Forest History (forest + history)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Forest History as a Basis for Ecosystem Restoration,A Multidisciplinary Case Study in a South Swedish Temperate Landscape

RESTORATION ECOLOGY, Issue 2 2007
Matts Lindbladh
Abstract Basic knowledge of the previous forest types or ecosystem present in an area ought to be an essential part of all landscape restoration. Here, we present a detailed study of forest and land use history over the past 2,000 years, from a large estate in southernmost Sweden, which is currently undergoing a restoration program. In particular, the aim was to identify areas with long continuity of important tree species and open woodland conditions. We employed a multidisciplinary approach using paleoecological analyses (regional and local pollen, plant macrofossil, tree ring) and historical sources (taxation documents, land surveys, forest inventories). The estate has been dominated by temperate broad-leaved trees over most of the studied period. When a forest type of Tilia, Corylus, and Quercus started to decline circa 1,000 years ago, it was largely replaced by Fagus. Even though extensive planting of Picea started in mid-nineteenth century, Fagus and Quercus have remained rather common on the estate up to present time. Both species show continuity on different parts of the estate from eighteenth century up to present time, but in some stands, for the entire 2,000 years. Our suggestions for restoration do not aim for previous "natural" conditions but to maintain the spatial vegetational pattern created by the historical land use. This study gives an example of the spatial and temporal variation of the vegetation that has historically occurred within one area and emphasizes that information from one methodological technique provides only limited information about an area's vegetation history. [source]


Australia's Ever-changing Forest V. Proceedings of the Fifth National Conference of Australian Forest History

AUSTRAL ECOLOGY, Issue 2 2004
Paul Adam
No abstract is available for this article. [source]


The Timber Trade in Southeastern Brazil, 1920,1960

BULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH, Issue 3 2005
Christian Brannstrom
Logging economies in Latin America have long supplied forest resources to international and domestic markets. One of Latin America's more significant timber regions supplied South America's largest industrial metropolis, São Paulo. However, relatively little is known about the historical geography of logging in Brazil, or elsewhere in Latin America, in part because of the bias of forest histories to the destruction, rather than utilisation, of forest resources. This study focuses on domestic demand for hardwood and its salient characteristics: transport, the distribution of sawmills, the use of contracts and dangerous working conditions. [source]


Dating the introduction of cereal cultivation to the British Isles: early palaeoecological evidence from the Isle of Man

JOURNAL OF QUATERNARY SCIENCE, Issue 7 2003
James B. Innes
Abstract The adoption of cereal cultivation is a key benchmark in the transition from Mesolithic hunter,gatherer foraging to Neolithic farming economies, but the nature, timing and ecological,cultural context of the earliest cereal use in the British Isles and northwest Europe is still uncertain. We present AMS radiocarbon dating and fine-resolution pollen evidence from the Isle of Man for cereal growing in the latter stages of a distinct episode of forest disturbance at almost 6000,yr,BP (uncalibrated). The coherent ecological structure of this phase at the fine resolution level suggests that it records cereal cultivation well before the Ulmus decline, rather than wild grass pollen grains. This example is one of a cluster of early dates for cereal-type pollen near the start of the sixth millenium BP, including several around the Irish Sea, which indicate that the introduction of cereal agriculture probably occurred as early in the central British Isles as in the northern European plain. This early cereal phase is followed later by a probable phase of pre- Ulmus decline pastoral activity. We also report Mesolithic age woodland disturbance around 7000,yr,BP (uncalibrated) and the first radiocarbon dates for mid-Holocene forest history of the Isle of Man. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]