Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Chapter 1: Conundrums, Paradoxes, and Surprise: A Brave New World of Biodiversity Conservation -- Chapter 2: Understanding the role resource use efficiency in determining the growth of trees and forests. - Chapter 3: Invasive Species, climate change and Forest Health -- Chapter 4: The Biorefining Story: Progress in the commercialization of biomass-to-ethanol -- Chapter 5: Tree plantation in South America and the water cycle: Impacts and emergent opportunities -- Chapter 6: Forest Sector Investments in a Changing Climate -- Chapter 7: Towards a new model of forest development.

Forests in Development: A Vital Balance, shows some of the main advances in forestry over the six years spanning between the XII World Forestry Congress in Canada and the XIII WFC held in Buenos Aires. The book covers most of the themes of the XIII WFC, from biodiversity through production, policies, environmental services, and economic aspects, linked by sustainability. It provides a comprehensive view of forestry today, conveying its different aspects through one solid piece addressed by authors whose work denotes a concept of sustainable forest management which is not so much a puzzle laboriously put together as a many-faced unity, steered to achieve ultimately a better quality of living for present and future generations.