Forests are a wealth of natural resources that must be managed wisely and prudently so that the benefits can be felt by all parties. Forests provide many benefits, both tangible and intangible benefits. These tangible benefits include the forest as a producer of wood, and non-timber (fruit, resin, sap, etc.). The intangible benefits of forests include sources of biodiversity including flora and fauna, climate regulators, sources of CO2 absorbers and O2 producers, water management regulators, ecotourism, as well as a genetic bank.
So far, forest management has focused on the utilization of timber forest products, which is clearly unable to maintain forest conditions, especially natural forests. Based on data from Forest Watch Indonesia (2013), the area of natural forest cover in Indonesia until 2013 was around 82 million ha or around 46% of Indonesia’s land area, and 62.6% of the total forest area. According to Margono et al. (2014), from 2000 to 2012 Indonesia lost 6.02 million ha of primary forest and increased by around 47 600 ha per year. In 2012, the average rate of loss of primary forest in Indonesia is estimated to be higher (0.84 million ha) than the average loss of primary forest in Brazil, which is around 0.46 million ha. The loss of forest cover is caused by several factors, including forest and land burning, illegal logging, conversion of forests into agricultural land and oil palm plantations, as well as industrial exploration and exploitation of forest areas (oil and gas, coal, etc.) (MoEF 2015; Forest Watch Indonesia 2015).
Forest destruction in Indonesia has a very significant impact on increasing CO2 emissions and climate change, as well as loss of biodiversity, both flora and fauna. According to Ahrend et al. (2010), degradation and deforestation in tropical forests are the main causes of this carbon emissions, and loss of biodiversity. One of the efforts needed to reduce the impact of deforestation and degradation is through sustainable forest management by taking into account the economic, social and function aspects of the forest ecosystem.
Ecosystem function is defined as the ability of forests to process naturally and provide benefits of goods and services to meet human needs, both directly and indirectly, as well as capabilities in ecological processes and ecosystem structure (de Groot et al. 2002). According to Dislich et al. (2017), forest ecosystem functions are classified into habitat function, regulatory function, production function, and information function. This is in line with the current change in the paradigm of forest management, namely the change in the management of forest benefits which was initially limited to timber production to the management of forest benefits for the preservation of environmental services and the function of forest ecosystems as a whole to achieve sustainable development. Indonesia is a country that is vulnerable to climate change and contributes to global greenhouse gas emissions, thus it needs a high commitment in reducing national GHG emissions. To achieve the target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the role of silviculturists is very important.
Silvicultural science plays a very vital role in sustainable forest management by ensuring the preservation of forest ecosystem functions (habitat, regulation, production, and information) and increasing positive socio-economic impacts, including in terms of maintaining and increasing forest productivity and achieving sustainable development. Indonesian silviculturists are expected to have a high commitment in reducing national GHG emissions with silvicultural knowledge and practices that can be applied.
The study of forest ecosystem functions requires in-depth research, sharing and dissemination of research results to various stakeholders. Thus a forum is needed that can facilitate and provide space for sharing and dissemination of these studies for academics, researchers, practitioners, and policy makers. The International Conference “4th International Conference on Tropical Silviculture” is regularly held by the Department of Silviculture, Faculty of Forestry, Bogor Agricultural University (IPB). The theme of this year’s conference is “Bridging Silviculture Knowledge and Practices to Foster the Achievement of SDGs and FOLU NET SINK 2030”. This conference is expected to be a means of exchanging information, knowledge, and innovation for the sake of increasing the function of forest ecosystems and also achieving sustainable forests.
