Introductory Agroforestry

Forest

 Forest:
• General: ‘An area set aside for the production of timber and other forest produce or maintained under woody vegetation for certain indirect benefits which it provides e.g., climatic or protective is forest.’
• Ecological: It is defined as a plant community predominantly of trees and other woody vegetation usually with closed canopy.
• Legal: An area of land proclaimed to be forest under a forest law.
Stand:

• Stand is defined as an aggregation of trees occupying a specific area sufficiently uniform in composition, age, arrangement and condition to be distinguishable from the forest on adjoining areas.
Classification of Forests: Forests can be classified on the basis of:

• Method of regeneration,
• Age,
• Composition,
• Object of management,
• Ownership and legal status,
• Growing stock.
Method of regeneration:

• High forest: Forest regenerated from seed
• Coppice forests: Forests regenerated by vegetative means such as coppicing shoots or root suckers
Age:

• Even aged or regular forests: Forest composed of even-aged woods and applied to a stand consisting of trees of approximately the same age. Differences up to 25% of the rotation age may be allowed.
• Uneven aged or irregular forest: Forest composed of trees of markedly different ages and applied to a stand in which individual stem vary widely in age: age difference more than 25% of the rotation.
Composition:

• Pure forest is defined as a forest composed of almost entirely of one species usually to the extent of not less than 80%.
• Mixed forest is defined as a forest composed of trees of two or more species intermingled in the same canopy.




Plate 2.1 Pure Forest of Cedrus deodara & Plate 2.2 Mixed Forest

Objects of Management:

• Production forest: Forest managed primarily for its produce’. It is also sometimes referred to as national forest, i.e., a forest which is maintained and managed to meet the needs of the defence, communication, industry, and other general purposes of public importance’.
• Protection forest: An area wholly or partly covered with woody growth, managed primarily to regulate stream flow, prevent erosion, hold shifting sand or to exert any other beneficial influence’.
• Farm forest: Forest raised on farms and its adjoining area either as individual scattered trees or a collection of trees to meet the requirement of fuel and fodder of the farmers and to have a beneficial influence on agriculture.
• Fuel forest: Forest raised on village waste land to supply fuel, small timber, fodder, etc., to the village communities living far away from Government forest.
• Recreational forest: Forest which is managed only to meet the recreational needs of the urban and rural population.
Ownership and Legal Status:

• State forest is a ‘forest owned by state’. On the basis of legal status, state forests are further classified as:
• Reserved forest is ‘an area so constituted under the Indian forest Act 1927 or other forest law’.
• Protected forest: An area subject to limited degree of protection under the provision of chapter IV of the Indian Forest act 1927’.
• Village forest: State forest assigned to a village community under the provision of the Indian Forest Act 1927’.
• Communal forest: Forest owned and generally managed by a community such as a village, town, tribal authority or local government, the members of which share the produce’.
• Panchayat forest: Any forest where management is vested in a village panchayat (i.e., a body of men elected by the villagers from among themselves for specific administrative or other purposes pertaining to the village)’.
Growing Stock:

• Normal forests: Forest which for a given site and given objects of management is ideally constituted as regard growing stock, age class distribution and increment and from which the annual or periodic removal of produce is equal to the increment can be continued indefinitely without endangering future yield.
• Abnormal forest: is the one in which the quantity of material in the growing stock is in deficit or in excess or in which the relative proportion of the age or size classes are defectives.