Retention forestry now sparing trees and benefitting biodiversity worldwide

The management practice known as retention forestry, which involves deliberately leaving selected trees standing when wood is harvested, has spread to forests over much of the world and is bringing broad benefits to conservation, according to an assessment published in the July 2012 issue of BioScience. The study, by an international group of researchers headed by Lena Gustafsson of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala, concludes that the practice can complement reserve-based conservation in landscapes with widely varying histories, by preserving the complexity associated with natural forests. This contrasts with the ecological simplification that usually results from traditional industrial forest management.



via Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories http://phys.org/news/2012-06-retention-forestry-trees-benefitting-biodiversity.html