Considerations of the ecological foundation of natural forest management in the American tropics

This study identifies research needed to support NFM in the American tropics, with emphasis on silvicultural systems that encourage natural regeneration. The study first discusses the concept of natural resource sustainability and suggests ways in which it might be measured. Section two identifies several ecological areas critical to effective NFM in which, however, research has been slim: flower production and pollination; phenology; seed production; seed dispersal, predation, and germination; light and nutrient requirements, and responses to competition; harvesting schedules and yield estimates; seedling pathogens; susceptibility to mechanical damage; and cataclysmic disturbances. After a brief note in section three of how NFM can reduce greenhouse emissions, section four examines the reasons for the weaknesses in the knowledge base for NFM. These include, inter alia: the low esteem in which the forestry profession is held among the Latin American academic and economic elite; the tendency of the U.S. research grant system to reward basic research rather than applied or long-term studies; the excessive amount of research devoted to species of no commercial importance; the parochial nature of forestry institutions; and the failure of development agencies to adequately fund forestry research. Section five provides brief overviews of NFM projects in Mexico, Suriname, and Peru, in which very different silvicultural approaches were employed.