- A new study finds that low-intensity logging doesn’t negatively affect a forest’s key ecosystem services such as carbon storage and food availability.
- The study, focused on a selective-logging concession in Gabon, concluded that tree removal rates weren’t high enough to make a dent in ecosystem services.
- Researchers found that while even low-intensity logging did have some impacts on plant diversity, these remained small and largely dissipated in about a decade.
- Experts says forest nations should strive to be “high forest, low deforestation” (HFLD) nations, like Gabon, for which the defined threshold is at least 50% forest cover and less than 0.22% annual deforestation rate.
Researchers have found that low-intensity logging of a tropical forest has no negative impacts on key ecosystem services such as the carbon storage and food availability for wildlife. But even at a small scale, selective logging can still effect changes in an area’s plant diversity, the researchers wrote in their recently published study.
“We wanted to study a ‘best-case scenario’ type of selective logging that could serve as a model if it does help minimize environmental damage in the selective logging industry,” study lead author Megan K. Sullivan, from Yale University’s School of the Environment, told Mongabay.
Sullivan and her team carried out their research at a logging concession in northwestern Gabon, east of Monts de Cristal National Park. The site was run by SEEF, a local subsidiary of French, timber producer and trader F. Jammes. According to Sullivan, the scientists “assessed how very low-intensity selective logging impacted the species and functional composition of seedlings, saplings, and adults.”
Their findings indicate that forest areas logged at very low intensity — at a rate of 0.82-1.6 trees per hectare (0.33-0.65 trees per acre) for the SEEF concession — can act as wildlife corridors to supplement or connect protected areas. The concept of corridors is promoted by the recent U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity’s recognition of “other effective area-based conservation measures.”
“If managed well, low-intensity, selectively logged forests can be seen as a middle path between strictly protected areas and intensive land use,” Sullivan said.
The study concluded that “ecosystem services such as carbon storage, seed dispersal, and animal food availability may not be negatively affected simply because very low-intensity selective logging removes so few trees.”
However, the researchers also found that even this best-case logging scenario wasn’t entirely benign.
“We found that logging caused some shifts in the species and functional composition of the forest understory, likely due to the environmental changes in the understory that impact regeneration. However, these shifts were small and not always in the expected direction, likely due to the low removal rates of adult trees,” Sullivan said. “These changes appeared to last up to 10 years post-logging, where they were detected in the sapling life stage of the forest.”
Sullivan said this research was a shift from a situation where law and policies are ignored by loggers, to one where managers strived to follow evidence-based practices to promote sustainability and minimize environmental damage.
The scientists chose Gabon due to its leadership in forestry sustainability, where policies and international partnerships have sought to improve environmental protection. The country made headlines in 2019 as the first African nation to receive payment through REDD+, a payment scheme for reducing emissions by keeping forests standing.
Sullivan said that since the completion of their study, the Gabonese government has begun transitioning to a digital timber tracking system, the National Traceability System of Wood from Gabon, or SNTBG, to mitigate corruption in the forestry industry. She said she’s hopeful that changes to monitoring and enforcement in the timber sector will continue to be developed in Gabon.
Replicating results across Central Africa
Guy Beloune, a forestry expert and senior technical assistant for forest certification at Global Forest Environment Consulting (GFEC) in Gabon, told Mongabay the results of this study are encouraging, adding that while this research can be generalized across Central Africa to a certain extent, researchers should remain cautious.
“It is possible that by limiting this study to SEEF, it was not possible to take into account all the biodiversity characteristics of the tropical forests of Central Africa, and this may pose a problem of the representativeness of the study at the Central African level,” Beloune said, noting that logging practices can vary considerably from one company to another.
Still, he said there’s been progress in Central Africa in terms of logging regulations.
“The governments of all these countries have opted for forest management plans with rotations of between 20 and 30 years, thus facilitating the natural regeneration of plant species and the restoration of the ecosystem functions of forests,” Beloune said. “Several countries have also adopted reduced impact logging [RIL] methods for felling, skidding, road building.”
In the case of Cameroon, he said, forest management units and communal forests are generally managed sustainably. However, other logging operations, such as short-term logging and logging on private or government lands, make it difficult to guarantee sustainable management or maintaining forest ecosystem functions. These logging methods can have negative impacts on the forest ecosystem, especially if illegal logging plays a role.
Beloune said regulations and companies should take into account local differences in biodiversity, geology and logging practices that can considerably modify the species composition and ecosystem services in Central Africa. He added that logging practices should be sustainable and regulated to protect forests and their ecosystem services.
The study’s authors recommend further research on the regeneration requirements of timber species to better understand how to successfully manage timber stocks in the long term and determine the direct impacts of low-intensity selective logging on wildlife.
One concern, according to Sullivan, even in low-intensity logging is a potential rise in bushmeat hunting or poaching.
“Excessive hunting in newly-opened forest areas can lead to ‘empty forest syndrome,’ where the forest still stands but the wildlife that depends on it is missing,” Sullivan says.
Gabon has policies in place designed to help deter hunting activities, such as closing logging roads after logging, which helps deter hunting while boosting tree regeneration. Another incentive is providing non-bushmeat protein in shops at affordable prices for the families in the logging concessions, according to Sullivan.
Sullivan said the findings shouldn’t form the basis for evaluating all the impacts of industry or land use. She said it’s simply not possible to include all circumstances, organisms or contexts in a single research study.
She pointed to another study that indicated that high-conservation-priority megafauna, such as elephants and gorillas, occurred more often in concessions certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. FSC certification, Sullivan said, supports another kind of best-case scenario for selective logging, and has made progress in minimizing negative environmental impacts. However, some NGOs, such as Greenpeace, have frequently criticized the FSC.
For governments in the region, there are many aspects to consider when looking at the forestry industry and talking about sustainability, such as ecological factors — but also economic, political, and social ones. In this complicated landscape, it’s especially critical to highlight the best-practice logging scenarios that have led to some countries being dubbed “high forest, low deforestation” (HFLD) nations, according to Sullivan. HFLD means a nation has at least 50% forest cover with a deforestation rate not exceeding 0.22% annually. Sullivan said HFLD is a road map for the future of forest conservation in the region.
“It’s important to highlight these ‘best-case scenarios’ as models to strive to minimize environmental damage while developing economic activities,” she said.
Banner image: Prince Bissiemou measures a tree in a logged forest in Gabon. Image by Megan Sullivan.
Citation:
Sullivan, M. K., Vleminckx, J., Bissiemou, P. A. M., Niangadouma, R., Mayoungou, M. I., Temba, J. L., … Comita, L. S. (2024). Low-intensity logging alters species and functional composition, but does not negatively impact key ecosystem services in a Central African tropical forest. Global Ecology and Conservation, 53, e02996. doi:10.1016/j.gecco.2024.e02996
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