Continuous Cover Forestry in Boreal Nordic Countries

This open access book compiles the latest research on continuous cover forestry in boreal forests, highlighting both the need for additional information and the exciting possibilities that this method presents. Experts in the field explore topics such as forest regeneration, genetic effects, wood production and yield, wood harvesting, forest damage agents, biodiversity, water effects, carbon cycles of forests, economics, forest planning methods, multiple uses of forests, and forest owners' attitudes.

As the world faces increasing pressure to balance the multiple goals of forest management, including raw material production, carbon sequestration, biodiversity, and climate change adaptation, it is becoming clear that different forest management methods are required. Even-aged forest management is well-researched, but continuous forest management is a newer and rapidly evolving approach that is gaining popularity in boreal forests.

While an overall synthesis of the subject is not yet possible, this book provides an essential foundation for understanding the current state of continuous cover forestry in boreal forests. With the new research data being accumulated all the time, this book is an invaluable resource for researchers, policymakers, and forest managers who want to stay up-to-date on this important topic.

Pasi Rautio currently works as a research professor in silviculture at Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke). His expertise is in silviculture as well as in forest and environmental ecology. His roles involve forest monitoring and studies on forest regeneration and forest management methods in areas that are facing pressures of other land uses, such as tourism, recreation and reindeer herding. Pasi is the coordinator for ArcticHubs, a H2020 project investigating solutions to Arctic land use conflicts and long-term sustainability of the region. His previous work at the University of Oulu in Finland and Stockholm University in Sweden has concerned issues like biodiversity and restoration of seminatural pastures; evolutionary ecology of plant-animal interactions and air pollution effects on forest ecosystems. He also worked as a forest policy officer in the European Commission (DG Environment). He is a member of UNECE Team of Specialists on Boreal Forests and Programme Co-ordinating Group of UNECE ICP Forests.

Johanna Routa works as a research manager in Profitable and responsible primary production research programme at Luke. She is a docent of Sustainable forest biomass production and quality management at the University of Eastern Finland. Her expertise is in sustainable forest biomass production, biomass supply chains, costs of different management practices and the quality management of forest biomass. She has experience in research leadership and bioenergy R&D with companies and other stakeholders. Johanna is the coordinator of H2020 project BRANCHES (Boosting Rural bioeconomy Networks following multi-actors approaches) which aims to increase the implementation of new technologies in bioeconomy. She is member of the IEA bioenergy group. 

Dr. Saija Huuskonen is a senior scientist at Luke and a docent of silviculture at the University of Helsinki. Her core expertise lies in forest management and silvicultural practices, focusing on their impact on wood production and sustainable forest use. She is involved in the developing the forest management decision support system, Motti. Saija leads mixed forests projects, which evaluate mixed forests from various perspectives, including ecosystem services, forest management, forest resources, risk management, and growth dynamics. She also established new long-term mixed forest field experiments to create new research infrastructure. She is a member of national forest management committees and deputy coordinator at IUFRO 1.01.01 Boreal Forest Silviculture and Management division. Dr. Huuskonen has contributed to dissemination efforts through peer-reviewed articles, textbooks, reports, and speaking engagements. Her diverse knowledge and experience in silviculture in the Nordic boreal region spans research, teaching, and practical applications.

Emma Holmström is an associate professor in silviculture at SLU. Her research spans over forest management for production, forest conservation and multiuse purposes. She studies forest experiments and monitoring data from the Swedish national forest inventory, aiming for results useful for both the applied forestry and the theoretical framework of modelling growth and yield. She has a special interest in silviculture of mixed forest and of the broadleaved tree species in northern Europe. In recent year she has established several long-term experiments and projects investigating how climate change induced droughts might be mitigated by forest management in pine and spruce. Emma is the coordinator of the interdisciplinary platform Future Forests since 2021, which is a research infrastructure used for developing knowledge on CCF both in past program periods and in the current.

Jonas Cedergren is a research officer working for the Swedish Forest Research Institute. His area of expertise is the zone between silviculture and harvesting system and methods. He has conducted practical studies in Sweden and Malaysia. Focus has been on response of the residual stand to partial harvests, and the implications of logging damage. Mr. Cedergren has worked for more than a decade with selective logging operations in Malaysia. There he conducted experiments on felling damage, established a large-scale and long-term growth and yield study, and developed a prototype logging system for peat swamp forest. He coordinated a major Swedish project on closed canopy forest management methods in Sweden. He has worked extensively the FAO Global Forest Resource Assessment. Finally he has worked a decade at the FAO as a specialist officer in forest technology, with a focus on occupational safety and health.

Christian Kuehne currently works as a researcher in forest management at the Norwegian Institute for Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO) in Ås, Norway. He lectured silviculture and forest restoration at the University of Freiburg, Germany and forest mensuration at the University of Maine, USA. His studies examine the effects of manipulating forest structure through silvicultural interventions on stand dynamics such as regeneration establishment and growth response in residual trees. He has expertise in forest growth and yield modeling and also studied challenges and limitations of the close-to-nature forest management paradigm in Central Europe.