The `Global Biodiversity Strategy' signed in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, and the resolutions at the Ministerial Conferences on the Protection of Forests in Europe in Strasbourg, 1990, and Helsinki, 1993, commit the signatory states to monitor nationally the state of biodiversity and to sustain the characteristic natural variation in the country. Sustainability and long-term planning are the two terms best describing the philosophy of traditional forest management practices. However, the traditional planning techniques are not primarily developed to maintain sustainability of biodiversity.
The gap between the international commitments and the practices in forest assessment and management is obvious. This publication presents experience in methodology for assessing and monitoring the variation of ecosystems and habitats in relation to biodiversity conservation and for integrating biodiversity in regional planning of forest management and land use. The state of the art in the field of natural resource assessments with special reference to forest biodiversity is reviewed, progress in integrating data on biodiversity in forest management planning is presented and the information needs regarding biodiversity conservation and the question to what degree assessment methods for forest biodiversity can be simplified for practical applications are discussed.
The book is intended for researchers and practitioners in the field of forest and environmental planning and environmental policies.

Zusammenfassung
Proceedings of the Conference on Assessment of Biodiversity of Improved Forest Planning, 7-11 October 1996, held at Monte Verita, Switzerland

Inhalt
International Cooperatives on Monitoring Forest Biodiversity.- Achieving Global and Regional Perspectives on Forest Biodiversity and Conservation.- Measuring and Monitoring Forest Biodiversity: the SI/MAB Model.- Needs and Prospects for International Cooperation in Assessing Forest Biodiversity: an Overview from WWF.- UNEP's Global Biodiversity Assessment.- Information Needs, Economic and Policy Consequences of Biodiversity Oriented Forest Management.- Biodiversity Protection and Forest Management Some Economic and Policy Aspects.- Information Needs for Biodiversity Assessment Derived from International Forestry Discussions.- Biodiversity: a Diversity in Definition.- Biodiversity and Forestry in Poland.- The Approach of the British Forestry Commission to the Conservation of Forest Biodiversity.- Biodiversity Information Needs in Finland: a Questionnaire.- Shadow Pricing Trade-offs Between Timber Supply and Environmental Quality.- Quantification of Forest Diversity.- Optimizing the Management of Uneven-aged Spruce-fir Stands While Preserving Structural Diversity.- Multiscale Analysis of the Spatial Distribution of Breeding Bird Species Richness Using the Echelon Approach.- Using Covariate-species Community Dissimilarity to Guide Sampling for Estimating Breeding Bird Species Richness.- Some Mathematical Remarks on Forest Biodiversity.- Putting Diversity Indices into Practice Some Considerations for Forest Management in the Netherlands.- Techniques for Addressing Spatial Detail in Forest Planning.- Design-based Approaches for Inference on Diversity.- Assessment and Monitoring Techniques for Forest Biodiversity.- Estimation of Forest Diversity with Misclassification.- Towards More Rigorous Assessment of Biodiversity.- Monitoring of Forest Biodiversity from ForestResource Inventory Data.- Assessment of Coarse Woody Debris a Comparison of Probability Sampling Methods.- Digitized Aerial Photos for Assessing Forest Biodiversity.- A Fractal Approach for the Characterization of NOAA-AVHRR NDVI Profiles of Broad Scale Ecoregions.- Biodiversity Assessment for Conservation Planning in Uganda's Forests.- On the Accuracy of Line Transect Sampling of Rare Forest Objects.- Monitoring European Forest Biodiversity at Regional Scales Using Satellite Remote Sensing.- Forest Clearings, Margins and Mixed Area Survey for DiversityAssessment in the Ligurian Inventory (Northern Italy).- Towards a Logic for Assessing Biodiversity in Boreal Forest.- Spatial Assessment of Habitat Supply and Harvest Values as a Means of Evaluating Conservation Strategies: a Case Study.- Assessing Structural Diversity in Managed Forests.- Diversity of Forest Lichens in Switzerland A Pilot Study in the Central Plateau and the Pre-Alps.- Integrating Forest Biodiversity Issues in Forest Management Planning.- Sustainability and Biodiversity Forest Historical Notes on Two Main Concerns of Environmental Utilisation.- An Appraisal of Biological Diversity 'Standards' for Forest Plantations.- A Proposal to Combine Wood-production and Biodiversity Management by a Landscape Ecological Approach in Boreal Europe.- Diversity of Ground-layer Vegetation in Beech Forest Comparison of Semi-natural and Managed Beech Stands in Northern Hungary.- Assessing Effects of Forest Management on Biodiversity in the PacificNorthwest, USA Comparison of Management Options with Expert Panels.- Biodiversity Issues in Romanian Forest Management Planning.- The Biodiversity and Forest Management in the Czech Republic.- Appendices.- List of participants.- List of reviewers.