Foreword
The high-latitude rainforests of the earth represent one of the last biomes
to be impacted substantially by human efforts to "mine," in the worst
cases, or sustainably harvest , in the best cases, biotic resources. Many of
these areas are remote and have inhospitable climates, difficult terrain,
and poorly developed transportation infrastructures. As a result, these
regions, like the tropical wet forests, are among the last to experience
large-scale forest clearing and wholesale losses of large mammals. These
last frontiers are now under assault, and their character is changing so
rapidly that we have not even had an opportunity to learn how these
ecosystems were formed and how they are organized and function. This
knowledge is fundamental for sustainable development and for minimizing
the potentially detrimental impacts of the mechanized tools and practices
now utilized for large-scale forest harvesting.
In this book, the nature of these forests and related systems, as well as
the environment that produces them, is explored. It is done in a comparative context, with the goal of predicting the impacts of land use
change in general for all of these systems, wherever they may occur in the
world. The principal comparison is between the high-latitude rainforests
of the west coasts of the Americas. These regions share comparable
climates, physiography, and biome types. They have been separated
through geological time and, thus, the biotic systems have had different
origins even though they appear to function in a similar manner. Thus
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