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Tropical forest management: can rates of natural treefalls help guide us?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2009

Joseph P. Skorupa  and
John M. Kasenene
Joseph P. Skorupa
Affiliation:
Graduate Group in Ecology, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
John M. Kasenene
Affiliation:
Department of Botany, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda.
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Only a small percentage of tropical forests are legally protected and so, if we are to conserve tropical forest species we must encourage sustainable exploitation of unprotected forest areas. Selective timber harvesting is frequently cited as a sustainable use of tropical forests and the authors studied the effects of this kind of exploitation on natural treefall rates, an important regulative process, in the Kibale Forest, Uganda. Their results indicate that levels of destruction typical of capital intensive mechanised timber harvesting seriously disrupt the dynamic balance of the forest. They discuss alternative methods for selective timber harvesting that would be less disruptive and present an objective method which may help rain forest managers determine which multiple-use options are compatible with rain forest conservation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Oryx , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , April 1984 , pp. 96 - 101
Copyright
Copyright © Fauna and Flora International 1984

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