What Is Sustainable Rainforest Management?

rainforest1 What Is Sustainable Rainforest Management?

Sustainable rainforest management is based on the principles of sustainable forestry, a practice where trees are harvested in a manner that minimizes damage to the surrounding ecosystem. Trees are selectively cut, rather than clearcut, and often felled close to the end of their natural life cycle. Sustainable rainforest management seeks to capitalize on the economic value of rainforests without depleting its natural resources. Reforestation combined with selective extraction can ensure that forest cover remains more or less the same.

Due to uncontrolled and illegal logging, rainforests all over the world, especially in the Amazon region, Indonesia and Malaysia, have been decimated and countless plant and animal species have been lost. In Indonesia and Malaysia an estimated 42% of tropical rainforest is lost to logging each year due to the absence of proper rainforest management and laxity on the part of rainforest officials.

The loss of rainforests across the world presents several environmental challenges, global warming being the most ominous. Rainforests are huge CO2 sinks – trees absorb CO2 and mitigate the buildup of greenhouse gases. Slash and burn agriculture in tropical areas releases CO2 into the atmosphere, in addition to eliminating the trees that would otherwise absorb it.

There is a direct relationship between deforestation and drought. Because trees also absorb and create precipitation, loss of forested land impacts rainfall, locally and globally. The Amazon alone creates 50-80 percent of its own rainfall through transpiration. Loss of rainforests has resulted in decreased rainfall in tropical regions, which has disastrous consequences on local agriculture. Deforestation can also have far reaching consequences. Loss of rainforests alters the reflectivity of the earth’s surface, which, in turn, impacts climate change due to shifting wind and ocean current patterns, which also affects rainfall distribution. As deforestation continues, expect extreme weather conditions to occur with greater frequency.

Deforestation brings other woes, such flooding and soil erosion. Tropical regions receive heavy rainfall; when the forests are dense and vegetation is lush, much of this water can be absorbed without much consequence. When the dense vegetation is removed, surface runoff is increased and catastrophic flooding can occur.

Approximately 80% of the soils in the humid tropics are acidic and infertile. Without trees to hold the soil in place, the soil becomes prone to erosion. Rainfall can then easily wash away remaining nutrients, so that what is left behind is impoverishment and a barren wasteland. Because the land can no longer be cultivated, inhabitants move on and clear more land, only to repeat the cycle of destruction.

Strict regulation and vigilance of logging activities, sustainable rainforest management and reforestation programs are urgently needed in order to slow the rate of rainforest and species loss across the globe. Several nations have passed stricter regulations on logging and have started reforestation programs. While this is certainly a step in the right direction, many reforestation programs today, however, are merely focused on planting new trees and not on actual reforestation.

Restoration of the native rainforest is what is needed to reverse the environmental consequences of deforestation. While raising a plantation of new trees on deforested land that become cattle pasture might relieve some of the pressure on forested areas, a crop of new trees is not the same as a new forest.

The Sustainably Managed Permanent Rainforest Habitat initiative approaches reforestation in a way that is distinct from most tree planting projects. Often, tree planting programs, while well meaning, are not particularly effective. Organizations may not have control of the lands where the trees are planted, and, in most cases the trees are planted in areas that have a history of deforestation. Many programs also take place on ranches and farmlands. Ask yourself: What do farmers do for a living? They plant things, they grow things, and they cut them down and sell them.

The Sustainably Managed Permanent Rainforest Habitat aims to use a mix of techniques to encourage complete reforestation, such as analog (sustainable) forestry, wildlife habitat enhancement, biomass carbon negative energy production, BioChar soil augmentation and edible forest gardens (Permaculture).

Visit Replanting the Rainforests to learn more about reforestation programs in rainforest regions around the world.

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