Deep soil ploughing for afforestation: a review of potential impacts on soil and vegetation

Deep ploughing—which inverts, covers, or mixes soil organic layer (forest floor) and surface mineral A horizon into the mineral subsoil, burying the upper soil horizon in deeper layers, and disrupting pedogenic processes—is a debatable topic in forest plantation management. Overall, this review article aimed to identify the impacts of deep ploughing on the properties of forest plantations, adapting experiences from the agricultural sector. This paper examines the main impacts of deep ploughing technology on soil physical, chemical, and biological properties, ground vegetation, and tree aboveground and belowground biomass in afforested former agricultural land. Analysis of the published literature shows that deep ploughing can be used under different climatic and soil conditions, but it induces site-specific changes in soil properties and vegetation. Mechanical site preparation during afforestation and reforestation should follow the requirements of sustainable soil management, in order to avoid negative effects on the environment and biodiversity. Based on this analysis, we suggest key indicators that may be specific to deep ploughing responses in afforested sites and can contribute to risk assessment, aimed at achieving sustainable forest management. To date, most studies on mechanical site preparation for forest plantation have been performed using a few conifer tree species; therefore, it is important to expand empirical studies.

POLITIK EKOLOGI KEHUTANAN: KEBIJAKAN HUTAN TANAMAN INDUSTRI DI SAMBELIA, LOMBOK TIMUR

Ecological politics rely solely on economic interest. Development and the environment have a complicated correlation. The industrial plantation forest policy aims to ensure that the economic benefit goes hand in hand with the sustainability demand. Ironically, this policy triggers a conflict between local communities and corporations as the holder of forest concession rights. The concession is practically established due to merely economic interest aligned with the extractive industry of tobacco in Lombok. The plantation is aimed as the supporting source for the tobacco industry since it requires specific woods to roast the tobacco. The study refers to utilizes instrumental state theory and deep ecology perspective to identify how the policy was made for the capital and tobacco capital benefits, while the sustainability objective is left behind. The study shows not only how the concession sparked ironic economic development, but also how the liberal environmentalism approach in industrial forest plantation policy has failed to gain its objective. The economic potential of tobacco in Lombok is the main determinant in industrial forest plantation policy that changes community forests into private forests. In the end, the policy was strategically implemented to sustain production and strengthen corporation monopoly over forests.

Dynamic of the Land Use and Land Cover Change in Banyuwangi Regency From 1995-2019

The land use and land cover change phenomenon has become one concern over many regions worldwide, including Indonesia. Land use and land cover change due to human activities triggered alteration terrestrial ecosystems and its services including climate control functions. The study aimed to analyze land use and land cover change in Banyuwangi regency during 1995 – 2019. Four satellite images from acquisition year 1995, 2000, 2014 and 2019 were used to analyze the spatial and temporal changes along with field observations. The classification processes of land use and land cover included determination of training areas, supervised classification, and accuracy assessment. There are 12 land use and land cover based on supervised classification as follow primary forest, secondary forest, plantation forest, mangrove forest, plantation, settlement, cropland, paddy field, shrubs, water, fishpond and barren land. The result showed during observation period of 1995 until 2019 land use and land cover which tends to decrease are secondary forest, mangrove forest, and rice fields. On the other hand, the area of settlements, shrubs and fishponds were increased significantly.

Comparative Metagenomic and Metabolomic Profiling of Rhizospheres of Panax notoginseng Grown under Forest and Field Conditions

The present study investigated the potential changes in the structure of bacterial communities and their functional profiles in the rhizospheres of Panax notoginseng cultivated under field (CK) and pine forest conditions (T). The rhizospheres of two-year-old P. notoginseng plants were used to extract DNA for metagenomic sequencing and metabolites for metabolomic profiling. The results revealed a higher root weight (p < 0.05) in plants grown under the forest than CK. The rhizospheric bacterial community comprised mainly three dominant phyla including Acidobacteria, Proteobacteria, and Candidatus rokubacteria which accounted for 75% of the total microbial population. Among them, Acidobacteria was the most abundant bacterial taxa, accounting for 42.4% and 40.4% of the total populations in CK and T, respectively. Relative abundances of bacterial genera revealed that Bradyrhizobium, Candidatus koribacter and Edaphobacter, were the dominant genera in both groups. Comparatively, a higher Proteobacteria to Acidobacteria ratio was observed in forest rhizospheres than in field conditions. Candidatus Rokubacteria and Candidatus nitrostelea were identified as biomarker taxa in forest rhizospheres, while the same could be said for taxa belonging to betaproteobacteria and gammaproteobacteria, Burkholderiales and Verrucomicrobia for field rhizospheres. No differential metabolite contents were observed between the two rhizosphere groups, indicating no adverse effects of P. notoginseng cultivation on the soil quality under forest plantation.

Soil Water Stable Isotopes Reveal Surface Soil Evaporation Loss Dynamics in a Subtropical Forest Plantation

Line-conditioned excess (lc-excess), the deviation of the relationship between δD and δ18O in soil water from that of precipitation, is often used to indicate soil evaporation loss, but the conditions of using lc-excess under the influences of precipitation infiltration or percolation had not been identified. The interaction effects of climate, soil and vegetation on soil evaporation in forests are not well known. We collected soil water at 0–5, 15–20 and 40–45 cm depths and event-based precipitation from 2011 to 2015 in a subtropical forest plantation and calculated the lc-excess. Precipitation on the sampling day and percolation of upper soil water with low lc-excess affected the capacity of the lc-excess to indicate the soil evaporation fractionation signals. Lc-excess of soil water at 0–5 cm depth indicated a reliable soil evaporation loss estimate over 30 days prior to the sampling day. Soil evaporation loss was dominated by the cumulative soil temperature (Tss) during drought periods and was dominated by the relative soil water content (RSWC) during non-drought periods. High Tss decreased soil evaporation loss by increasing transpiration and relative humidity. Our results emphasize the importance of sampling the upper-most soil layer when there is no rain and vegetation during drought periods in forests when studying soil evaporation loss dynamics.

From the Experience of Expert Assessment of Illegal Logging of Forest Stands

The article presents the results of an expert assessment of the thinning out of forest stands on the territory of the N district of the Kirov region based on field studies. Fieldwork consisted of recalculating and measuring the diameters of stumps left after felling trees, establishing their species composition and quality condition to determine the volume of harvested wood in the context of species. The stumps found were identified as pine (70 %), spruce, birch, and aspen.The authors reveal that the release forest cutting was carried out within the boundaries of the designated cutting area with an excess of the established volume of wood harvesting for the prime breed (pine). The volume of felled pinewood exceeded 2.5 times; for other species, these data is more than 70 % lower than declared. At the same time, the total actual volume of the withdrawn wood does not exceed the data of the forest declaration. Based on the revealed violation of the forest legislation and the relevant regulatory documents, the authors have calculated the amount of damage caused to the forest plantation due to illegal logging of pine wood in the volume of 297 m3. The damage amounted to more than 4 million rubles.

Growth performance of eucalypts and acacia seedling under elevated CO2 load in the changing environment

Acacia and Eucalypt are important species in the global forest plantations. The resilience of those species under the changing environment would define their significance in the dynamic of forest plantation. This study was aimed to provide information on the growth performance of two acacias and two eucalypts seedlings under elevated CO2 concentrations. The seedlings of A. auriculiformis, A. mangium, E. camadulensis, and E. urophylla were subjected to two levels of CO2 and two levels of nutrient supply in the FACE system in Sapporo Experimental Forest, Japan. The eucalypts showed significantly higher growth performance than the acacias. The nutrient addition significantly increased the growth, yet the CO2 and interaction between CO2 and nutrients were not significantly different. LMA was not significantly affected by the elevated CO2 and nutrient addition. Although nutrients significantly affected the C/N in the eucalypts, they showed no different effect on the acacias. As expected, Nmass and Narea were higher in the acacia than those in the eucalypts, although no significant responses were shown to elevated CO2 and nutrient addition. The tested acacia and eucalypts showed relatively insensitivity to elevated CO2. Thus they might possess resilience capacity under the keep increasing level of the atmospheric CO2 concentration.