WORKING PAPER NO. 4 Sept 1994

Approaches to Sustainable Forest Management

Francis E. Putz

Summary

Claim of sustainability are virtually impossible to prove but enough is known about tropical forest ecology and silviculture to protect ecosystem functions and maintain biodiversity while still deriving financial profirs from logging Rapid. improvements in long-term forest production will derive from better planning of harvesting operations and stand improvement treatments. Lack of good management plans generally results in logging practices that destroy natural regeneration and increase forest susceptibility to soil loss, wildfires,and weed infestations. Participation of forest managers, timber importers, researchers, and environmentalists in the development of methods for assessing the social and ecological impacts of tropical forestry operations inspires hope for sustainability.

CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL FORESTRY RESEARCH offic e address Jalan: Gunung Batu 5 Bogor 16001 Indonesia mailing address: P.O Box 6596, JKPWB Jakarta 10065 Indonesia tel. : +62(251) 34-3652 fax: +62(251) 32-6433 email :[email protected] APPROACHES TO SUSTAINABLE FOREST MANAGEMENT’

Francis E . Putz 2’

Summary

Claims of sustainability are virtually impossible to prove but enough is known about tropical forest ecology and silviculture to protect ecosystem functions and maintain biodiversity while still deriving financial profits from logging.Rapid improvements in long-term forest production will derive from better planning of harvesting operations and stand improvement treatments. Lack of good management plans generally results in logging practices that destroy natural regeneration and increase forest susceptibility to soil loss, wildfires, and weed infestations. Participation of forest managers, timber importers, researchers, and environmentalists in the development of methods for assessing the social and ecological impacts of tropical forestry operations inspires hope for sustainability.

Introduction economic conditions. In this paper I will outline some of these basic guidelines for good forest Sustainable forest management is based on management with emphasis on timber methods that jeopardize neither future harvests harvesting, silvicultural practices, environmental of forest products nor future benefits of protection, and social responsibilities. environmental services. Although overall sustainability cannot be conclusively proven, application of good forest management practices Some Challenges for developing unquestionably helps maintain the value of “GENERIC” Sustainable Forest forests as sources of timber and other forest Management Guidelines products ,while simultaneously helping to maintain biodiversity and protecting watershed Given the wood product industry's need for and other ecosystem function. Even good assurance of future supplies of raw materials and management may result in unforeseen losses of the interest of consumers in forest products non-target species and subtle but consequential harvested in sustainable ways, the diversity of modifications of ecosystem processes. It seems forests represents a major challenge to extreme, however, to expect maintenance of pre- development of criteria for evaluating forest intervention conditions in forests dedicated to management practices. Forests differ in the forest management. regeneration requirements of their most valuable Given the immense variety of forests in the species and in their sensitivities to different world, and the often substantial differences silvicultural treatments. Some forests are clearly between adjacent stands in the same forest, owned by a single person, company, community, management guidelines must remain flexible. or indigenous group while others are the subject Nevertheless, there appears to be nearly global of overlapping and conflicting claims. acceptance of at least the basic components of Furthermore, forests can be important for good forest management. This conclusion is watershed protection, for their recreational value, supported by the profound similarities among the or as sacred ground. To this obviously forest management regulations of tropical and incomplete list of differences between forests we temperate countries, representing a truly must add the range of perceived values of the remarkable range of environmental, social, and same forest: to a concessionaire a forest may

1 Paper presented at the “Rainforests are our Business” Conference sponsored by the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Australian Timber Importers Federation in Sydney, Australia, 15 April 1994. 2 Senior Associate Scientist, Center for International Forestry research (CIFOR), P.O.Box.6595, JKPWB, Jakarta 10065, Indonesia. 2 CIFOR Working Paper No. 4: Approaches to Sustainable Forest Management represent a source of logs for the next 10 or 20 management and harvest plans. The years; to a local forest dweller the same area comprehensive forest management plan includes may be the source of game, shelter and maps and descriptions of areas to be harvested, marketable non-timber forest products; a landless areas to be protected, contractual information, farmer might view the trees as impediments to and other general policies. Somewhat more growing food crops; and, to a relatively wealthy relevant here are the detailed harvest plans city person the same forest might represent described below. recreational opportunities, wonder drugs waiting Many of the reductions in logging damage to be discovered, and a means to offset the global characteristic of well managed forests are the warming potential of the gases emitted from results of careful harvest planning (e.g. Dykstra homes, factories, and automobiles. To this and Heinrich 1992). To the apparent surprise of complex of forest uses and perspectives, we must some loggers, these environmental benefits are add the undeniable conclusion that forestry is not generally not expensive; harvest planning often an exact science. It would be ludicrous to try to reduces the costs of transporting logs from the stipulate exactly how forests are to be managed. forest to the log pond, mill, or port (see for In fact, “legislated silviculture ” (i.e., the example, Hendrison 1990, Jonkers and Mattsson- application of a single silvicultural technique Marn 1986). These short-term financial benefits over vast, generally politically defined areas) has derive from the increased efficiency of planned been the anathema of good forest management. harvesting operations. For the forest owner, be it This is particularly the case in the rainforests the state, a community, or a private individual, where our attention is focused today. Where a long-term economic benefits also accrue as the hectare of forest may contain hundreds of plant less-severely damaged forest recovers more species with regeneration requirements ranging quickly after harvesting. The components of from full sun to complete shade and where the most harvest plans include the following: adjacent hectare may share a relatively small portion of these species, forest management 1. Large-scale (e.g., 1:5000) topographic maps guidelines need to be flexible. When we add to on which stream buffer zones, wetlands, the natural variation in rainforests the vast steep slopes, local human use zones, and potential for differentiation due to human other protected areas are demarcated. interventions, it is clear that forest management 2. Maps of proposed haul roads and log needs to be adaptive and stand-specific. (Note: landings (if necessary) with construction A “stand” is an area that is more-or-less guidelines specified. biologically homogeneous and likely to respond 3. In selectively-logged forests the trees to be uniformly to silvicultural treatments). This need harvested are marked both in the field and for flexibility may prove problematic when it on the topographic map. Felling directions comes to certifying that a forest is well managed, can be included on the harvest plan or just but not if both managers and certifiers indicated on the trees themselves. In many understand and accept the goal of working cases marking and mapping of the trees to towards sustainability. form the next crop (“potential crop trees ”) are also warranted. Harvesting Practices Compatible with 4. Field marked and mapped skid trails with construction and use practices specified. Sustainable Forestry 5. The relationships between forest managers (e.g., loggers) and the people potentially With proper planning and operational practices, affected by management activities (e.g., logging need not greatly disrupt forest processes local residents) are described. nor substantially diminish the future potential for a wide range of forest uses. Logging is In addition to developing the harvest plan, damaging, however, no matter how well planned pre-felling vine cutting is often prescribed where and carefully implemented. Ecologically vines bind tree crowns together and thereby acceptable or “good” forest management increase felling damage (e.g., Appanah and Putz therefore begins with good logging and good 1984). To ensure that the vine stems have logging begins years before the first chainsaw is weakened sufficiently, it is recommended that cranked, with the development of forest they be cut about one year prior to logging. An Francis E. Putz 3 additional silvicultural benefit of vine cutting is chosen, implementation must be controlled and reduced post-logging vine infestations because if monitored in the forest. not cut, fallen vines proliferate vegetatively. In The likelihood of sustainability is enhanced forests in which canopy vines contribute as much when haul roads are properly located, as 25% or 30% of the total forest leaf area (Putz constructed, and utilized. The main goal in and Mooney 1992), cutting vines one year prior designing logging road networks is to minimize to logging may also result in increased the total area disturbed by roads and road-related physiological vigour of understorey tree activities. Well-located roads can also contribute seedlings. to reducing yarding damages by facilitating In tropical rainforests selectively logged uphill skidding. Given the extremely high cost using bulldozers, generally about half the of road construction, it behooves forest damage to residual trees is inflicted during managers to plan and construct logging roads felling, the remainder occurs during log yarding carefully. When managers have little long-term (e.g., Nicholson 1958, Redhead 1960). Felling interest in the forest and thus little reason to damage is substantially reduced, however, when utilize engineering principles that make roads chainsaw operators direct the fall of the trees so permanent, the forest owner should demand as to avoid destroying potential crop trees and to good roads. When this control is not facilitate skidding. Not all trees can be set down forthcoming, market incentives, like those in any direction chosen, but training increases associated with eco-labelling, could serve the the are over which fellers can safely direct trees same purpose. Determination of compliance and thereby decrease damage. In dipterocarp with the widely accepted guidelines for proper forest in Sabah, Malaysia, we have evidence that road construction (e.g., drainage structures, the difference in directional felling ability of bridge construction, and spoil disposal) is one of trained and untrained chainsaw operators may be the more straightforward steps in the eco- as great as 100 degrees, a difference that can certification process. correspond with substantial potential reductions Sustainable harvest management does not in felling damage (Pinard et al. in review). end when the last log is carefully extracted from Due to damage to residual trees and the the forest. Closure of logging areas should often more severe and long-lasting damage to include removal of any stream crossings that soils, improper yarding is generally at fault when impede water flow and may require treatments to forest management is obviously unsustainable. promote revegetation of denuded areas. Yarding deserves a great deal of attention from Replanting and fertilization of severely engineers and environmentalists alike. Although compacted soils can reduce soil erosion, but there is a variety of options for extracting logs avoidance of damage should be the primary from forest (e.g., oxen, elephants, farm tractors, objective of management. After logging is articulated skidders, crawler tractors, high-lead completed, drainage structures on skid trails and and skyline cable systems, helicopters, and spur roads need to be installed or repaired so as balloons), the most common yarding tool, the to ensure that when the forest is next logged, bulldozer, was designed for road building, not these same extraction paths can be used without for log skidding. Bulldozer-caused damage can expensive “cut and fill” work. Most logging be reduced by restricting machine movements to guidelines specify the minimum distance designated skid trails and by maximizing log between drainage structures as a function of winching distances. Where these controls are not slope and soil erodability (e.g., cross drains implemented, 30 or even 40% of areas from should be spaced less than 25 m apart on skid which only l0-12 trees/ha are extracted can trails sloping 10-15 degrees). suffer the direct impacts of bulldozers (e.g. Although management guidelines are very Sabah Forest Department 1989). Because these useful during forest assessment, they need to be machines are so heavy and powerful, their treated as guides, not immutable rules. There are passage results in seriously compacted soils into situations where installation of cross drains which water infiltrates very slowly and plant causes unnecessary damage; for example, in Ulu regeneration is impeded, often for decades. To Segama Forest Reserve in Sabah, where skid avoid soil damage,the use of yarding systems trails are located on ridges and where the soil that move logs suspended in the air (e.g., surface has not been too badly disturbed, there is skylines, helicopters, and balloons) should be little gullying and cross drains can safely be encouraged. Whatever the yarding system more widely spaced (Pinard et al. in review). 4 CIFOR Working Paper No. 4: Approaches to Sustainable Forest Management Difficulties in specifying what is meant by “too effects of forest management practices on badly disturbed ” reminds us again that forestry is biodiversity. Given that managed forests are an inexact science. Forest assessors need to keep outside the inviolate preserves that generally the goals of the reduced-impact logging serve as the core of biodiversity preservation guidelines in mind and not become slaves to a set programs, is it reasonable to condemn of rules. silvicultural practices that favor certain species at the unavoidable expense of others? A weed, for example, is defined as a plant growing where a Silvicultural Practices Compatible human does not want it to grow. But weeds with Sustainability constitute a considerable component of overall biodiversity. Policy makers need to evaluate the If timber yields are to be sustainable, the volume acceptability of changes in forest structure and of timber harvested each year must not exceed composition associated with forest the volume of the increment. (The financial domestication .For the forest manager striving analogy of investing the interest without towards sustainability, every effort should be endangering the capital is apt. It is obvious that made to avoid unnecessary silvicultural only by knowing the annual increments of all treatments, to preserve sufficient areas in an stands in a management unit can the annual unlogged and unmanipulated state (e.g., at least allowable cut be reasonably estimated. Data on 20% of each annual coupe not including buffer tree growth rates and regeneration requirements zones), to maximize economic gains while are derived from monitoring post-logging minimizing ecological effects, and generally to changes in permanent growth and yield plots or treat forests “gently”. Can these vague by using other methods of continuous forest suggestions be quantitatively assessed for inventory. Whatever the method, growth must compatibility with sustainability? My answer is be monitored over many years because a guarded “yes”, but again, rather than expecting increments often diminish after an initial post- managers always to follow a rigid set of logging spurt. Furthermore, weed infestations guidelines, assessment should be based on the and heartrots arising from damage associated degree to which the deleterious ecological, with logging often take a few years to develop. siivicultural, and social effects of forest The requirement of verifiable data on annual management have been reduced. volume increments remains one of the main stumbling blocks to be faced by forest managers Environmental Protection Practices who want their operations eco-certified. The Compatible with Sustainable Forest requisite data are neither difftcult to collect nor Management complicated to analyze, but are extremely rare in the tropics. The alternative to real and readily Where ground-based yarding is practiced, available growth and yield data in Southeast Asia logging can have long-lasting, deleterious is the questionable assumption that trees in impacts on soil. Right-sizing yarding equipment, logged but not silviculturally treated dipterocarp installing ‘low load-bearing ratio tracks on forests have mean annual increments of 1.0 cm bulldozers or switching to balloon-tyred per annum and that these unmanaged forests articulated skidders, and, most importantly, accumulate harvestable timber at an annual rate limiting the widespread practice of blading off of 1.0 cubic meter. With proper management, skid trails at every pass will all reduce damage. these increments and perhaps better are Proper skid trail planning and appropriate achievable. The problem is that based on these training and guidance of tractor operators remain assumptions in lieu of data, cutting rates that far the bases for good forest management. exceed sustainable levels are seemingly justified. Protection of hydrological functions in Controlled harvesting can be thought of as managed forests is a top priority but one that can a first step towards good management of areas be accomplished fairly easily. Restricting dedicated to timber production, but post-logging logging during wet weather and keeping ground- silvicultural treatments are also important. based yarding equipment off steep slopes and Thinning, enrichment planting, pruning, etc. are away from streamside buffer zones are also all familiar techniques to foresters, but deserve important and easily audited guidelines that will re-examination in light of concerns about the contribute to reducing sediment loads in streams. Francis E. Putz 5 Additionally, strict rules about use and disposal Assessment of Forest Management of herbicides, pesticides, and waste oil need to be Practices developed and followed. Soil erosion can be reduced by proper planning, construction, and Once good forest management guidelines are use of skid trails and haul roads, as discussed developed and accepted, the next challenge is above. assessment of compliance. Although a modest Research is needed on the biodiversity- number of forest management operations have related consequences of forest management. already been certified as “well managed ” by Treating forests gently (advice promulgated by organizations like the Smartwood Program of the the late H.C. Dawkins among others), is a good Rainforest Alliance and Scientific Certification start. Even where the environmental impacts of Systems, the process of forest assessment is still harvestingand silvicultural treatments are in its development phase. A fundamental issue is minimized, some species are likely to flourish whether to assess forest management practices or and others suffer. Given the vast number of to base certification on measurements of the animal species in tropical forests and the environmental and social impacts of forestry diversity of their habitat requirements, the range operations. For example, should skid trails be of apparent responses of bird and mammal assessed on the basis of compliance with populations to logging (e.g., Johns 1985, specified distances between drains, or on Thiollay 1992) is understandable. Also, hydrological data? Given the time and money although many extirpations of large animals in necessary to monitor water flow regimes and logging areas are due to hunting, rather than to sediment loads, or to determine the effects of any direct effects of logging, the forest managers different forest management practices on are still responsible insofar as their activities biodiversity, it seems clear that assessment will make forests more accessible, thereby be based necessarily on management practices jeopardizing wildlife populations. rather than on environmental consequences. Given that the criteria for determining whether or not a forest is well managed are Social Responsibilities of Sustainable almost invariably based on research conducted Forest Managers in forests very different in species composition, structure, and sensitivity to forest management Experience shows that sustainable forest practices, considerable modesty is appropriate management programs must be carried out in during forest assessment. For example, is it safe ways that reflect local, regional, and national to assume that all figs are “keystone species” to priorities. Disregard of local claims on and needs be protected at all costs in all forests in order to for forest land has resulted in the failure of many avoid crashes in frugivore populations? Until the otherwise well intentioned forestry projects. necessary data are available, assessors must Where usufructory rights are respected and assume that the values of different environmental where local people are involved in forest protection practices are generalizable. management decisions and benefit from forestry Unfortunately, although research on forest operations, the likelihood of successful management is critical, investment in rainforest management is enhanced. Discussing logging research falls far short of the need. Why is it that systems and annual coupes with local farmers is investment in forestry research, as a proportion not a traditional approach to forest management of the value of forest products, falls far short of in many of the world’s rainforests, but forests investment in agricultural research (D ’Silva and have vanished where their needs and desires Appanah). 1993)? have not been considered. Ensuring that the The people responsible for assessing forest people who determine the fates of forests are management areas on the basis of ecological, beneficiaries of forestry operations is both social, and silvicultural practices should work logical and a basic tenet of most existing eco- closely with the people actually responsible for certification guidelines (e.g., Forest Stewardship day-to-day activities in the forest. The field staff Council Principles 2-4; ITT0 Principles 35-36). can often identify simple and cost-effective ways 6 CIFOR Working Paper No. 4: Approaches to Sustainable Forest Management of reducing damage associated with logging and evaluating forest management practices await other forest product extraction activities. further development, enough is known to Training needs can also be determined only in proceed with eco-certification programs of the the forest, and incentive programs are more kind being coordinated by the Forest likely to succeed if the potential participants are Stewardship Council. A major step towards eco- consulted during the design process. Often the certification that can easily be made by forest immediate challenge is to replace volume-based managers is to develop and adhere to detailed salaries with remuneration systems that provide forest management plans. As eco-certification incentives for good practices. programs expand, so will needs for training of forest certifiers and for disseminating Conclusions informatiol n to consumers. Researchers associated with the newly created Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) are Synergistic interactions between responsible collaborating with environmentalist, land forest managers, enlightened timber merchants, owners, concession holders, government and environmentally-conscious consumers help agencies, and other forest stakeholders to design stimulate rapid changes in popular perceptions of these training programs, to disseminate tropical forests and, at least to some extent, in the information about forest-use issues, and to help ways forests are managed. We have emerged provide a firm scientific basis for sustainable from a dark period during which forest forest management. preservationists were pitted against loggers in a battle from which neither could emerge Acknowledgements. Suggestions for revision victorious. While the importance of parks and of an earlier draft of this manuscript by L. other inviolate preserves is undiminished, fewer Tetreault-Putz ,Y Byron, and A. Gillison are people question the role of managed forests in an appreciated. My thinking about issues related to overall conservation strategy. Now the issue in eco-certification and forest management have question is whether or not a forest is well benefited from discussions with R. Donovan, F. managed. There is a great need for widely Miller, V. Viana, and numerous researchers and accepted and easily verified methods to help forest managers in Australia, Indonesia, answer this question. Although additional Malaysia and Mexico. research on issues pertaining to ultimate sustainability is needed and methods. for

References

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