SUSTAINABLE MANAGEMENT – RAINFORESTS

Due to the sheer speed and scale of deforestation in the world’s rainforests, sustainable management techniques have been put into place to reduce the impact. I will discuss these shortly.

It does make you wonder to what extent rainforests can regenerate naturally without human intervention. If small areas of rainforest are cleared at a small scale then left alone, the rainforest can regenerate. However, the large-scale deforestation breaks the natural nutrient cycle. This in turn affects the soils and leaves the soil subject to erosion where the land has been cleared. Then when the rains come, more nutrients are lost as they are washed away. In turn, the land becomes infertile with new tree roots being unable to establish themselves. The ecosystem dies and the land remains empty. The loss of trees in the area results in the global oxygen and carbon dioxide balance changing which is believed to contribute to global warming.

Sustainable management

Exploitation of the rainforests is causing severe global consequences. If this continues in an uncontrolled way, irreversible damage could be done to the rainforests. This is why sustainable forest management is needed.

Sustainable management can be seen in the Amazon rainforest. There are currently three main aims that have been put into place:

·         To protect the rainforest canopy and bio-diversity, preventing soil erosion

·         To maintain the operation of the nutrient cycle

·         To ensure the natural regeneration of the forest

These aims are accompanied by a range of strategies:

·         Agro-forestry – Growing trees in line with agricultural crops. Allows farmers to use the trees as a protective canopy for their crops and also have a supply of nutrients from decomposing plant matter.

·         Forest Reserves – Ensure areas of forests are completely protected from any type of human activity allowing growth of sustainable products such as plants for medicines and latex from rubber tapping.

·         Tree measuring – Trees should only be felled once they have reached a certain height which ensures younger trees have a chance of survival.

·         Afforestation – Planting new trees when mature trees have been felled in attempt to maintain the canopy.

·         Education – Ensuring those who use the rainforest know how to in a sustainable manner.

·         Selective logging – Ensuring trees are only felled once they have matured. This helps preserve the existing canopy, and helps the slower growing hardwoods such as mahogany (see previous post about hardwoods).

Students can use this link as a potential case study which shows a comparison of the Pacific ACP states rainforest’s: http://ec.europa.eu/development/body/publications/courier/courier193/en/en_030.pdf.

The S-cool revision website is a useful source when studying this area which covers other areas such as tourism and ecotourism in the tropical rainforests as well. See: http://www.s-cool.co.uk/a-level/geography/ecosystems/revise-it/managing-the-tropical-rainforest.

This is an article showing that despite sustainable management strategies being put into place, it is only occurring in small areas of rainforest and there is still much development needed. Despite the attempts to add protection to the forests making them areas of non-activity, it has been noted that only 3% of rainforests worldwide between 2005 and 2010 were protected. See the following article for more details: http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110608/full/news.2011.308.html.

This final link shows a video of rainforests in Indonesia and Costa Rica and the impact of destruction and sustainable management on them. Students will find this very beneficial to watch: http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/rainforest-destruction-kalimantan-indonesia-and-costa-rica/3096.html

 

Links:

http://www.aqua.org/explore/baltimore/exhibits-experiences/upland-tropical-rainforest

http://lornali.com/sustainable-rainforest-management

http://www.amazoncharitabletrust.org/en/index.asp

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/ecosystems/human_uses_rainforest_rev5.shtml