Silvicultural management in urban areas presents
numerous challenges not experienced in a rural setting.
Whether we think about cultural vs ecological conservation
in Cape Town’s Newlands Forest on the slope of
Table Mountain (Gosling 2002) or in Vancouver’s
Stanley Park, or about optimum silvicultural management
in Berlin’s 29 000 ha municipal forest, the objectives
of forest management are numerous and often
contradictory. Forest political aspirations are complex
and difficult to implement using traditional silviculture.
The demands of a public which is increasingly acquainted
with forestry and silvicultural methods require
a high level of sophistication of forest management
which cannot be achieved with practical experience
alone. Integrated approaches are called for, which
are capable of utilizing the accumulation of detailed information
from a variety of scientific disciplines. The
useful contributions today are provided by developments
in the area of forestry-related operations research,
a field of investigation which has received
much attention during the past 20 years, mostly in
Northern Europe and in North America.