Promoting Better Logging Practices in Tropical Forests: a Simulation Analysis of Alternative Regulations

Most tropical forests are government-owned, with timber being harvested under concession agreements awarded to private logging companies. Those agreements tend to be short-term harvesting licenses lasting no more than one to a few years. In the absence of regulation, loggers can be expected to ignore the negative environmental impacts of logging, as they derive little or no financial gain from mitigating them. Forestry departments typically impose various logging regulations in an effort to minimize such impacts. Common ones include minimum diameter cutting limits, which prohibit the felling of trees below a specified diameter, and cutting cycles, which prohibit premature reentry of logged-over areas. Despite such efforts, much evidence indicates that logging practices throughout the tropics are undermining the ability of tropical forests to sustain flows of timber and nontimber benefits (Poore et al. 1989, Panayotou and Ashton 1992, Johnson and Cabarle 1993, Sist et al. 1997).