According to this article, a major challenge for foresters in the future will be issues related to global change. Global change expresses itself in a variety of ways, depending on regional vegetation and climate patterns, small-scale topographic differences, tree species, and stand development stages. Using silviculture as an example, the variety of steps linking global change--as a general concept--and actual management decisions are explored. The first task is to relate global change aspects to silviculturally relevant scales. Then silvicultural responses must reflect the wide variety of changes, including their interactions.