Choosing species for reforestation in diverse forest communities: social preference versus ecological suitability MARIYA CHECHINA AND ANDREAS HAMANN Department of Renewable Resources, Faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2H1 Canada Citation: Chechina, M., and A. Hamann. 2015. Choosing species for reforestation in diverse forest communities: social preference versus ecological suitability. Ecosphere 6(11):240. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/ES15-00131.1 Abstract. Choosing species for reforestation programs or community forestry in species-rich tropical rainforest ecosystems is a complex task. Reforestation objectives, social preferences, and ecological attributes must be balanced to achieve landscape restoration, timber production, or community forestry objectives. Here we develop a method to make better species choices for reforestation programs with native species when limited silvicultural information is available. We conducted community surveys to determine social preference of tree species and inferred their ecological suitability for open-field plantations from growth rates and frequency in forest plots at different successional stages. Several species, for which silvicultural data was available, were correctly classified as promising or unsuitable for open-field reforestation. Notably, we found a strong negative correlation between ecological suitability indicators and socioeconomic preference ranks. Only a single outlier species ranked very high in both categories. This result highlights the difficulty of finding suitable native species for community forestry and offers an explanation why reforestation efforts with native species often fail. We concluded that the approach should be a useful first screening of species-rich forest communities for potential reforestation species. Our results also support the view that species-rich tropical rainforests are not an easily renewable natural resource in a sense that secondary forests will not provide an equivalent resource value to local communities. Key words: life history traits; natural forests; Philippines forestry; reforestation with native species; social forestry; socioeconomic importance; tropical forests. Received 6 March 2015; revised 11 May 2015; accepted 19 May 2015; published 23 November 2015. Corresponding Editor: D. P. C. Peters. Copyright: Ó 2015 Chechina and Hamann. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ E-mail: [email protected] INTRODUCTION ing natural recovery after forest harvest and afforestation and reforestation efforts (Hansen et Government reforestation and community al. 2013). Loss of tropical forest cover by forestry programs are important activities to geographic regions is most severe in Southeast offset the results of many decades of deforesta- Asia (37% of total area remaining in 2005), tion, which has left many countries and jurisdic- followed by Central America and Central Africa tions with an impoverished and degraded land with 45%, and the Amazon basin with 56% forest base (Hansen et al. 2013). Tropical forest ecosys- cover remaining (FAO 2005). Primary forest in tems have been particularly affected, and still Southeast Asia and Central America are most experience a poor ratio of forest loss to forest gain affected with 16% and 18% original forest cover (3.6:1 for the 2000–2010 period), despite promot- remaining intact, respectively (FAO 2005). De- v www.esajournals.org 1 November 2015 v Volume 6(11) v Article 240 CHECHINA AND HAMANN forestation rates also remain unsustainable with potential concern is that most of these initiatives 1.2%/yr of net forest loss between 1990 and 2005 rely on exotic species (Tolentino 2008). Large- in Central America, 0.7%/yr net forest loss in scale reforestation programs in Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, and 0.5%/yr in Central Africa primarily plant Gemelina arborea, pine, Swietenia and the Amazon region (FAO 2005). sp., Eucalyptus sp., Tectona grandis and Acacia sp., Within major geographic regions, countries because of readily available seed from interna- with high accessibility to forests and high tional seed banks and well established nursery population densities have little primary forest protocols and silvicultural treatments for these left, often limited to mountainous regions. For species. As a result, exotics amount to 80% of all example, in Southeast Asia, the Philippines, trees planted in tropical reforestation efforts Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia had less than 6% (Cruz et al. 2001, Tolentino 2008, Yonariza and primary forest cover left in 2005 (FAO 2005). In Singzon 2010). Exotic species monocultures, these countries, land degradation, erosion, water however, may change natural habitat conditions, supply concerns, and landslides have often water balances, and nutrient cycles, typically in become common problems (Sidle et al. 2006). In ways that do not support biodiversity of native the recent decades, the occurrence of landslides species (Hooper et al. 2002). Additionally, exotic in Southeast Asia increased by five times from species can sometimes be vulnerable to large 1970 levels due to deforestation (Forbes and outbreaks of insect pests and diseases, such as Broadhead 2013). With tropical cyclones making the Dothistroma Needle Blight in Central Amer- landfall five to seven times a year in the ica and Asia (Watt et al. 2009) and the Rhizina Philippines, disasters are common with 35.4 per root disease in Southern Africa that have set back million fatalities reported between 1950 and reforestation efforts to the beginning (Wingfield 2009, the second highest rate worldwide (Forbes et al. 2001). and Broadhead 2013). For large-scale reforestation and landscape In response, government programs aimed at restoration projects, native trees are therefore reforestation and protection of remaining forests preferred (FAO 2014), although native tree were created. Many countries in Southeast Asia planting is not easy to carry out for lack of imposed logging bans on natural forest lands, silvicultural knowledge and regeneration ecolo- phased out large timber operations and created gy (Bautista 1990). Planting native species exclu- large-scale government reforestation programs sively is not required for community and community forestry programs (Tumaneng- reforestation projects with limited ecological Diete et al. 2005, McElwee 2009, Pulhin and impacts because of their small scale, but native Dressler 2009, Yonariza and Singzon 2010). species could also be beneficial here because the Between 1985 and 1997 the percent of total species may be well known and valued by local protected areas increased from 4% to 9% world- communities for their non-timber benefits (Peters wide (Zimmerer et al. 2004), and community et al. 1989, Lacuna-Richman 2002, Mangaoang forestry systems were widely adopted to produce and Pasa 2003, McElwee 2008). In the Philip- locally required resources and reduce pressures pines, community forestry with native species on harvesting the remaining natural forests has shown some success in the form of ‘‘rain- (Molnar et al. 2007). Community forestry pro- forestation farming’’ programs, which combine grams worldwide increased by 70% to approxi- native species for reforestation with some exotic mately 250 million hectares between 1985 and fruit trees to support local livelihoods (Golten- 2008 (Molnar et al. 2007). In addition, large-scale both and Hutter 2004, Vilei 2009, Schneider et al. government reforestation program were created 2014). Similar initiatives are sponsored through- in many jurisdictions, including the Philippines, out the world by regional governments and where government program reforested 560,000 international agencies, including the Reducing hectares between 1990 and 2000 (Cruz et al. Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degra- 2001). dation (REDDþ) program, the largest global Although large-scale reforestation programs initiative to combat deforestation, foster sustain- that aim to rehabilitate degraded forest lands and able forest management, and fight rural poverty improve watershed properties are laudable, one (Agrawal and Angelsen 2009). v www.esajournals.org 2 November 2015 v Volume 6(11) v Article 240 CHECHINA AND HAMANN Fig. 1. Map of the study area located within the North Negros Natural Park on Negros Island in the Philippines. The questionnaires were collected from local stakeholders that live in the communities around the park. In support of such programs, this research METHODS aims to make better-informed species selections for reforestation programs based on the ecology Study site and ecological data and socioeconomic desirability of tree species. Our study site is the North Negros Natural The primary objective of this paper is to develop Park (NNNP), located in Silay City of Negros a screening method for potential reforestation Occidental Province, Philippines (Fig. 1). The species when silvicultural information is lacking. NNNP was initially established in 1935 as a To identify early-succession species, suitable for timber reserve (Hamann et al. 1999, Hamann reforestation under open field conditions, we 2002), but expanded in 2005 and declared a Nature Reserve to protect high biodiversity, investigate if standard inventory plot data can including many