Updating sustainable forestry models

Amazonia, the Congo Basin and South-East Asia: these three regions account for 80% of the world's tropical forests. At the heart of these basins are 32 experimental sites, grouped together in a network known as TmFO (Tropical managed Forests Observatory). The only one of its kind, this pantropical research network aims to update sustainable forest management models, adapted to the capacity of exploited tropical forests to replenish their carbon and wood stocks and their biodiversity.
These are the only forest observatories in the world to focus on forests that have already been harvested, as well as on their renewal", explains Plinio Sist, head of the Forests and Societies research unit at CIRAD and coordinator of the observatory network. The aim of these sites is to define sustainable management rules while studying the environmental services provided by these forests. Conserve, while allowing people to live in and benefit from them".

Logging too fast

Current timber harvesting regimes are moving too fast in relation to the rate of tree growth. In Brazil, work by the TmFO network shows that harvesting would have to be halved and rotation cycles doubled to ensure that the resource is maintained. This would only allow a third of current annual wood production in the Amazon to be achieved.
Faced with this challenge, the TmFO sites are testing the most efficient logging models possible, taking into account environmental and socio-economic issues. When logging is done well, it becomes a conservation tool, because by generating profits, local people are more inclined to protect them," explains Plinio Sist. In addition, harvesting trees can benefit the forest. By choosing the oldest and biggest trees, which would eventually fall, they create a light hole that allows younger trees to grow".
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