Effects of small scale non-mechanised forest management and high impact and mechanised forest management on the forest dynamics and growth of the residual trees.

This study was perfonned in PSPs located at the CPAr-ACRE EMORAPA expcrirnental area and at the PC Peixoto management areas. AI CPA F-ACR E the managed area was meehanically exploited in 1992 and at PC Peixoto animal traction was used to extract the planks.

Sustainable forest management for smallholder farmers in the Brazilian Amazon.

The paper describes a forest management system to be applied on smallholder farms, particularly on settlement projects in the Brazilian Amazon. The proposed forest management system was designed to generate a new source of family income and to maintain forest structure and biodiversity. The system is new in three main characteristics: the use of short cycles in the management of tropical forests, the low harvesting intensity and environmental impact, and the direct involvement of the local population in ali forest management activities. It is based on a minimum felling cycle of ten years and an annual timber harvest of 5-10 m3 ha-1.

Dinâmica do carbono em uma floresta manejada comercialmente no Amazonas.

O objetivo deste estudo foi avaliar os efeitos do sistema silvicultural policíclico na dinâmica de carbono de uma floresta manejada comercialmente no Amazonas.

A methodological framework to assess the carbon balance of tropical managed forests.

Background: Managed forests are a major component of tropical landscapes. Production forests as designated by national forest services cover up to 400 million ha, i.e. half of the forested area in the humid tropics. Forest management thus plays a major role in the global carbon budget, but with a lack of unified method to estimate carbon fluxes from tropical managed forests. In this study we propose a new time- and spatially-explicit methodology to estimate the above-ground carbon budget of selective logging at regional scale. Results: The yearly balance of a logging unit, i.e. the elementary management unit of a forest estate, is modelled by aggregating three sub-models encompassing (i) emissions from extracted wood, (ii) emissions from logging damage and deforested areas and (iii) carbon storage from post-logging recovery. Models are parametrised and uncertainties are propagated through a MCMC algorithm. As a case study, we used 38 years of National Forest Inventories in French Guiana, northeastern Amazonia, to estimate the above-ground carbon balance (i.e. the net carbon exchange with the atmosphere) of selectively logged forests. Over this period, the net carbon balance of selective logging in the French Guianan Permanent Forest Estate is estimated to be comprised between 0.12 and 1.33 Tg C, with a median value of 0.64 Tg C. Uncertainties over the model could be diminished by improving the accuracy of both logging damage and large woody necromass decay submodels. Conclusions: We propose an innovating carbon accounting framework relying upon basic logging statistics. This flexible tool allows carbon budget of tropical managed forests to be estimated in a wide range of tropical regions

Biomassa e área foliar de clones de eucalipto em ILPF: implicações para a desrama

O objetivo do trabalho foi estudar a partição da biomassa na copa de clones comerciais de eucaliptos em Integração Lavoura Pecuária Floresta (ILPF) e recomendar práticas de desrama. Os dados foram coletados na Fazenda Guarantã em Juara, MT, e foram avaliados cinco clones implantados em renques duplos e triplos em espaçamento de 21 x 3,5 x 2,5 m aos 15 meses de idade. Para o estudo da biomassa na parte aérea das plantas foram selecionadas duas árvores amostras de cada clone, que foram abatidas e tiveram a biomassa da copa, tronco e densidade básica determinados. Concluiu-se que a distribuição da biomassa e área foliar ao longo da copa variou em função do material genético e da configuração de plantio. Para todos os materiais genéticos avaliados, foi observada a presença de galhos mortos na copa, indicando a necessidade de se fazer desramas antes dos 15 meses de idade se o objetivo for produzir madeira para serraria. A definição da intensidade de desrama com base na proporção da altura da copa viva mostrou-se inadequada quando empregada de forma genérica sem o estudo prévio da arquitetura da copa.

Spatial scale effects of sampling on the interpolation of species distribution models in the southwestern Amazon.

Knowledge of the geographical distribution of timber tree species in the Amazon is still scarce. This is especially true at the local level, thereby limiting natural resource management actions. Forest inventories are key sources of information on the occurrence of such species. However, areas with approved forest management plans are mostly located near access roads and the main industrial centers. The present study aimed to assess the spatial scale effects of forest inventories used as sources of occurrence data in the interpolation of potential species distribution models. The occurrence data of a group of six forest tree species were divided into four geographical areas during the modeling process. Several sampling schemes were then tested applying the maximum entropy algorithm, using the following predictor variables: elevation, slope, exposure, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and height above the nearest drainage (HAND). The results revealed that using occurrence data from only one geographical area with unique environmental characteristics increased both model overfitting to input data and omission error rates. The use of a diagonal systematic sampling scheme and lower threshold values led to improved model performance. Forest inventories may be used to predict areas with a high probability of species occurrence, provided they are located in forest management plan regions representative of the environmental range of the model projection area.