Program Manager: Don
White
One of the key challenges for forest managers today
is the capacity to turn increasing amounts of data and a myriad of
technologies into valuable information and useful
tools—preferably in the same package. This was the mission of
Program One.
We recognised that forests are increasingly managed
for a range of products and purposes. These include not only
providing fibre and timber products but also water and carbon. We
also acknowledged that forest management occurs within a social
context. Consequently, we worked to understand how to optimise
forest management and to appreciate the effects of different
management approaches on more than one outcome or output.
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Scientists discussing yellowing symptoms
in a pine plantation
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Furthermore, as our national forest industries
embraced new species planted in new environments where experience
was limited, we also faced the uncertainties of a changing climate,
recognising the need to make robust predictions based on an
understanding of forest processes.
We recognised that, in order to successfully
address this increased complexity in our forests, we must maximise
the value we could derive from operating in an information-rich and
technology-rich age.
Due to all of these considerations, our research
effort in Program One focused on questions that helped us develop a
much deeper understanding of the forest estate. This included how
particular site and tree characteristics affect growth and resource
use in both the short and long term. We also explored and developed
appropriate methods and economically viable technologies to help us
better measure characteristics of interest, to assess forest
condition and to alert managers to changes in that condition.
From these advances in process understanding and
through improved capacity to capture forest metrics and describe
forest condition over time, we worked to predict outcomes and test
scenarios that could not be tested experimentally. Scenarios of
interest explored responses to site factors such as soils and
topography, climatic variables such as temperature and rainfall,
stochastic events including pest or disease attack, or
silvicultural management such as thinning and pruning.
The primary research effort of Program One was
conducted within appropriate modelling frameworks that ensured
individual experiments and projects provided data and outputs that
were compatible across the breadth of the research effort.
The modelling approach provided a unifying context for the work, a
suitable method for further hypothesis formulation and testing, and
a robust and consistent structure from which to develop useful
outputs.
Finally, and critically, models and modelling
outputs were built into decision-support platforms to meet the
needs of future forest managers. In this effort, cross-program
collaboration was essential to the delivery of useful tools to
industry and other stakeholders.
Our program was structured into four research
projects—each project addressed one or more of the themes
described above:
