Degeneration versus regeneration — logging in tropical rain forests

  • N. Brown
Chapter
Part of the Conservation Biology Series book series (COBI, volume 10)

Abstract

Tropical rain forests are widely regarded as being very ancient climax ecosystems composed of highly specialized organisms. This has encouraged a view that they are potentially extremely fragile and that human intervention will inevitably lead to their destruction. As a consequence, many of those who are concerned about the loss of this important ecosystem have campaigned against the use of tropical rain forests for timber production. Despite this pressure, it is almost certain that within the next few decades virtually all tropical rain forest not set aside exclusively for conservation will be logged. This chapter examines the assertion that tropical rain forests are fragile and that their use for timber production is ecologically incompatible with their conservation. The process of natural regeneration in tropical rain forests is reviewed in order to understand the likely consequences of a logging operation.

Keywords

Rain Forest Forest Canopy Forest Structure Tropical Rain Forest Forest Ecology 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 1998

Authors and Affiliations

  • N. Brown
    • 1
  1. 1.Department of Plant SciencesUniversity of OxfordOxfordUK

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