| [Back to front page] | Multiple resource management CIFOR ’s research on ‘Multiple Resource Management of Natural Forests’ is focused on learning how the commodity and non-timber values of natural forests are affected by management decisions and operations. In 1997, research on reduced-impact logging practices (RIL) aimed to demonstrate that timber can be produced without destroying the forests. CIFOR is producing guidelines and technologies that, if adopted, would have broad benefits for forest health. By the year 2000, if reduced-impact techniques are used in only 20 per cent of all tropical harvesting operations, the result could be a 10 per cent increase in carbon sequestration and a 5 per cent reduction in soil impacts caused by logging (see BOX: ‘What is a carbon market?’). Ultimately, the gains would include protection for biological diversity, a significant decrease in deforestation, more stable incomes for households dependent on forests, and better utilisation of forests. Implementation of RIL techniques and the assessment of the impact of logging techniques on forest ecology and socioeconomic conditions can be termed Improved Management of Production Forests. This research, originally limited to Malaysia, has now expanded to eight sites: Malaysia (carbon sequestration through reduced-impact logging); Indonesia (research at Bulungan to develop and assess policy incentives to promote adoption of reduced-impact logging by concessionaires); Brazil (two sites – research on economics and technologies for reduced impact logging on the Tapajos National Forest, and a separate study at Curua-Una, an experimental forest downstream from Santarem); Bolivia (a study on reduced-impact logging in drier forests); Cameroon (an overview of the logging industry and how it has been affected by devaluation of the local currency); Tanzania and Zambia (two coordinated field studies on reduced-impact logging which will contribute to the EU-funded project on sustainable management of miombo woodlands in East Africa). A global synthesis of reduced-impact logging research under way will facilitate a transfer of techniques and practices between national scientists. A recent announcement by Assistant Minister to the Chief Minister of Sabah, states that new legislation has been proposed which, if enacted, will result in the adoption of CIFOR’s reduced-impact logging guidelines throughout Sabah. Such enactment, if enforced, will result in reductions in fire hazard and environmental degradation. Results of international studies on the management of secondary and logged-over forests in the humid tropics (Africa, Asia and Latin America) are being reviewed with a focus on silviculture. This annotated bibliography will be in the form of a CD-ROM. Small regional workshops are the chosen vehicles for presentation and discussion of papers contributed from collaborators. This synthesis work is per se a major task requiring close cooperation with other forestry research networks and organisations such as IUFRO, FORSPA, APAFRI, FORAFRI, CATIE, ETFRN and CIRAD-Forêt. Support from the GTZ and IKCN will enable continued research and collaborative activities in this area. In 1997, interdisciplinary research on small-scale farmers in the forest margins began. A dynamic conceptual framework was developed within which to study how the role of primary and secondary forest changes with frontier development. Diagnostic farm surveys were carried out in the Peruvian and Brazilian Amazon at sites selected to provide an international continuum in frontier development. The results show that substantial areas of secondary forest are likely to remain on small farms even in old frontiers. At the frontier around Pucallpa, a Peruvian Amazon town on the Ucayali River, development has been rapid because the town lies at the end of a road across the Andes to Lima – a funnel for colonisation. CIFOR has found that in the intermediate stages of frontier development around Pucallpa, fallows do not appear to be declining as would be expected. Regeneration of secondary forests seems to slow with frontier development (possibly because of a reduction of seed sources from the primary forest, of which little remains), and farmers are compensating by not reducing fallow periods. This work also implies significant changes in the secondary forest research agenda. Among these is the need to broaden secondary forest management, which previously had focused on timber production on abandoned land, to include management for short-duration NTFPs during fallow periods. The linkages between forests and other aspects of the production system were also highlighted in the survey, with implications for policy and technology development.The challenge in future years will be to implement these changes in research agenda. In Pucallpa, CIFOR’s research is now beginning to be integrated with the work of CIAT and ICRAF. In November 1997, the Directors General of the three CGIAR Centers met to develop a strategy through which each institution contributes to a common vision, based on its own comparative advantage. This is expected to strengthen the prospects for making an impact, given the interactions between forests and other aspects of production systems, particularly on small farms. A new strategic thrust within CIFOR’s research on multiple
resource management is to build on opportunities arising from global developments. The
project is investigating whether global markets in environmental services can be used to
compensate farmers and loggers who switch to more sustainable practices. An example is the
recent Kyoto Protocol on climate change which permits trade in carbon sequestration
services. Research could facilitate the emergence of these markets by identifying the
conditions under which markets would be feasible and by quantifying the value of the
commodities to be traded. International agricultural research centres may have a
comparative advantage in research of this nature, which requires an understanding of both
global and local issues, and provides opportunities for introducing scientific input into
global debates.
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