In the utilitarian view it can be considered a resource that provides for basic human needs and satisfaction of human wants. It provides products for human consumption ranging from lumber and fibre to medicines and foods including herbs, fruits, nuts, and the meat and hides of forest animals. It also provides nonconsumables relating to human enjoyment and quality of life ranging from its effect on climate, air quality, water supply, soil preservation, wildlife habitat, protection of biodiversity and ecological integrity to the provision of places for human habitation and enjoyment, relaxing escape, traditional values and spiritual awareness. In the biological sense it is a land base or terrestrial space that provides opportunity for trees to grow and reproduce in a system beset with intra and interspecific competition for finite resources. This does not imply maximizing mass output but does imply a continuity of life form by replication of one sort or other and an ability to genetically adapt to changing conditions.
Some clarification is needed concerning what forest health and the indicators of decline refer to.
The distinction is necessary, for example, to reconcile the effect of aging and certain adverse environmental effects. Such effects may be manifested in a similar way, most notably in loss of foliage, thinning of the canopy, and changes in the microclimate of the forest floor . The reconciliation is important because, though the individual tree may age and eventually die, it does not mean that the stand in which it occurs is aging and declining, especially if other species and age classes are present. Likewise, an aging even-aged stand declining in health does not mean that the larger ecosystem of which it is a part is declining. The aging stand may just be part of the natural stand development process or succession cycle that takes place in a healthy ecosystem.