Conservation and Management of Tropical Rainforests

An integrated approach to sustainability

Eberhard F Bruenig

• Publisher: CAB International
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781789243895
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Technik & Maschinenbau
• Subtopic: Forstwirtschaft

This new edition of Conservation and Management of Tropical Rainforests applies the large body of knowledge, experience and tradition available to those who study tropical rainforests. Revised and updated in light of developments in science, technology, economics, politics, etc. and their effects on tropical forests, it describes the principles of integrated conservation and management that lead to sustainability, identifying the unifying phenomena that regulate the processes within the rainforest and that are fundamental to the ecosystem viability. Features of the natural forest and the socio-cultural ecosystems which can be mimicked in the design of self-sustaining forests are also discussed. A holistic approach to the management and conservation of rainforests is developed throughout the book. The focus on South-East Asian forestry will be widened to include Africa and Latin America. Recent controversial issues such as biofuels and carbon credits with respect to tropical forests and their inhabitants will be discussed. This book is a substantial contribution to the literature, it is a valuable resource for all those concerned with rainforests.Cover Photo: The group of five Iban resting on rocky cliffs in the Ulu Katibas in 1957 were traditional shag (Sect. 2.2, p. 86) farmers from the longhouse of Penguluh Ngali in the steep-hilly Ulu Ai (Ai river headwaters) below the Lanyak Entimau Protected Forest in the PFE (see p. 339). They were part of the native Iban complement in an exploratory survey by F.G. Browne, (Chief) Conservator of Forests Sarawak and Chairman of the Iban Resettlement Board, myself as SFO Kuching and team leader, and my assistant, D. Parson. We had crossed the watershed eastward along a former headhunter trail and got lost for an additional week in the legendary, fascinatingly wild, almost virgin-primary, timber- and biodiversity/species-rich Mixed Dipterocarp Forest (MDF, see pp. xiv and 397) of the Ulu Katibas-Kapuas hill country. Our mission was to assess three alternative land-use options: logging and conversion to production forestry; agriculture; or TPA-NP (pp. xiv-xv). Our conclusion at the end of the crossing was that only TPA - NP was feasible; the Iban farming community had to be resettled on better, more suitable land and soil in Northern Sarawak. Upon returning to Kuching, we recommended the creation of a large, continuous TPA-NP. Iban villagers, tribal leaders and the Government (Governor Sir Anthony Abell) agreed. Strict adherence to the decreed Forest Policy (see pp. 171-173) and the application of the classic phronesis approach (see p. 341) had ensured the establishment and survival of large tracts of MDF and other forest types as TPA, such as the Batang Ai National Park (20, 040 ha), Ulu Sebuyau National Park (18, 287 ha) and Lanyak Entimau Wildlife Sanctuary (182, 983 ha), and enabled their inclusion in the current Malaysian (Sarawak and Sabah)-Indonesian transboundary 'Heart of Borneo' programme of biodiversity, species preservation, nature conservation and environmental protection (Photo EFB, 1957).

1 Tropical Rainforest Ecosystem, Land Cover, Habitat, Resource

1.1 Tropical Rainforest: Myths, ­Delusions and Reality

One of the great human myths, which has proved to be true, says that mankind took its first steps on the branches of the “world tree”, concretely on the branches in the crowns of tropical rainforest trees. The left-behind brothers, the apes, will remain there as long as the tropical rainforest (TRF) habitat exists and effective habitant protection is in place. TRF is a stimulating environment for a human generalist’s brain to develop and achieve the stages of diversity of functions, sophistication and independence of decision which are necessary to venture successfully into the risky environment of the savannah. In the TRF, the turbulent climate of the Pleistocene offered ample opportunities and needs for phenotypic and genotypic differentiation among plants and animals, and no doubt will have stimulated the emergence of homo spp. The many obvious similarities in structural and functional aspects between the human brain and the TRF may be accidental, but they are astounding, not surprising, and are practical. The human brain and the TRF are similarly complex, in manifold ways diversely reacting dynamic systems; both are robust, elastic, resilient, resistant with antifragility potential to emerge even from chaos and to compensate damaged parts by other parts taking over, or to repair them by auto-­restoration. The brain and the TRF both conform to the Humboldt’s Amazonian concept of unity in diversity, patterned by eternal and universal natural laws (Humboldt, 1847). Silviculturally-experienced foresters know that the variability and variation of the quality and quantity of interactions between individual tree plants of the same or different species, or between temporarily passing eco-units (sensu Oldemann, 1990), depend on the variations of climatic and biotic factors. Added are fleeting correlations and elusive interactions between organisms, such as the effects of the hypothetical induction (Spemann, 1935; Mangold, 1982). The result is the great diversity and variation of states and processes, and the high levels of uncertainty of the future in the TRF ecosystems, and in forests and forestry generally. In stark contrast to these natural-law bound natural systems, anthropogenic financial, economic and social/political systems operate according to artificial, arbitrarily changeable and disposable rules, regulations, laws, whims and fashions. The anthropogenic systems do not possess the potential of responsive auto-restoration or dynamic auto-diversification, and possess inadequate antifragility potentials. Strategies must be narrowly goal-focused, but should still be system-sustainable, and need to be supported and implemented. To operate these systems, ingenuity, expertise and free will are required, but also the gift of deception to manipulate in order to achieve set goals. The book does not include open woodlands, seashore vegetation and mangrove, and only a brief comment on plantation forests. For information on mangrove, please refer to the comprehensive description by Spalding et al. (2010). The history of the TRF, as we know it, began when the angiosperms evolved and became trees to form forests during the Cretaceous period (136–65 × 10^*6 a BC) and successfully competed in the struggle for dominance during the largely tropical, but not tranquil Tertiary period (65–2 × 10⁶ a bc). During the Plio/Pleistocene epochs (7–0.01 × 10⁶ a bc) the territory which the TRF flora and fauna could occupy shrank and expanded in the rhythm of dramatic tectonic shifts, rises and falls of sea level, volcanic activities, fluctuation of air temperature with wide amplitudes and longer cold and shorter warm spells. These Pleistocene (2–0.01 × 10⁶ a bc) conditions continued into the Holocene or Recent epoch (since 0.01 × 10⁶ a bc to today). At present, we live in one of the short periods with warmer temperatures. A very readable and sound review of these climatic oscillations and their biogeographic significance in the TRF of the Sunda region is given by Cannon et al. (2009), Wurster et al. (2010) and Pembrook (personal communication, 2012)¹,². They provide a general overview of conditions and detailed insights into processes of the environmental history of the rainforest during the Plio/Pleistocene epochs, bring the oscillating Pleistocene climate to life and explain the consequences for fauna and flora. Understanding the historic processes of the oscillations and sometimes catastrophic changes of the climate; the physiographic changes of the land surfaces; and the ecological relevance of responses by wildlife, plants and vegetation is a precondition for developing suitable management and conservation systems for the present TRF, and feasible concepts and rational strategies to strengthen the prospect of attaining survival and sustainability of life on earth in the ­distant future.

In my opinion, all these strong climatic, tectonic and geomorphological dynamics which characterise the historic scenarios through which the TRF progressed to its present state should have made the TRF ecosystem dynamic, robust, resilient, resistant, elastic, adaptable and an opportunistic and aggressive coloniser of newly available sites, such as land emerging from the sea when sea levels fell, or when volcanic activity pushed up fresh parent material, as in the case of the Krakatao islands. TRF had to survive under the regimen of extrinsic stochastic and unpredictably interacting causal factors. This required the creation of an intrinsic regulating network of interacting processes within a structure and physiognomy of the forest ecosystems which can stand up elastically or repair effectively if damage occurs. All this has to happen within the framework of basic natural laws which, as far as we know or surmise, originated in the Big Bang, apply universally and are unchangeable. Such a situation requires and creates stamina in all species of fauna, flora and microorganisms, and possibly the ability to adapt by acquiring new traits, which may even be saved as added codes in the genome. The ecosystem needs adequate resistance, elasticity and resilience, and the ability to adapt, restore and rehabilitate if damage has occurred. It is most improbable that the most exacting and demanding, by no means tranquillity-promoting conditions throughout the Cainozoic era (Tertiary 65–2 x10⁶ a, Quaternary 2 × 10⁶ a to present) would result in the evolution of a TRF which is fragile; vulnerable to any kind of extrinsic impact or disturbance, especially by man; is given to cascading into collapse; has no power of resilience and elasticity; no capacity for self-repair of damaged compartments; and on any interference by humans loses its spurious “integrity” and “biodiversity”. The extraordinary similarities in many of these aspects between the human brain and the TRF, and the recent changes of scientific knowledge about it among brain researchers, as a similarly complex dynamic system add to the argument and should have opened our eyes to the fact that the TRF is indeed robust, elastic, resilient and resistant, and can compensate for damage, but also that it can be destroyed beyond repair. Auto-restoration in both TRF and brain occurs according to the eternal primeval natural laws and the derived laws of correlations, which humans cannot change. It is a crucial difference between natural (eco)systems and (eco)systems created by man that the anthropogenic financial, economic and social/political systems operate according to rules and regulations invented by man, which can be changed or ignored (if one has the power to do so) at will.

Cannon et al. (2009) studied the distribution of the TRF and the climatic and geological conditions during the last maximum glaciation of the Pleistocene in Sundaland, and concluded that at the LGM (last glacial maximum), Sundaland rainforests covered a substantially larger area than currently present. Extrapolation of the model over the past million years demonstrates that the current “island archipelago” setting in Sundaland is extremely unusual given the majority of its history, and the dramatic biogeographic transitions caused by global deglaciation were rapid and brief. Compared with dominant glacial conditions, lowland forests were probably reduced from approximately 1.3 to 0.8 10⁶ km² while upland forests were probably reduced by half, from approximately 2.0 to 1.0 10⁵ km². Coastal mangrove and swamp forests experienced the most dramatic change during deglaciations, going through a complete and major biogeographic relocation. The Sundaland forest dynamics of glacial contraction, extinction, fragmentation into refugia and interglacial expansion, driven by glacial cycles, occurred simultanously with those in equatorial Africa. From there, some authors deduct that Sundaland evergreen rainforest communities are even now in a refugial stage. They suggest that the current interglacial biogeographic condition present in Sundaland is unrepresentative of the predominantly “‘glacial’ phases of the Quat­ernary which were several centigrades cooler” (Cannon et al., 2009; Wurster et al., 2010). Their conclusion that, connected with the turbulent biogeographic past and the necessarily refugial character of the contemporary Sundaland rainforests, the present TRF is highly vulnerable, however, is unconvincing. The opposite conclusion, that it is as natural ecosystem and against natural forces robust, appears more realistic and convincing. But its species and the communities which form its diverse ecosystems are vulnerable to the point of extinction against the brutal forces of destruction, rather than traditional usufruct, created by the attitudes and lifestyles of modern and postmodern mankind.

Around 400,000 years bc a new factor of perturbation and disturbance appeared. Homo sapiens possessed and developed to perfection tools, hunting and fishing gear and fire. Man was clearly no mere animal, but a very distinct phenomenon. Among the three unique gifts (Markl, 1986) man perfected first the extraordinary and unique gift of adaptive language, which made him distinct from animals. Animals communicate by sequences of monosyllabic, if emotionally charged, signals, supported by body gestures and facial expression. In body language and audio-signals domestic dogs and, from my own experience, in the wild – gibbon and orang hutan – as well as, according to what I read, other primate species, are absolute masters of audio-signal and body language. However, to claim that they have and use language is popularising research in pet-animal species, not sound and serious science. I have used monosyllables and emotion-expressing audio-signals successfully in remote pristine TRF in Sarawak to communicate with primates such as orang hutans and gibbons, and with birds such as hornbills, and also to trick and trap rutting deer. Second, H. sapiens possesses the further gift of free will to decide any way he fancies, even to his own, his social group’s and the species’ disadvantage. The recent results from long-term psychological–sociological research into the causes of the killing-and-raping craze in areas of currently acute violence (Congo, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan) are worrying prospects in this context for the future of the species. There are strong indications that the male genome contains a gene of lust to kill, the truly fully female genome apparently not. If this is so, and history of mankind speaks for it, these are worrying prospects for the future of the species (Elbert, 2013), particularly since constraint systems have eroded or been wilfully destroyed. Third, man has the gift of intellectual power of abstract thinking, to “go out of himself” to create word and structural models depicting reality, myths, hopes and aspirations, as he sees and wants them, and to realise his dreams in real life. Eventually these virtual models were first put on paper and finally on computers, turning his three gifts into a combination tool which potentially is and may prove a Pandora’s box. During the development from the initial simple linear thought models to the present computerised simulation models of complex dynamic systems, H. sapiens accumulated more and more power to change casually or by design, and unconsciously the world in which he lived and the manner he lived in it – his lifestyle. The TRFs did not escape and suffered from intrinsic fundamental ­deficiencies of these anthropogenic system models, as compared to the design and functioning of natural systems. The performance of system simulation models of anthropogenic systems in the worlds of economics, finance, society and politics are determined by anthropogenic rules and laws, which depend on human free will and decision, can be changed at will, and are based on data and information which are created in real anthropogenic systems. Consequently, the anthropogenic systems as models and in reality can be manipulated, and at any time any criteria, indicators, values and targets can be changed. The system’s dynamics and trends, therefore, become unpredictable, not as a result of complexity and random chance events, but because of the effect of H. sapiens’ blessed gift of free will and free decision.

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