Ecosystem Management and the Southern Appalachian National Forests

Forest management is an attempt to guide forest ecosystems to meet the goals of landowners, private or public (Davis et al. 2001). The sustainability concept has always been part of forest management.

"The word sustainable has political power and, like the word conservation, takes on strong normative interpretations (e.g., sustainable is good, nonsustainable is bad). Like most political words, in the political context the meaning is general and somewhat vague, allowing it to be defined and redefined by the user for different audiences and situations (Davis et al. 2001)."

It is important to understand the major viewpoints about sustaining forest ecosystems and to compare and contrast their principal features in order to better understand National Forest planning and management.

• BROKEN-LINK BROKEN-LINK A Brief History of Management Viewpoints

• Southern Region Forest Planning

A complete and understandable description of the forest planning process for the Southern Region does not appear to be available. The best resource currently available is the USDA Office of General Council working paper entitled "Overview of Forest Planning and Project Level Decisionmaking" on the USDA Forest Services Ecosystem Management Coordination web page.