The sheer ignorance that hasprevailed over forest management is slowly coming to an end but must naturallytake a long time. To start with,ownership is a huge problem. A block of land owned and operated by an enlightenedoperator able to eyeball each and every tree and patch of soil is theideal. I suspect six billion people isnot enough to do the job that needs to be done. Yet we are slowly evolving toward just that ideal.
A patch of wild forest left toits own devices is hardly the best answer. Fallen material overcomes the understory and suppresses healthy growththere. Burn out is often the onlysolution and an unsatisfactory one at that. Such a patch needs open accessible understory that is constantly thinnedwith both wood fiber extraction and perhaps the production of waste chips to createa well managed forest. There is humaneffort but it is within our capabilities. The precontact Indians did just that well in the Eastern Forests. They may have not built roads, but they builtopen productive forests around their fields.
Reforestation research in Latin America helps build better forests
by Staff Writers
A tropical forest is easy to cut down, but getting it back is another story. Ina special issue of the
"Twenty years ago, we had almost no information about how to builda forest," said Jefferson Hall, staff scientist at the Smithsonian andlead editor of the new special issue of Forest Ecology and Management. "People either planted one of four non-nativespecies-teak, pine, eucalyptus or acacia-or they used a trial-and-error processwith other species that was not always successful. Now we can be smart aboutwhich trees we plant at a given site, and we understand much more about whatmotivates land owners and rural farmers to put this know-how to work."
Forests keep water clean, control soil erosion, store carbon,shelter animals and provide plants that offer pharmacological benefits. Forestsalso contribute to global-scale economic activity in the form of ecosystemservices. The Agua Salud project in the Panama Canal watershed, funded by theHSBC Climate Partnership and featured in the special issue, is a 700-hectareexperiment that examines the ecosystem services forests provide: water forpeople and the Canal, carbon storage tomitigate global warming and biodiversity protection in one of the crucialbiological corridors between North and South America.
"Native tropical forests are some of the richest storehouses onearth," said Eldredge Bermingham, director of the Smithsonian TropicalResearch Institute. "Now the science behind tropical forest restoration isat a level of sophistication that reforestation projects can be planned totarget multiple goals-to store carbon, manage water and conserve biodiversity,buffer old-growth forests from destruction and provide a strong return oninvestment."
Managing forests for ecosystem services requires tradeoffs. A hectareof teak stores as much carbon as a native forest after 20 years, but willshelter far less biodiversity. In the Agua Salud experiment researchers plantmixtures of native species. Their data predict that some mixtures will surpassthe carbon-storage capability of teak and the ability to support other plantsand animals.
This juxtaposition suggests that while secondary forests may not storeas much aboveground carbon as carefully tended plantations, they do a betterjob of maintaining soil carbon stocks.The information highlights potential tradeoffs in ecosystem services with landmanagement and points the way to the next generation of ecosystem serviceresearch.
Scientific information to guide reforestation is especially necessaryin a world where half of the tropical forests are secondary forests growing onabandoned farm and pasture land.
The special issue summarizes results from more than 60 tree speciesgrown in Panama
Cocobolo (Dalbergia retusa), a highly valuable wood, grows particularlywell in relation to other species on dry sites with relatively infertile soils.
Several articles provide guidelines for land managers as they weighenvironmental and economic factors in their decision making. In Latin America there is a critical mass of informationavailable to begin recreating forested landscapes intelligently.
The Ecology and Ecosystem Services of Native Trees: Implications forreforestation and land restoration in Mesoamerica .Forest Ecology and Management, Volume 261,Issue 10, 15 May 2011
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