Ecosystem management, sustainable forestry, ecological forestry, and similar terms are waxing stronger and stronger in the language of forest managers, reflecting a growing realization that society wants much more than timber products from forests. Recreation, wildlife, and water often come to mind first. They have been the big three ‘other values’ for many years and they remain a driving force for forest management. However within the last ten years or so, even this list of four values has seemed inadequate; the core ecological or biological values of a forest seem to be missing. For some people the term ‘wildlife’ captures this issue; for most people ‘wildlife’ is too closely associated with a small portion of our biota, especially the birds and mammals. Consequently, a number of terms have developed around this issue – biotic integrity, ecosystem health, and others–but arguably themostprominent is ‘biological diversity’ or ‘biodiversity’. This book is about maintaining biodiversity in forests, a set of ecosystems that occupy only about6%of the earth's total surface area, but which harbors a greatly disproportionate share of the earth's biological diversity.

This book is intended to reach a broad audience with the latest thinking about maintaining forest biodiversity, especially in forests managed for timber production. Among all the people interested in forests, those who are managing forests on a day to day basis and the students who will soon be joining the ranks of professional natural resource managers are our particular focus. The book is global in scope but, with over half of its contributors coming from North America, there is a clear North American bias.