The dictionary defines forest as a dense growth of trees and underbrush over a large area.
How many trees does it take to make a forest? What is the minimum area of land necessary to meet the definition of forest?
I looked up forests…read about rain and cloud forests but I did not see the answers to the above questions. Please respond.
Perhaps its all subjective.
Apparently there are set definitions as to what constitutes a “forest”
It’s entirely dependant on who you ask, where they are and what end they are working towards.
The most widely used defintion i that produced by the FAO:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/003/X9835e/X9835e01.htm
There’s a lot of other detail there as well.
There’s no minimum number of trees required to make a forest. Given that it need only be an area of 0.5 hectares there are many foests that consist of only one tree.
How can “one tree” mean a forest?
From your link:
My bolding.
One tree can mean a forest provided it covers an area of 0.5 ha and has >10% canopy cover.
What do you see as the contradiction here? The fact that the site uses the standard ‘trees’ rather than the more cumbersome “tree or trees”?
The fact that there can be trees outside forest area because they are individually too scattered and small to make 10% canopy over half a hecatre?
I had thought it as a contradiction, Blake, but I’ve looked a little further into the term “canopy cover”. My mistake – I’m used to thinking in terms of a forest canopy being the spread of a number of individuals of the same species.
Peace. 
Forests in medieval England were areas set aside for hunting- sometimes they contained only sparse woodland. Trees in forests were also managed for timber by thinning and many other methods.
It is remarkable that since the rundown of broadleaved forest management for timber in the British isles the number of trees has increased, and despite the loss of hedgerows there are more trees here now than for thousands of years.
SF worldbuilding at
http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html
That’s pretty much the case worldwide. Without human intervention forests and woodlands everywhere are experiencing a dramatic increase in plant density. It’s a major problem since the species wihtin these areas have adaptations for more open forest types. More trees=/= good.
The New Forest being a case in point, it actually is only sparsly wooded. Of course, the new forest is no longer new - it got that name nearly 1,000 years ago!
It’s worth keeping in mind that a forest is an ecosystem characterized by the dominance of trees in its flora. (This isn’t intended to contradict the above definitions, but to stress a distinct point.) A monoculture plantation of trees does not a forest make – it’s the mix of flora, fauna, and soil microbiota that work together to make a healthy forest. (This is why whole-tree harvesting where the non-woody parts and scrap from timber production are burned for energy can be more harmful to a forest than other forms of lumbering – the nutrients from the twigs, leaves, bark, etc. are not returned to the soil to be recycled into new trees and such.)
Depends a lot on what sort of forest you are talking about Polycarp. Forestry plantations, even of exotic timber, are still forests by any defintion.
Monocultural plantations are certainly healthy, often healthier than ‘natural’ forests. They also fulfill many of the same environmental functions. Exactly how ‘monocultural’ a forest can be is aslo debatable, since some ground layer and animal life always intrudes in the real world, and often quite a lot.
The effect of clearfelling and total product utilisation technologies also varies considerably depending on the timber type. Many species rely on natural fire devastation to maintain stand structure, and this system mimics the process better than selective harvesting. The nutrients returned after fire are pretty slim anyway normally, and the amount lost from total utilisation can easily be replaced. The advantages gained by efficient product an dland use more than outweighs any damage caused by the process in many cases.
There are many cases where selctive harvesting is more damaging than clearfelling.