Mahoganies: candidates for the Red Data Book

Abstract

Mahogany ranks as one of the world's finest timbers and it will probably be commercially extinct by 1990. The dramatic decrease in trade of true mahogany as well as a switch to previously untapped resources since the early 1970s reflects a general pattern of over-exploitation of tropical rainforests. The lack of mahogany cultivation and a move into other, unrelated mahoganylike, primary rain forest hardwoods, such as meranti and red lauan , emphasises an inevitable and irreversible decline for many hardwood forests. The authors give a summary of historical and current trade patterns in mahogany as part of a pilot study initiated and sponsored by ffPS in 1982.