With worldwide population growth, there are increasing demands on forests to provide an array of benefits. Growing demand for wood for energy, fiber, and wood products requires that more forests be intensively managed. As silvicultural activities are intensified to meet these demands, all forest organisms will be increasingly aected. The key question is: is intensive forest management compatible with maintenance of biodiversity? In this chapter we will cover how intensive silvicultural activities such as harvesting, site preparation, vegetation control, and fertilization may impact biodiversity. Plantation management is a dominant and growing form of intensive management. Because pine plantations of the southern United States are currently one of the most studied intensively managed forest systems, many of the examples and references cited refer to these systems. Implications, however, are more globally applicable as plantation forestry continues to expand throughout the world (Shepherd 1993, Cubbage et al. 1996).

The relationship between sustainable productivity and biodiversity in intensively managed forests is uncertain. Clearly, the components of biodiversity that are important for tree growth should be identified and maintained. Without knowing which components these are, the ‘wise tinkerer's rule’ (Leopold 1966) says that all biodiversity should be maintained. But do we need to maintain a complete array on every hectare? Or should the concurrent objective be to minimize off-site impacts of intensive forest management? And is it possible to conserve more biodiversity in plantations with little cost to fiber production? By intensively managing some land for wood production, the total amount of land needed to meet the demand for wood products can be reduced and the pressure for harvesting indigenous forests can be relieved (Shepherd 1993, Angelstam et al. 1997).