Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Forests

Publisher

MDPI

Publication Date

1-15-2014

Volume

5

Issue

1

Disciplines

Forest Management | Forest Sciences | Life Sciences

Abstract

While the use of timber harvests is generally accepted as an effective approach to controlling bark beetles during outbreaks, in reality there has been a dearth of monitoring to assess outcomes, and failures are often not reported. Additionally, few studies have focused on how these treatments affect forest structure and function over the long term, or our forests’ ability to adapt to climate change. Despite this, there is a widespread belief in the policy arena that timber harvesting is an effective and necessary tool to address beetle infestations. That belief has led to numerous proposals for, and enactment of, significant changes in federal environmental laws to encourage more timber harvests for beetle control. In this review, we use mountain pine beetle as an exemplar to critically evaluate the state of science behind the use of timber harvest treatments for bark beetle suppression during outbreaks. It is our hope that this review will stimulate research to fill important gaps and to help guide the development of policy and management firmly based in science, and thus, more likely to aid in forest conservation, reduce financial waste, and bolster public trust in public agency decision-making and practice.

Keywords

bark beetle, clearcut, climate change, climate change adaptation, daylighting, Dendroctonus ponderosae, forest pest management, monitoring, sanitation, thinning

Rights

© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

DOI

10.3390/f5010103

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

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