Biodiversity Conservation in Tropical Forests Managed for Timber

Abstract

All silvicultural interventions have biodiversity impacts, often by design (e.g., freeing future crop trees from species perceived of as weeds). In the case of timber stand management, the magnitude of the tradeoff between production of merchantable wood and retention of pre-intervention biodiversity varies with the intensity of the silvicultural interventions and the care with which they are applied. Given that the most severe silvicultural impacts on tropical forests result from selective logging, substantial biodiversity benefits can be realized by the adoption of environmentally sound timber harvesting practices.