THE ECOLOGICAL AND ECONOMIC VIABILITY OF SMALLHOLDER TIMBER MANAGEMENT IN THE AMAZON ESTUARY By LUCAS BERIO FORTINI A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2010 1 © 2010 Lucas Berio Fortini 2 Escapamos a fome da onça, fugimos dos bufalos selvagens, sobrevivemos a picada da cobra, o corte da serra afiada, aguentamos a fome em lugares distantes, muito carapanã, agua e lama, e sofremos com a distancia dos que amamos. To my Guanabana, Dona Rosaria, Dona Raimunda, my parents, and the Mazagão River 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank my wife for her encouragement, support and in general making life during dissertation writing as pleasant as could be. Thanks to all people of the Mazagão River who received me with open arms and taught me so much beyond their wisdom of the forest- Itamar, Geroncio, Nonato, Tomé and family, Dona Zuleide, Seu Martel, Rubilota, Seu Amilton, Jurací and many, many others. Um agradecimento especial para Dona Rosaria, Dona Raimunda e sua familia, o meu lar e familia na Amazônia hoje e sempre. Thanks to the time and valuable feedback of all my committee members, especially to my advisor Daniel Zarin. Thanks to all my Gainesville friends, many of whom have come and gone, that made my time in Florida a truly wonderful and memorable part of my life- naming names would unfortunately risk me exceeding dissertation size limitations, but you know who you are. Lastly, thanks to Monkey for her trusty company during most of my writing. This research would not have been possible without the generous support from a Tropical Conservation and Development (TCD) fellowship and research grant, a NSF IGERT Working Forest in the Tropics fellowship and research grant, a NSF doctoral dissertation research improvement grant, a NSF South East Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (IGERT) fellowship and an EPA Science to Achieve Results (STAR) fellowship. Thank you for believing my research was possible and that I was not entirely crazy. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. 4 LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ 9 LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................ 10 ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................... 12 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 14 The Potential Role of STM in SFM ......................................................................... 15 Timber, Smallholders and the Amazon Estuary ...................................................... 16 Scope of Dissertation .............................................................................................. 17 Component 1: From Regional to Watershed .................................................... 18 Component 2: Timber Species Ecology, Population Dynamics, and Long- Term Timber Use in an Amazon Tidal Floodplain Watershed. ...................... 19 Component 3: Timber Resource Use and Economics in an Amazon Tidal Floodplain Watershed. .................................................................................. 20 Component 4: Integrating Ecological, Management and Economic Models at the Watershed Scale to Explore the Prospects of Management and Long-Term Forest Use. ................................................................................. 21 2 MIXED POTENTIAL FOR SUSTAINABLE FOREST USE IN THE TIDAL FLOODPLAIN OF THE AMAZON RIVER ............................................................... 23 Background ............................................................................................................. 23 Study Area .............................................................................................................. 24 Methods .................................................................................................................. 25 Results .................................................................................................................... 28 Discussion .............................................................................................................. 32 Mixed Potential for Contrasting Forest Uses .................................................... 32 Palm Dominance and Alternative Forest Uses ................................................. 33 Concluding remarks on Amazon Estuary composition variability ..................... 35 3 POPULATION DYNAMICS AND MANAGEMENT OF AMAZON TIDAL FLOODPLAIN FORESTS: LINKS TO THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE ........ 47 Background ............................................................................................................. 47 Methods .................................................................................................................. 48 Study Region .................................................................................................... 48 Species Selection ............................................................................................. 49 5 Permanent Inventory Plots ............................................................................... 50 Evaluation of Timber Use History ..................................................................... 51 Analysis ............................................................................................................ 51 DBH estimates ........................................................................................... 52 Estimating commercial volumes ................................................................. 52 Create population models for species or species groups ........................... 53 Modeling diameter increments and matrix transition probabilities .............. 53 Modeling survival ....................................................................................... 54 Estimating recruitment and modeling fertility .............................................. 54 Exploring tree population demography with matrix models ........................ 56 Results .................................................................................................................... 57 Diameter Distributions ...................................................................................... 57 Diameter Increment Analysis ............................................................................ 58 Tree Growth Determinants ............................................................................... 59 Survival and Recruitment Estimates ................................................................. 59 Evaluation of Timber Use History ..................................................................... 60 Matrix Model Outputs ....................................................................................... 61 Population growth estimates ...................................................................... 61 Stable λ recruitment rate ............................................................................ 62 Stable stage distributions and reproductive values .................................... 62 Population growth sensitivities and elasticities ........................................... 63 Population growth sensitivity to harvested individuals and volume ............ 63 Stable age distributions .............................................................................. 64 Discussion .............................................................................................................. 64 Species Distribution and Densities ................................................................... 64 Tidal Floodplain Tree Demography and Dynamics ........................................... 65 Population Ecology and the Past and Future of Forest Use and Management ................................................................................................. 67 Concluding remarks on Amazon Estuary tree population ecology ................... 68 4 PROSPECTS FOR CONTINUED TIMBER PRODUCTION IN AMAZONIAN TIDAL FLOODPLAIN FORESTS ............................................................................ 81 Background ............................................................................................................. 81 Methods .................................................................................................................. 83 Study Region .................................................................................................... 83 Species Selection ............................................................................................. 84 Permanent Inventory Plots ............................................................................... 84 Estimating Population Commercial Proportion ................................................. 85 Monitoring of Harvesting Activities ................................................................... 86 Harvest Model .................................................................................................. 86 Results ...................................................................................................................