Measuring and assessing management of forested landscapes

Forest management assessment is poorly understood and rarely undertaken in practice. In current practice, forest responses to management interventions are not typically monitored and evaluated. Consequently, any sense of objective achievement is lacking. Assessment of forest response is necessary, however, to ensure that forest management efficiently and effectively moves a forest toward a desired objective, by detecting deviation and adjusting management strategy accordingly.This paper proposes a framework for forest management assessment centred on the landscape, or ecosystem, management model. The framework identifies spatial forest structure, i.e. the array, amounts and geographical arrangement of forest conditions, as a basis for setting forest objectives, establishing spatial management strategies, and periodically measuring and assessing forest responses. Periodic measurement of spatial forest structure will be a significant challenge in implementing the assessment framework proposed. The potential of digital satellite imagery and GIS technologies is examined, using a Landsat TM image and the Arc/Info™ and Easi/Pace™ software systems, and found wanting. Key words: forest management, landscape, GIS, satellite imagery