Forestry Handbook

Rating:
Summary: outstanding book
Review: i used this book extensively during my forestry training.if you are serious about forestry this is a must have book. it covers everything to do with forestry. its extreamly informative. the price may seem a bit high but, you'll get volumes of excelent forestry information.

Rating:
Summary: Forestry Handbook: Must-have resource for foresters
Review: The Forestry Handbook contains a wealth of information for foresters and other natural resource managers. It's not a book that you read from start to finish (even discounting the 1,335 page length). Rather, it is a superb reference book. I use the Handbook frequently, and have a copy both at work and at home.

The Handbook is broken into 25 sections that include Ecology, Silviculture, Geology and Soils, Genetics, Fire Management, Insects and Diseases, Inventory, Measurements, and Logging. In addition to these forestry-related sections are those on Fish and Wildlife Management, Range Management, Watershed Management, and Remote Sensing. The Handbook also includes sections on Safety, People Management, and Communications.

Most sections have multiple authors, and these authors represent government, academia, and industry. Authors are from all regions of the country.

The strengh of the Handbook is that it covers a varity of forestry and natural resource topics, and does so very well. As you would expect, it relies heavily on figures and graphs, and these are appropriately used and of good quality. The sheer range of topics limits somewhat the depth of each topic. However, no other forestry text approaches the overall utility of the Handbook.

This 2nd Edition of the Handbook was edited for the Society of American Foresters and published in 1984. I hope that a 3rd Edition is in the near future. Technological advdances alone, including Geographic Information Systems (GIS), GPS, and related technologies indicate that an update is needed. Topics such as Best Management Practices (BMPs) and forest certification, now part of our everyday language in forestry, are absent from the 1984 Handbook.

The price tag may seem steep to foresters. However, considering the bredth of material and quality of the text, it is a text worth having if you are serious about forestry.