Talk:Variable retention

Please use the following definition from Ministry of Forests of British Columbia. It is much better than the one that is currently used in Wikipedia. If you want, rephrase it.

The definition:

variable retention - An approach to forest planning and forest harvesting in which structural elements of the existing forest are retained throughout a harvested area until at least the next rotation to achieve specific management objectives. Varying amounts, types, and spatial patterns of living and dead trees are retained. Variable retention uses all silvicultural systems, from single tree selection to clearcutting, including the retention silvicultural system, to achieve variable retention over a landscape.

Reply to previous comment: I would leave the current definition, because it is more general than the definition of BC ministry. People use variable retention not only in BC and it defined a bit differently in US. I would suggest to cite Franklin J.F. book: "Creating forestry for the 21st century". Chapter 7 discusses variable retention. Also, some philosophical discussion is available from Mitchell S.J. and Beese W.J. "The retention system:reconciling variable retention..." M gerzon (talk) 16:20, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Edits in definition

I edited the definition to include couple citations in it

Edits in Variable Retention Methods

Many things written here were totally wrong!!! 1) Foresters are forbidden to log only the most valuable trees from the site. It is called High-Grading and it is forbidden by most of the countries, as it degrades the forests. 2) Also, natural disturbance is definitely not killing only one tree. Windthrow event can kill 100 trees in a row. Fires can kill several hectares with no problem. 3)Also, dead trees do not help the forest "survive".

I have no idea who wrote all these nonsense. Either give a proper citations for such weird ideas, or delete this text. It was all wrong. So, I fixed the text a bit, but it still looks like it was written by 13 years old kid. I just don't have time for now. Please rewrite it properly with proper citations. Also, variable retention is used not only in British Columbia, but also in US and other places. Please, avoid writing only about tree species of British Columbia or species of Washington state. Please write in more general way. Or otherwise, explicitly indicate that whatever you wrote was an example from western coast of North America.

M gerzon (talk) 01:23, 19 September 2009 (UTC)