Conserving Forest Biodiversity: A Comprehensive Multiscaled Approach

While most efforts at biodiversity conservation have focused primarily on protected areas and reserves, the unprotected lands surrounding those area?the “”matrix””?are equally important to preserving global biodiversity and maintaining forest health. In Conserving Forest Biodiversity, leading forest scientists David B. Lindenmayer and Jerry F. Franklin argue that the conservation of forest biodiversity requires a comprehensive and multiscaled approach that includes both reserve and nonreserve areas.

“While most efforts at biodiversity conservation have focused primarily on protected areas and reserves, the unprotected lands surrounding those area?the “”matrix””?are equally important to preserving global biodiversity and maintaining forest health. In Conserving Forest Biodiversity, leading forest scientists David B. Lindenmayer and Jerry F. Franklin argue that the conservation of forest biodiversity requires a comprehensive and multiscaled approach that includes both reserve and nonreserve areas. They lay the foundations for such a strategy, bringing together the latest scientific information on landscape ecology, forestry, conservation biology, and related disciplines as they examine: the importance of the matrix in key areas of ecology such as metapopulation; dynamics, habitat fragmentation, and landscape connectivity; general principles for matrix management; using natural disturbance regimes to guide human disturbance; landscape-level and stand-level elements of matrix management;
the role of adaptive management and monitoring
social dimensions and tensions in implementing matrix-based forest management.”