Sustainability in forest management and a new role for resilience thinking

Resilience thinking offers new conceptual contributions for dealing with large and uncertain changes, the relationships between social and ecological components of forest systems, and a new perspective on sustainability. However, there are several barriers to it informing forest management in a practical way, including means by which resilience can be measured and valued within a management context, and most importantly, how resilience can be maintained and enhanced within systems focused on resource production or service provision. Resilience thinking's contributions are largely conceptual at this stage and offer more in terms a problem-framing approach than analytical or practical tools. Decision-relevant, science-based, and solution-oriented approaches are required to tackle future forest management challenges. Resilience thinking, if developed to become more solution-orientated could offer a needed complement to current management paradigms.