• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.113-121
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• 2020

This study was carried out in degraded and non-degraded community forests (CF) in the Terai region of Kanchanpur district, Nepal. A total of 63 concentric sample plots each of 500 ㎡ was laid in the inventory for estimating above and below-ground biomass of forests by using systematic random sampling with a sampling intensity of 0.5%. Mallotus philippinensis and Shorea robusta were the most dominant species in degraded and non-degraded CF accounting Importance Value Index (I.V.I) of 97.16 and 178.49, respectively. Above-ground tree biomass carbon in degraded and non-degraded community forests was 74.64±16.34 t ha^-1 and 163.12±20.23 t ha^-1, respectively. Soil carbon sequestration in degraded and non-degraded community forests was 42.55±3.10 t ha^-1 and 54.21±3.59 t ha^-1, respectively. Hence, the estimated total carbon stock was 152.68±22.95 t ha^-1 and 301.08±27.07 t ha^-1 in degraded and non-degraded community forests, respectively. It was found that the carbon sequestration in the non-degraded community forest was 1.97 times higher than in the degraded community forest. CO₂ equivalent in degraded and non-degraded community forests was 553 t ha^-1 and 1105 t ha^-1, respectively. Statistical analysis showed a significant difference between degraded and non-degraded community forests in terms of its total biomass and carbon sequestration potential (p<0.05). Studies indicate that the community forest has huge potential and can reward economic benefits from carbon trading to benefit from the REDD⁺/CDM mechanism by promoting the sustainable conservation of community forests.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.280-287
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• 2015

Soil samples were collected from three depths (0-10 cm, 10-40 cm and 40-80 cm) of two forest sites including one plantation dominated by teak with some other minor species and another degraded natural forest in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh to compare their soil properties. Some vegetation parameters were also studied. For this study $10{\times}10\;m$ and $2{\times}2\;m$ quadrats were used for the tree and undergrowth parameters, respectively. Soil samples were also collected from these quadrats. Between the two forest types, the highest levels of organic carbon, total nitrogen, available phosphorus, exchangeable bases and cation exchange capacity (CEC) were found in soils of the plantation. The soils were acidic in nature and exchangeable Al concentrations were low. Teak dominated forest plantation had higher soil fertility index (SFI) than the degraded natural forest site. Steps for reforestation and appropriate protection are needed to improve the situation.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.49-57
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• 2013

Malaysia possesses about 1.56 million ha of Peat Swamp Forest (PSF). The PSF safeguard enormous biological diversity, while providing crucial benefits for the sustainable development of human communities. Numbers of threatened plant species are associated with the PSF, including the commercially important Gonystylus bancanus timber. To prevent significant losses of biodiversity, it is important to manage the PSF for both biological conservation and sustainable use. Equally important is to restore all degraded PSF in an attempt to ensure the PSF ecosystem is suitable for the vegetation to grow and rehabilitate back to the normal condition. Prior to plan any forest restoration program, there is a need to properly map the degraded PSF in order to estimate the forest conditions and determine the vegetations status. Most of the time this need to be done at a landscape level and requires a technology that can provide accurate, timely and reliable information for the planner to make decision. This paper describes a study using geospatial technology in combination with ground survey to classify the degraded PSF in South East Pahang Peat Swamp Forest (SEPPSF), Malaysia, into different degree of vegetation classes. With map accuracy of about 83%, the technique proved to be useful in delineating the different degree of PSF degradation from which the information can be used to properly plan forest restoration program in the area. The final output which is in the form of map can be used in developing a Restoration Master Plan for the degraded PSF areas.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.101-107
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• 2018

We identified the main impacts, drivers, and restoration projects for Atlantic Forest in Northwest of the Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil. The objective was to analyze the quantity, distribution, and causes of the environmental crimes in 2000-2014. To verify differences between degraded and restored areas, we performed a t-test; ANOVA for the municipalities with more quantity of crimes, simple linear regression analysis for the relationship between sizes of degraded areas and quantity of seedlings planted, and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for environmental damages categories and population of the municipalities. The main environmental damages found were deforestation outside permanent preservation area (20%) and those related to Permanent Preservation Area (37%). Environmental crimes in these areas fall into two categories: native and exotic vegetation removal (17%), and impediment to natural regeneration (20%). The average size of the degraded areas was $5,359{\pm}526m^2$, while for restored areas was $3,337{\pm}255m^2$. The sizes of the degraded fragments were similar among the five municipalities with the higher number of environmental crimes (ANOVA: p>0.05, F=1.24; df=241). The number of seedlings planted was positively related to the sizes of the degraded fragments (p<0.001, $R^2=0.53$). Segregation between the less and the most populous municipalities was found with the PCA analysis along PC1 (51.7%), while PC2 represented 19.2% of the total variation. The most populous municipalities showed the highest number of environmental crimes, and the majority of degraded areas were recovered by planting native seedlings. Atlantic Forest fragments need to be recognized and preserved as an ecosystem with a unique ecological function by the population and public administration.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.187-198
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• 2020

This study extracted deforestation area and degraded forestland area, which are potential REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) project candidate areas in Paraguay using Land Cover Map (LCM) and Tree Cover Map (TCM). The REDD+ project objectives scenarios were set three stages: 'afforestation and economic efficiency scenario', 'local capacity reinforcement scenario', and 'Infrastructure-oriented scenario'. And then, we evaluated the project unit suitable area of the REDD+ project. All scenarios selected the evaluation factors for each scenario in addition to the area ratio factors for deforestation area and degraded forestland area and weighted values were extracted by assigning category scores. As a result of the three scenarios comparison analysis, Concepcion state score was the highest. Within Concepcion state, the Belon district had the highest score, making it appropriate as a project unit REDD+ project candidate area in Paraguay, while the San Carlos district had the lowest score. This study can be used as basic data for selecting REDD+ project candidate area in Paraguay, and it is expected to contribute sufficiently to REDD+ project if additional data or information of social, cultural and economic sectors are secured.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.298-310
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• 2020

Fuel management can play enormous role in fire management in tropical dry forests. However, unlike the temperate forests, knowledge on implications of different fuel management methods in tropical forests is often inadequate. In this study, the implications of prescribed burning and hand thinning treatments on implementation cost, fuel loading and post-treatment fire behaviour were tested and compared in degraded forests and teak plantations in two forest reserves of different levels of dryness in Ghana. The study found that prescribed burning was less expensive (62.02 US Dollars ha-1) than hand thinning (95.37 US Dollars ha-1). The study also indicated that the two fuel management methods were able to reduce fuel loading in degraded forests and teak plantations. However, prescribed burning was more effective in reducing fuel loading than hand thinning. While the relative change of fuel reduction was 13% higher in prescribed burning than the hand thinning in degraded forest, it was 41% higher in prescribed burning than hand thinning in teak plantations. The fire behaviour of post-treatment experimental fire was also lower in prescribed burning than the hand thinning and control plots. Fuel management, therefore, has a great potential in fire management in degraded forests and teak plantations in Ghana.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.451-456
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• 2018

The use of single component distribution to describe the irregular stand structure of degraded forest often lead to bias. Such biasness can be overcome by the application of finite mixture distribution. Therefore, in this study, finite mixture distribution was used to characterise the irregular stand structure of the Gmelina arborea plantation in Omo forest reserve. Thirty plots, ten each from the three stands established in 1984, 1990 and 2005 were used. The data were pooled per stand and fitted. Four finite mixture distributions including normal mixture, lognormal mixture, gamma mixture and Weibull mixture were considered. The method of maximum likelihood was used to fit the finite mixture distributions to the data. Model assessment was based on negative loglikelihood value ($-{\Lambda}{\Lambda}$), Akaike information criterion (AIC), Bayesian information criterion (BIC) and root mean square error (RMSE). The results showed that the mixture distributions provide accurate and precise characterisation of the irregular diameter distribution of the degraded Gmelina arborea stands. The $-{\Lambda}{\Lambda}$, AIC, BIC and RMSE values ranged from -715.233 to -348.375, 703.926 to 1433.588, 718.598 to 1451.334 and 3.003 to 7.492, respectively. Their performances were relatively the same. This approach can be used to describe other irregular forest stand structures, especially the multi-species forest.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.477-487
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• 2010

In North Korea, forests were intensively degraded by forest land reclamation for food production and firewood collection since the mid-1970s. These degraded forests have to be certainly recovered for economic support, environmental protection and disaster prevention. In order to provide detailed land cover information of forest recovery project (A/R CDM), this study was focused to develop an improved classification method for degraded forest using 2.5m SPOT-5 pan-sharpened image. The degraded forest of North Korea shows various different types of texture. This study used GLCM texture bands of segmented image with spectral bands during forest cover classification. When scale factor 40/shape factor 0.3 was used as a parameter set to generate segment image, segment image was generated on suitable segment scale that could classify types of degraded forest. Forest land cover types were classified with an optimum band combination of Band1, Band2, band3, GLCM dissimilarity (band2), GLCM homogeneity (band2) and GLCM standard deviation (band3). Segment-based classification method using spectral bands and texture bands reached an 80.4% overall accuracy, but the method using only spectral bands yielded an 70.3% overall accuracy. As using spectral and texture bands, a classification accuracy of stocked forest and unstocked forest showed an increase of 23~25%. In this research, SPOT-5 pan-sharpened high-resolution satellite image could provide a very useful information for classifying the forest cover of North Korea in which field data collection was not available for ground truth data and verification directly. And segment-based classification method using texture information improved classification accuracy of degraded forest.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.172-186
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• 2017

The effects of application of fuel-reduction treatment in wildfire management has not been tested in dry forests of Ghana. Therefore, the short-term ecological effects of prescribed burning and hand thinning treatments followed by experimental wildfire were investigated in degraded forests and Tectona grandis forest plantations in two forest reserves of different levels of dryness in Ghana. The results showed that more trees were killed in prescribed burning (average of 41% in degraded forest and 18% in plantations) than hand thinning (7.2% in degraded forests and 8% in plantation). More tree seedlings were also killed in prescribed burning (72%) than hand thinning (47%). The mortality of trees and seedlings were greater in Worobong South forest, a less dry forest reserve than the Afram Headwaters forest, a drier forest reserve. Fuel treatment especially prescribed burning compared to the control reduced wildfire effects on forest canopy particularly in the less dry forest and tree mortality especially in the drier forest. Prescribed burning temporarily increased pH, exchangeable potassium (52%) and available phosphorus (82%) in the surface soils of the entire plots. The two fuel treatment methods did not have much influence on basal area, organic matter and total nitrogen. Nevertheless, they were able to reduce the adverse wildfire effects on soil pH, exchangeable potassium, available phosphorus, organic matter and total nitrogen concentrations. Fuel treatments therefore have potential application in dry forest management in Ghana due to their ability to retain important forest ecological traits after a wildfire incidence.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.96 no.5
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• pp.572-579
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• 2007

Tree species diversity is an important aspect of forest ecosystem stability. Tree species inventories at defined sites and in minimum diameter classes give a reliable indicator of the diversity level as well as the structural stability level of a study site. This study was conducted to investigate the species composition and the stand structure of the natural forest, timber-harvested forest (logged-over forest) and degraded forest of the Oak-twin Township in the Bago Yoma Region of Myanmar. Natural forest showed the highest family and species richness in all the investigated forests. At the family level, Verbenaceae occupied the highest importance value index (IVI) in all the forest stands while teak (Tectona grandis Linn. f.) occupied the highest IVI at the species level. However, the small diameter classes of T. grandis and other commercial species were less than those of big diameter classes in all the investigated forests. This abnormal pattern of diameter distribution could be a problem for the sustainable production of commercial timber species in the near future.