Species selection in tropical forestry

Abstract

At present, nearly five million hectares of trees are planted each year in tropical Africa, Asia, and the Americas, but only a fraction of the genetic tree pool is utilized for this purpose. From a total of ca. 51,000 tree species, only 215 species account for 93 % of all tree plantations in the tropics. This selection denotes the use of just 0.42 % of the available tree gene pool of the tropics. Nonetheless, the majority of plantation projects do not apply a systematic selection process for the needed species. This chapter provides an overview of the major plantation objectives with the corresponding species profiles (industrial tree plantations, protection plantations, village plantations, agroforestry systems, enrichment planting, rehabilitation of degraded forest sites, rehabilitation of mining sites, and urban plantations). The defined site characteristics, altitude, temperature, precipitation, rainfall pattern, and water balance are discussed in sufficient detail so as to allow for an appropriate selection approach. The safeguard to cope with the challenges of climate change is discussed as well. Lastly, the selection process is summarized step by step.