Large-scale ecological restoration of degraded tropical forest lands: the potential role of timber plantations

Large areas of the world's tropical forests are being degraded, with a consequent loss of species diversity. Only some of these are able to recover unaided. Where attempts are being made to restore such forests, the scale of the attempts is usually small. Timber plantations are one of the few means by which large areas of cleared or degraded landscape can be reforested. These usually restore the productive capacity of the landscape but do little to recover biological diversity. But a number of approaches might be used to redesign such plantations so that they would both yield the timber needed to justify the investment and also contain some proportion of their former biodiversity. These approaches include using indigenous species rather than exotic species, creating species mosaics by matching species to particular sites, embedding the plantation monocultures in a matrix of intact or restored vegetation, using species mixtures rather than monocultures, or encouraging the diverse plant understories that can often develop beneath plantations. The degree of ecological restoration possible using these alternatives ranges from modest to significant, although none is likely to achieve complete restoration. Any improvements in regional biodiversity brought about by these changes might be seen as being at the expense of plantation productivity. But many of these approaches have advantages other than just restoring former biodiversity. I discuss some of the trade-offs and implications for plantation managers and restorationists