Sustainable Forest Management in the Tropics: Is Everything in Order but the Patient Still Dying?

Tropical forests are under unprecedented pressure for conversion to pastoral and agricultural land or to plantations (including for biofuel production) and from the supply and extraction of forest goods and services, including timber and bushmeat (Kant 2004, Gardner et al. 2009). To preserve them, much effort has gone into setting up and managing a network of protected areas because, for various constituencies, conservation is best served by outright protection (Bowles et al. 1998), occasionally after initial extraction of valuable species (Rice et al. 1997). Others, however, see this as an ultimately limited option (Wood 1995, Lugo 1999, Pearce et al. 2003, Gardner et al. 2009). They argue the need to include sustainable forest management, balancing productivity and offtake with efforts to conserve biodiversity, maintain vital forest functions, and continue supplying various social and economic benefits, across various scales.