Question:

[jim king]

Here in the Amazon Universities turn out foresters by the bunches .  The problem is they know nothing about forestry.  They are basicly taught that forestry is being an enviornmentalist and tying yourself to a tree.

If someone could I would appreciate what is the definition of a forester in North America ¿?

Thanks

[Tom]

http://www.warnell.uga.edu/h/aboutWSFR/

The University of Georgia is one of the largest, and I think best, Agricultural schools in the Southeast. While I've not found a description of "Forester" on the site, It gives an idea of what the school tries to accomplish.
It envolves more than learning about a tree. 

There are many different types of foresters.

[Jeff]

This might be an interesting read for you Jim.

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=9965.0

[Ron Wenrich]

When I was in school, I complained about not being taught how to do anything.  The response was that they would teach me why, I'm smart enough to figure out how.  And they were right.

Coming out of college, I didn't know squat until I actually got the on-the-job training.  That involved everything from planting to felling and all the steps in between. 

I can't really complain about the environmental aspect.  I usually approach things from that aspect.  You can approach it from a business standpoint, but then you're managing an industrial forest, not a natural resource. 

Take your pick.  Its hard to have both. 

[WDH]

http://www.warnell.uga.edu/h/aboutWSFR/

The University of Georgia is one of the largest, and I think best, Agricultural schools in the Southeast.

8) 8) 8)

In my mind (and experience), a forester is a resource manager that understands the ecology of the natural system.  They use that knowledge to benefit society while conserving our natural resources to maintain that value to society now and in the future. 

Forests benefit society in many ways including producing valuable products and providing habitat for plants and animals to flourish.  All of these objectives are important.  When only one or two become paramount over the other, there is trouble.  We humans are consumers, and we need to use the forest wisely to provide useful products as well as to ensure our right to expect that in the future while remaining true to the natural ecology............................

[jim king]

I must say I never thought the profession of being a forester could be so contraversial.  I am trying to change a law here in the Amazon and need a forester but as I said we have hundreds but they all have a preprogramed enviornmental agenda.

I did not realize until yesterday that I had made an English version of my rant with the government but here it is and may be of interest to some of you.


Raising forest revenues and
Employment in Peru


For this paper Loreto is used as a focal point for both the existing problems and solutions of the forestry industry of Peru as it is the only data I have available..

PROBLEMS:    Unemployment and poverty in unprecedented numbers.

                            Illegal timber harvest. ?¿

                            Government mismanagement of forest resources.

                            INRENA is a drain on the government financially

                           
Unemployment and poverty in unprecedented numbers.

It is almost impossible to believe that in one of the richest areas of the world the people live in miserable poverty due to government mismanagement of its natural resources.

Loreto has 368,851 square hectares of land and lets assume that less the rivers, cities , small scale farming and cocaine plantations there exists 90% forest or 331,965 hectares of forest land.  Based on several forestry studies it can be assumed that each hectare has a minimum of 70,000 bf of timber of various species the most usable but some not.

This gives us a total timber board footage available resource figure for Loreto of 
1, 400 ,000,000,000  board feet of timber only in the concessions and titled land .   Government timber production figures for Loreto suggest that the total production of Loreto is 24,000,000 bf or basically nothing annually.

Example:         Loreto has 368.851 km² in total
                        The state of  Oregon in the US has  251.418 km in total
                        To make it worse half of  Oregon is a natural desert

                        Oregon produces  4´450´000.000 bf of wood annually
                        Loreto produces  24.000.000 bf anually

What does this mean ¿  Oregon is 32% smaller than Loreto
                                         Loreto produces .005% of what Oregon  produces

Why is the biggest employment base in Loreto driving mototaxies  or cultivating cocaine when Loreto is surrounded by unmatched and wasted rotting  natural riches ¿  Answer, the government is not managing  its biggest natural resources properly , either the people or the forest..

Attachment Number 1 is a census showing income , education etc. of a typical Lotero village.



Illegal Timber Harvest  Problem     

The illegal timber harvest is an over used and misunderstood term used by people who are honestly mistaken and ignorant of the problem and those who wish to cash in on the ecologist scare tactics for their own benefit.

A few types of illegal timber harvest:

A family with an income of $20 a month cutting wood on their own land for sale without paying  S/.800 Nuevo Soles for a photocopy study  and waiting months for a  forestry permission.  ILLEGAL

The biggest actual illegal timber harvest is because of the forestry concessions being located several kilometers from any river for access or removal of harvested wood.  The lumbermen doe not have the resources to build roads and buy hundreds of thousands of dollars in  equipment to work as the law demands.  RESULT , the lumbermen buy timber from the villages on the rivers and charge it against their concession.  ILLEGAL

With over 20,000,000 hectares under concession it is wonderful that the legal logging as per the law is basically impossible,  as if it was possible to implement it would be the biggest deforestation project in the history of the world.   Whatever forester can tell you that to selectively harvest a forest using modern mechanized methods you loose 5% of the forest for roads and skid trails only.  Using this proven and well documented fact the law would destroy 1,000,000 hectares if implemented.   This does not include the thousands of miles of roads from the rivers thru village lands to get to the concessions.

Fortunately the illegal harvest by the river communities is sustaining the forest and limiting the damage that would be done if a "legal" harvest was made.

SOLUTION:

Modify the forestry law to make it possible to manage a natural resource and permit the people of Loreto to live.

The law has to be modified to allow people to work legally , openly and productively to better their lives .  Why is it necessary for a small land owner with title to 20 or 40 hectares to pay some forester who knows nothing about the trees on his land S/.800 soles minimum for permission to selectively cut a few trees for legal sale when no on objects to the slash and burn of his land to try and raise yucca and corm for his family.
LET THE MAN WORK LEGALLY so he does not have to slash and burn to try and exist.

EXAMPLE:

My company has been fortunate in obtaining the only permit to cut cants with a chainsaw and carry them out by hand on their backs because of the terrain..  RESULT:  The families that were earning S/.40 -50 per week cutting down the forest to make charcoal are now earning up to $/.1000 per week selectively cutting on our property.  They now have a life , the children have clothes and are in school and the world is open to them.   This should be available to all Loretanos that wish to better their life.  These people earn more than the laborers working in cocaine.

The average chain saw for this work costs about $400 US and the small lumberman is out of debt and profitable in one month.  Lets say that 30,000 families went to work in this form.  Each family would produce an average of 700 board feet of wood per week and earn $/.1050 before expenses.

This would mean an annual harvest of  1,000,000,000 bf of currently unusable lumber and direct income of $/.1,500,000,000 annually to the loggers.  This would create hundreds of  manufacturing jobs and export income which is currently nonexistent
And bring  a  minimum $1,000,000,000 US  vs  now  $24,000,000 into Loreto from export sales..   I don't know the gross product figures of Loreto but I think a billion dollars is a lot of money to Iquitos.   With 20,000,000 hectares under concession or in the hands of villages there exists 1,400,000,000,000 board feet of timber and a 1 billion bf annual harvest will be unknown and not nearly reach the recommended sustainable harvest. 

The forestry taxes paid on this volume could make INRENA self sufficient and not a drag on the government and they could afford to hire some up to date experts.


Modify the law to permit the man to use the community chainsaw to cut some cants for sale in Iquitos and a chain reaction will start every couple of weeks one more..   There is this false front in Peru always put forward by the experts that cutting wood with a chainsaw is wasteful but letting millions of mature trees fall over and rot and the people going hungry and uneducated is good.  The fact is that cutting cants with a chainsaw and bringing them to town for resawing yields more form a tree than traditional logging plus it does not damage the jungle as mechanized logging .  Attachment Number 3.   My friends you are not governing and managing your people and resources you are failing your responsibilities horribly.

Just something for thought, how was it possible to make a new forestry law without knowing what species are in the forest.  This is like selling a business without taking an inventory.   I may be wrong but I don't think  that of the unknown hundreds or thousands of species in Peru less that exist 100 complete vouchers including the wood samples  in the combined libraries of INRENA , the Molina and other Universities.

Just another thought.  Why have the "experts" classified the most valuable woods in the world that exist in Peru as firewood ?  $30 and up per board foot for firewood and Mahogany is on CITES for $2.00 per board foot.  Please explain.

Make Peru a leader in the forestry industry and the Government should self certify its forestry activities as sustainable.  It is difficult to say that there is a forestry industry at this time as Peru is a net importer of wood but it can be done..

Whatever technical help you may require I probably have available or at least have access to the proper people.

MARKET:

This does not seem very complicated , China is the biggest buyer in the world of hardwood flooring of the types that Peru has in abundance and does not put importance to.    And China has a huge trade deficit with Peru.  They are obligated to buy what they want and need to balance the deficit.  It sounds easy to me.

The big word in Peru is "democracy" and that means that the government is obligated to free the people from obsolete bureaucracies and let them work.

Regards, Jim King
               Iquitos, Peru
                                   

                                           

[Tom]

Hammer away, Jim.

Perhaps, one day, you will find an open ear in the Government.

Nothing will ever get done if you do nothing. 

[Ron Wenrich]

Jim

What do you think of the low impact logging that the Tropical Forest Foundation is proposing? 
http://www.tropicalforestfoundation.org/ril.html   It seems to me that this method is OK, but it puts in those dreaded roads that you talk about.  Is that what the WWF is talking about and the Peru government?

Some of your figures are a little misleading.  I found a report that has the average hectare harvest in tropical forests at about 30 cu meters.  That will yield about 6.3 Mbf, if my calculations are right. 

Temperate forests will yield about 500 cu meters/hectare.  So the yield of the harvest over 16 times greater.  Or stated another way, to equal Oregon's harvest, you would have to cut on 16 times the acreage as they do in Oregon.  So, we're not quite comparing apples to apples.

If I were writing a resource analysis, I would be trying to figure out how much timber and of what varieties are growing in the area.  If possible, a mortality rate would be nice.  A growth rate should also be established.  From there you could project how much there is available, and a way of managing the harvest.  You would also have to figure out how you're going to regenerate good quality trees for the future.

How ingrained is charcoaling in the culture?  If this is a big business, then off species could be used for charcoal, instead of merchantable stock.  Perhaps they could be cut for firewood at a reduced rate.  There seems to be a need of some type of supervision.

As for markets, China may or may not be a market for the wood.  It seems like they might be, if they are building there own homes.  But, lumber used in furniture for export to either European or American markets would more than likely be temperate forest woods, like cherry, maple or oak. 

Your hardwood flooring niche may be even better in the US.  Always cater to the people with the big bucks.   ;)

[WDH]

Best of luck in your quest.  The force of illogical do-gooders is against you.  Unfortunately many of the large environmental lobbies with political agenda's don't care about the people of Peru.  They feel that those people should be happy in their poverty and ignornace.  To me, that is the ultimate hypocrisy and conceit as they live their up-scale lifestyle and pass judgement on how the less unfortunate should have to live.

[Pullinchips]

Here is a definition of forestry from the UGA website which can be taken as a type of general job descripion . It tells about the forestry profession and seval aspects of it. Also contions some more info about interests and potential jobs forestry grads can do.

http://www.career.uga.edu/multimedia/majors_handouts/Forestry.pdf


-Nate

[jim king]

Ron: 

I have never heard of the group you mentioned but I have been to some seminars on low impact logging and when the seminar involves non loggers everything goes well but when there are loggers present they ask simple questions that stop the discussion.

One such question is if you are going to harvest 2000 bf per acre and you need the skidder to haul the logs out in what way can you do it with less damage ?  Such a simple and logical question seems not to have an answer so infact what is low impact logging ?

A typical tropical forest has about 40,000 board feet of timber per acre and a minimum of 200 species some of which are mature at 6 inch DBA.  I dont think you will ever find an area with an average harvest of more that five to ten cu m per acre average in product or 2000 bf of lumber as very few species are harvested and have a market.  That is one of the things about tropical forestry that makes it so difficult to be profitable on a commercial basis.

Forestry will never be the cause of deforestation in the tropics as there simply is no market for the majority of the species and who is going to spend time and money cutting something you cannot use.  The manufacture of charcoal and firewood is the path to destruction to the ropiical forest as is is clear cutting and is the dirtiest most horrible job you can imagine and a family of four or five will earn in US $ about $15 a week as a group.

If there was educational programs to teach the people what they have and which of the species has value we would be getting somewhere but as there are NO experts in the world that can walk thru the jungle and ID the trees we are not changing a thing and the slash and burn for survival continues.  What we need are people to educate the Amazonian people as to what species have value and to forget about Mahogany and other low cost woods.

To give you an example, my people who were slash and burn charcoal makers were earning per family about $15 a week and we have just finished selective cutting a 90 acre parcel and removed 84,698 bf in two months and the five families recieved $8196 in total which took them from slave type people to earning more than a teacher, forester or police captain.  Not a machine entered the property.  This is low impact logging.

Certainly one cannot say that this is possible for all types of products as plywood or decking as they need long or large logs that require mechanized logging but the vast majority of logging could be done as we do it as the largest market in the world for tropical woods is for China for flooring 2 to 4 foot long.  I was with the Governor of this State two days ago in a meeting with the new Chinese Ambasador to Peru and we made very good progress in this area.

I have now formally requested an inspection of our 90 acre plot by the local DNR that we just finished to determine a detailed comparison between our method and as if it was done with a skidder.  Also the economic impact on the people involved .

Now back to my original question.  What is a forester ?  I had no idea there there so many types of foresters.  My thought was that a forester is a person than manages a plot of forest to attain the maximum profitability on the fastest turnaround time between cutting as a farmer of any other crop.  This of course combined with general safe soil protection rules etc..

This is the jungle version.  Anymore questions I would be happy to answer as I believe the spread of information about tropical forestry and its problems and solutions is very important and must be public.

Below you will find a very shortened version of a inventory of a parcel of land we own and you will see the diversity and the reason it is so difficult to make a profit in the tropics.  The size limitations of the site would not permit me to put up a detailed inventory.

NAME OF   TOTAL BF   AVG BF   AVG BF   BF TOTAL
SPECIES   INVENTORIED   PER   PER    ON 7000
   PER SPECIES   PARCEL   HECTARIA   HECTARIAS
MACHIMANGO    76,273.00     2,934.00     11,734.00     82,139,670.00
QUNILLA    27,784.00     1,069.00     4,274.00     29,921,231.00
AÑUJE MOENA    24,421.00     939.00     3,757.00     26,299,538.00
PASHACO     20,944.00     806.00     3,222.00     22,555,077.00
COPAL                 20,369.00     783.00     3,134.00     21,935,846.00
CASHIMBO CAS   20,222.00     778.00     3,111.00     21,777,538.00
CAUCHO MASHA    15,947.00     613.00     2,453.00     17,173,692.00
APACHARAMA    15,539.00     598.00     2,391.00     16,734,308.00
MURURE    14,506.00     558.00     2,232.00     15,621,846.00
TANGARANA    14,254.00     548.00     2,193.00     15,350,462.00
PUCUNA CASPI    14,095.00     542.00     2,168.00     15,179,231.00
CUMALA                 13,300.00     512.00     2,046.00     14,323,077.00
TORNILLO    13,065.00     503.00     2,010.00     14,070,000.00
YACUCHAPANA    12,787.00     492.00     1,967.00     13,770,615.00
MOENA                 12,738.00     490.00     1,960.00     13,717,846.00
QUILLOSISA    11,575.00     445.00     1,781.00     12,465,385.00
AGUANILLO    9,680.00     372.00     1,489.00     10,424,615.00
CAIMITILLO    9,437.00     363.00     1,452.00     10,162,923.00
CANELA MOENA    9,275.00     357.00     1,427.00     9,988,462.00
MOENA AMARIL   7,313.00     281.00     1,125.00     7,875,538.00
AZUCAR HUAYO    7,305.00     281.00     1,124.00     7,866,923.00
QUILLO BORDON    7,076.00     272.00     1,089.00     7,620,308.00
MOENA NEGRA     6,530.00     251.00     1,005.00     7,032,308.00
CAPINURI    5,934.00     228.00     913.00     6,390,462.00
CARAHUASCA     5,879.00     226.00     904.00     6,331,231.00
REQUIA                 5,816.00     224.00     895.00     6,263,385.00
QUINILLA BLAN    5,237.00     201.00     806.00     5,639,846.00
SHIRINGA    4,715.00     181.00     725.00     5,077,692.00
CEPANCHINA    4,608.00     177.00     709.00     4,962,462.00
SACHA UBILLA    4,547.00     175.00     700.00     4,896,769.00
QUINILLA ROJO    4,431.00     170.00     682.00     4,771,846.00
MANCHARI CASP 4,296.00     165.00     661.00     4,626,462.00
RIFARI                 4,146.00     159.00     638.00     4,464,923.00
CHULLACHAQUI    4,107.00     158.00     632.00     4,422,923.00
SACHA CHUCHUH4,097.00     158.00     630.00     4,412,154.00
MOENA BLANCA    3,869.00     149.00     595.00     4,166,615.00
LECHE CASPI    3,717.00     143.00     572.00     4,002,923.00
MARI MARI    3,654.00     141.00     562.00     3,935,077.00
HUAYRURO    3,577.00     138.00     550.00     3,852,154.00
SHIMBILLO     3,473.00     134.00     534.00     3,740,154.00
PUCAQUIRO    3,358.00     129.00     517.00     3,616,308.00
HUAYRA CASPI    3,272.00     126.00     503.00     3,523,692.00
PEINE DE MONO    3,096.00     119.00     476.00     3,334,154.00
REMO CASPI    2,978.00     115.00     458.00     3,207,077.00
QUINILLA ROJA    2,944.00     113.00     453.00     3,170,462.00
YAHUARACHI CAS2,732.00     105.00     420.00     2,942,154.00
MARUPA     2,434.00     94.00                  374.00     2,621,231.00
CUNCHI MOENA    2,433.00     94.00                  374.00     2,620,154.00
SHIMBILLO BLAN 2,165.00     83.00                  333.00     2,331,538.00
SACHA CUMACEB2,142.00     82.00                  330.00     2,306,769.00
MASARANDUBA    1,998.00     77.00                  307.00     2,151,692.00
SHIMBILLO COLO 1,759.00     68.00                  271.00     1,894,308.00
CETICO                 1,742.0             67.00                  268.00     1,876,000.00
CHARAPILLA    1,720.00     66.00                  265.00     1,852,308.00
MENTOL CASPI    1,435.00     55.00                  221.00     1,545,385.00
SACHA CHUCHU  1,343.00     52.00                  207.00     1,446,308.00
SAPOTILLO    1,326.00     51.00                  204.00     1,428,000.00
CHIMBILLO ROJO1,242.00     48.00                  191.00     1,337,538.0                SACHA CASHO    1,189.00     46.00                  183.00     1,280,462.00
SACHA CHARICH 1,173.00     45.00                  180.00     1,263,231.00
CHUCHUHUASI    1,128.00     43.00                  174.00     1,214,769.00
PAMPA REMOCAS1,107.00     43.00                  170.00     1,192,154.00
QUINILLA NEGRA    1,105.00     43.00                  170.00     1,190,000.00
ASUFRE CASPI    1,069.00     41.00                  164.00     1,151,231.00
SIETE HERMANO  1,040.00     40.00                  160.00     1,120,000.00
ACEITE CASPI    993.00     38.00                  153.00     1,069,385.00
ITAUBA                 991.                   38.00                  152.00     1,067,231.00
PALOMETA HUAY 975.00                  38.00                  150.00     1,050,000.00
HUIMBA                936.00                36.00                  144.00     1,008,000.00
TORTUGA    931.00     36.00                  143.00     1,002,615.00
SACHA CAIMITILL918.00                  35.00                  141.00     988,615.00
CASCARILLA     840.00     32.00                  129.00     904,615.00
QUINILLA NEG     705.00     27.00                  108.00     759,231.00
PALISANGRE     600.00     23.00                    92.00     646,154.00
YASHINGO CASP  549.00     21.00                    84.00     591,231.00
SHIRINGA MASH  529.00     20.00                    81.00     569,692.00
MACAMBILLO    528.00     20.00                    81.00     568,615.00
GASOLINA CAS    453.00     17.00                    70.00     487,846.00
ANIS MOENA    419.00     16.00                    64.00     451,231.00
SACHAHUACAPU    409.00     16.00                    63.00     440,462.00
FILTRO CASPI    387.00     15.00                    60.00     416,769.00
SACHA MARUPA    369.00     14.00                    57.00     397,385.00
ALMENDRA    351.00     14.00                    54.00     378,000.00
MACHIN SAPOTE    351.00     14.00                    54.00     378,000.00
ZORRO CASPI    346.00     13.00                    53.00     372,615.00
LANZA CASPI    297.00     11.00                    46.00     319,846.00
HUAMANZAMA     287.00     11.00                    44.00     309,077.00
MOJARRA CASPI    287.00     11.00                    44.00     309,077.00
CESAR GRAND     272.00     10.00                    42.00     292,923.00
CUMACEBA    231.00     9.00                    36.00     248,769.00
SHIMBILLO BLAN 216.00                  8.00                    33.00     232,615.00
HUACAPURANA    182.00     7.00                    28.00     196,000.00
PARAGUILLA CAS 179.00     7.00                    28.00     192,769.00
CHARICHUELO    172.00     7.00                    26.00     185,231.00
SHIRINGA NEGRO104.00     4.00                    16.00     112,000.00
QUINILLA NEGRA    95.00                  4.00                    15.00     102,308.00
SACHA TAMARA    95.00                  4.00                    15.00     102,308.00
BOA CASPI    80.00                  3.00                    12.00     86,154.00
YESCA CASPI    80.00                  3.00                    12.00     86,154.00
CHULLACHAQUI  68.00                  3.00                    10.00     73,231.00
SACHA CACAO    59.00                  2.00                      9.00     63,538.00

Sorry is is out of wack but when I see it before I post it everything is in order.
            


   

[WDH]

I believe a fundamental concept of what a forester is/does has to do with the betterment of society in the long term.  With that principle, you can manage for profit and other objectives, but the requirement to improve the impact on society takes into account the objectives besides just making money in the short run.  Conserving resources, improving air and water quality, making sound environmental decisions, etc while producing commercially viable timber crops.  The long term has to provide the framework for the short term.

[Ron Wenrich]

You might find this report on reduced impact logging to be of use:
http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/005/AC805E/ac805e04.htm

As to foresters, some foresters may work by your definition, many do not.  To me, that isn't practicing forestry, thats just growing trees.  In order to grow the fastest amount of fiber in the shortest amount of time, you just clearcut, and plant in a species that is the fastest growing for that site.  You may get the maximum return on the dollar, you may not.  A lot depends on how the resident bug population views your monoculture.

A more likely scenario of forest practices involve the manipulation of the stand mainly through cutting and removal.  Foresters are looking at stocking levels and keeping them at a point to maximize fiber growth on designated crop trees.  They will also create openings that favor reproduction, when the time comes.

There are 2 different cutting scenarios in temperate hardwood forests.  Cut the best and leave the rest.  That's called highgrading, but is often sold as thinnings, or diameter limit cuts.  This also what I call mining timber.  It leads to economic clearcuts, although there is usually a residual forest left behind of low value wood.

The other method is cut the worst first.  That's where you have crop trees and you work with your stand by taking out the trees that have either poor form or of an unacceptable species due to markets, site adaptation, or some other scenario.

How do these stack up to your definitions?  How well do they work in tropical forests? 

The problems I see is that you are leaving behind a bunch of wood that is either lower in value or have no value as lumber.  Is it a good idea to leave these as growing stock or would it be better served to cut them as firewood or charcoal?  That's why I mentioned those.

If you remove all the desirable species, how do they reproduce?  In the temperate forests, we need to have some sort of seed source, and usually we need them in pretty close proximity to where we want them to grow.  How does that differ in tropical forests?  I understand the diversity you have in the tropics, I just don't get how they reproduce once removed.  Stump sprouts are one way we get some trees to grow, but the form is usually not so good.

[jim king]

Ron:

One of the problems we have is that very few of the species are used and the harvest per acre is very small and only the best trees are cut.  So in fact the method here by your standards would be high grading of a limited group of species.   

We are now in process of a study to find out how many thousand young trees of the same species are within a 100 foot radius of the tree cut and trying to figure out what makes the winner survive.  The forest floor is literally a carpet of seedlings which normally die unless a tree is cut or falls over creating a light source to draw up a seedling.  As the majority of species here mature and fall over in less than 50 years the clear spots fill fast.

We had a classic example here a few months ago when a couple of environmentalists came here to fly over an oil pipeline that was a major deforestation concern.  They had been flying for about an hour when they ask the pilot when they were going to see the deforestation area and the pilot replied that they had been flying over it for half an hour.  It was undectable to someone with an untrained eye as the area had filled in completly.

Trees with holes or defects are rarely cut here as they are nesting spots for birds , squirrels and other animals.  This are has  never tried a reforestation program as there is no area big enough to justify it and the slash and burn areas reforest in a few years but with a new sequence of trees starting with Balsa and Citico neither of which are harvested in Peru.  They in turn provide the cover for the original species to regenerate.

Stump sprouts here generally produce bushes and not another tree.  You are asking good questions I just wish someone had all the answers.

Below is a report that I just got today showing the volume of tropical wood imported by the USA last year.  It may be surprising to see that the total value of tropical wood imported into the US is equal in value to probably what one Wal Mart store has in sales a year.


US imports of tropical lumber halve in 2006
This second article looks at the historical trends of US
imports of tropical hardwood lumber between 2002 and
2006, in particular the changing species composition.
Overall tropical lumber imports in the USA advanced
from 231,615 m3 in 2002 to 353,985 m3 in 2005, halving
to 176,806 m3 in 2006. The decline led to an erosion of the
market share of tropical lumber in relation to overall
hardwood lumber imports in the USA. The share of US
tropical lumber imports fell to 23% on a value basis and to
12% on a volume basis in 2006, down from 34% and 15%,
respectively, in 2002.
Balsa lumber was the most voluminous tropical wood
imported by the USA (35,760 m3 or 20.2% of all US
tropical lumber imports). During 2002-2006, balsa imports
grew a staggering 310%, but declined 46% in 2006 alone.
In that period, balsa's ranking changed from fifth in 2002
to first place in 2006. Most balsa supply (95%) originated
in Ecuador. Balsa shipments from South Africa are
relatively minor but quality and price are higher. At $390
per m3 in 2006, balsa is still a relatively inexpensive wood.
The value of balsa lumber imports amounted to $13.9
million in 2006, up from only $2.4 million in 2002. The
market share of balsa of the total import value stood only
at 1.5% in 2002 but climbed to 10.6% last year.
US tropical lumber imports, 2006 (% of 176,806 m3)
Mahogany
(9 .6% )
Ker u ing
(8.9% )
Bals a
(20.2% )
V irola
(8.3% )
Other
( 53.0% )
Mahogany lumber still held the top position in regards to
the value of US imports of tropical lumber. However, due
12 ITTO TTM Report 12:9 1-15 May 2007
to its listing in CITES, US imports of mahogany lumber
have been on a steady decline for many years. The import
value of this species fell to $23.8 million in 2006, sharply
down from $69.7 million in 2002, while its market share
dropped to 18% in 2006 from 44% in 2002. The
dominating position of the value of US mahogany imports
is due to its high unit value price, which averaged $1,407
per m3 last year, up 35% from 2002. This compares to an
average price of only $742 per m3 for overall US tropical
lumber imports. On a volume basis, mahogany lumber
imports were of lesser importance and ranked behind
balsa. The import volume plunged to 16,909 m3 in 2006,
down from 67,020 m3 in 2005. As a result, mahogany
lumber lost market share, falling from 29% in 2002 to only
9.6% in 2006.
US tropical lumber imports, 2006 (% of $132 million)
Balsa
(10.6%)
R Meranti
(7.9%)
Teak
(7.2%)
Other
(56.2%)
Mahogany
(18.1%)
Over one-half (51% or $12.2 million) of the value of US
mahogany lumber imports came from Peru, down from
68% or $47.6 million in 2002. Meanwhile, the import
volume declined from 41,280 m3 (62% of the imports) in
2002 to 7,167 m3 (42%) in 2006. Bolivia is the US second
largest mahogany lumber supplier after Peru. Exports from
this country grew from $3.9 million in 2002 to $5.3
million in 2006. Its market share swelled from 6% to 22%
during the same period. However, in volume terms,
shipments from Bolivia declined from 4,700 m3 in 2002 to
3,826 m3 in 2006. Nevertheless, the country managed to
improve its market share from 7% to 23%.
Other tropical lumber species of lesser importance
included keruing (15,695 m3 worth $8.8 million) and
virola (14,751 m3 worth $6.7 million). Other, more
expensive species included red meranti ($10.3 million)
and teak ($9.4 million).

[Ianab]

We are now in process of a study to find out how many thousand young trees of the same species are within a 100 foot radius of the tree cut and trying to figure out what makes the winner survive.  The forest floor is literally a carpet of seedlings which normally die unless a tree is cut or falls over creating a light source to draw up a seedling.  As the majority of species here mature and fall over in less than 50 years the clear spots fill fast.

I was thinking the same thing... Our native rain forests are similar, when a big tree falls there are 100s of seedlings and suppressed saplings waiting to take advantage of the resulting light well. It's like a race to see which tree is going to become dominant. It's a more slow motion race in our cooler climate though  ;)

Now you can affect the odds a lot by the carefull use of a machette to suppress the less desirable species while still leaving enough shelter to encourage your desirable species to grow with a good form. Often smaller short lived species have faster initial growth than the bigger commercially valuable trees. But a bit of early intervention can work wonders. The other thing to look for is succesion, where one species or type of plant grow first and die back quickly. The slower growing shade tollerant trees have grown up under and through the early canopy. Often those 2nd growth species wont survive the initial exposure to sun and wind, they will only propogate under shelter of other species. I dont know if this applies in your ecosystem or not though?

I would think that a bit of management in those first couple of years of regeneration would reap big rewards in 20-30 years time. Once a sapling achieves some dominance over it's neighbours it's unlikely to be overtaken. It should be possible to significantly increase the percentage of desirable trees that regenerate without making a big difference to the overall ecosystem. Going from 1 'good' tree per acre to 2 'good' would double your return but not actually be noticable in terms of the overall forest ecosystem?

But I agree you are going to have to study this process yourself, the Nth Ameican forests are pretty well understood, as are our local NZ ones, but you are probably going to have to write your own manual fro Peru.

Cheers

Ian

It's going to require a bit of study and a lot of hands on work, but if labour is cheap I think some carefull early managenemt is the way to go.

Cheers

Ian

[Ron Wenrich]

Checking your prices would show that your import price for balsa is 92¢/bf and for mahogany its $4.  You said that mahogany was a low value wood.  What's the other stuff worth?

We get seedlings under our trees as well.  Unfortunately, not all of them are of desirable species.  What returns depends on the size of openings and the amount of desirable seed source.  Sometimes a bunch of undesirable species comes back in.

It makes me wonder what you have seeding back in after your removal.  Is it the same species, or is it being taken over by the more undesirable species?  What effect would it have if you made a larger opening?  Take down your merchantable tree, then cut and let lay some of the undesirable ones in the immediate area. 

Our temperate forests have different successions.  It seems like we favor those woods from the intermediate species in the succession.  So, we can keep our forests through thinnings that don't involve clearcuts or leaving high residual amounts of forest.  If we wanted to have a more intolerant species, than a heavy cutting would be in order.

I know you don't have the answers, but it sure would be nice if they figured out how opening size effects your specie mix.  A little bit of knowledge can go a long way.

[jim king]

Ron:
The first question is the value of woods.  Most exotics such as black palm, ebony , snakewood, kingwood etc. etc. range in price from $20 a bf wholesale to in the case of nice figure snakewood up to $80 per pound.

We do know that that under a typical tree here there will sprout thousands of seedlings of that species but as there is always overlap which species will survive is unknown.  One thing we know for sure is that we have a growth rate generally across the board of about 6 foot per year.

It seems a bit strange I am sure but the kinds of questions you are asking have never been ask here nor would anyone ever have studied such things.  This is one of the things that gets my blood pressure up is when the enviornmentalists are all experts and have no basis to draw conclusions from.

We are lost as the world of tropical forestry goes.  It is fortunate that it grows practicly as fast as you can cut it.