A manipulative approach to tropical forest management for timber production and biodiversity conservation

• Published in: Proceedings of the National Conference on the Management and Conservation of Forest Biodiversity in Malaysia: Forest Biodiversity for Better Life pp. 108 - 114
• Main Authors: Salleh, M, Shamsudin, I
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Forestry Department Peninsular Malaysia 2007
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Forest management; Malaysia; Nature conservation; Timber; Tropical forests
• ISBN: 9789839269567; 9839269569

In the past, the emphasis in tropical forest management is the production timber species to meet requirement of raw material by timber industries in the country. The industry emerged as one of the significant export earner and generation of emlpoyment within the country in the last two decades. But since the lowland forest, used to be major source of timber production in the past has been extensively converted to land development, the main bulk of the remaining hill forest is unable to sustain the requirement of timber by the industry. This is mainly attributable to the characteristic of hill forest that has low productivity of commercial timber species compared to lowland forest and a significant proportion of hill forest is ecologically and environmentally sensitive to any forms of disturbances including logging. Therefore, the extent of loggable areas in hill forests, it is logical to claim that hill forest has greater potential for conservation and protection purposes and this topics become a limelight in intense discussion and deliberation at many international meetings and negotiations where a sustainable management and conservation of tropical forest is now a global issue. A pressure by the global community on forest protection increases where sufficient areas within production forests need to be protected and conserved. A conventional method of allocating a specific area for protection outside forest is claimed to be less effective in protecting and conserving a biological diversity. Therefore, there is an urgent need to address this delicate balance between a sustainable timber production and conservation of biological diversity in hill forest, and the issue seeks a practical solution that is implementable and deliverable. FRIM is currently embarked on the research where the tropical forest needs to be intensively managed for both timber production and conservation of biological diversity. The project launched under the 9th Malaysian Plan with the main objective to develop a model where only 30% of the logged-over forest is for timber production and the remaining 70% for conservation purposes. Although only 30% of the area is managed for timber production, the productivity of the area is expected to be triple with an average production figure is targeted about 300 m3ha-1. This can be attained through a manipulative management approach where a systematic planning for planting will be a core activity. The project is currently being undertaken by FRIM with the collaboration of the Pahang Forestry Department in compartment 89B, Tekai Forest Reserve, Jerantut, Pahang. The logged-over forest within the reserve will be rehabilitated using a modified planting technique where a matrix of fast and slow growing indigenous timber species will be planted within the study area. The expected output of this project is a model of an intensive of forest management (IFM) and the model will include the financial assessment which later can be used as a guide to implement the model on a larger scale.