California’s environment and curious naturalists.

An authoritative review of the ecology of forest birds and their conservation issues throughout the Northern Hemisphere.

Agroforestry for Carbon and Ecosystem Management is a comprehensive overview of current research, issues, challenges, and case studies in the area of agroforestry. It focuses specifically on carbon source-sink relationship and management through agroforestry practices with the goal of improving overall environmental sustainability. Through expert insights and case studies, the book promotes carbon management, greenhouse gas emission reduction, forest, and ecosystem services management along with relevant sustainable approaches for natural resources conservation. It provides insight into novel approaches for natural resource management, with specific attention given to technologies related to carbon capture and management. Agroforestry for Carbon and Ecosystem Management also proposes possible polices and plans for future research and implementation, the latest updates in the area of agroforestry research for sustainability, developments in carbon dynamics and management, addresses the knowledge gap in relation to agroforestry, sustainability and agroecosystem management and explores the application of remote sensing and geospatial technology for agroforestry management. Presents the latest insights in agroforestry and ecosystem management to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS) for a green future Includes both theoretical and practical approaches to agroforestry practices Presents expert insights on the multidisciplinary challenges and opportunities of agroforestry for carbon and other ecological impacts Explores the integration of technological interfaces for improving the potential of agroforestry practices