Future of World Forests: Their Use and Conservation

The processes of exchange between forests and the atmosphere and with the consequences of these exchanges for the growth and production of forests and for the composition of the atmosphere. For this purpose, we may think of forests in a number of different ways. Forests function as the major terrestrial interface between the atmosphere and the earth: the interact with the atmosphere to condition life on the earth. On the one hand, the atmosphere provides driving variables for processes in forests, on the other, forests feed back to modify the atmosphere, very efficiently removing gases and particles form the atmosphere. For example, we can divide them on a phytogeographical basis into boreal, temperate and tropical forests (Malhi et al. 1999), on a phonological basis into deciduous and evergreen forests, or on a morphological basis in to broadleaved and needle-leaved (largely coniferous) forests.