1.02.00 - Tropical and subtropical silviculture
Hot off the Press: Article in The Conversation by Plinio Sist
Couper moins et laisser reposer: une nouvelle gestion des forêts tropicales s’impose. Article by Plinio Sist in The Conversation, Thursday, 2 September 2021. online link
English version: Cut less, leave longer: decades of data show we are over-exploiting tropical rainforests; The Conversation, Wednesday, 8 September 2021. online link
Hot off the press: La déforestation n'est pas une fatalité, mais un choix politique
La déforestation n'est pas une fatalité, mais un choix politique.
Article by Plinio Sist in Le Monde, Saturday, 4 August 2020.
La lutte contre la déforestation et la dégradation des forêts tropicales, dont l’agriculture et l’élevage sont responsables, doit être menée tant au niveau local qu’international, au travers d’une coopération solidaire entre pays producteurs et pays importateurs, estiment les écologues Plinio Sist et Claude Garcia dans une tribune au « Monde »
Publication alert: Managing degraded forests, a new priority in the Brazilian Amazon - Policy Brief
In the Brazilian Amazon, degraded forests dominate the landscapes on the agricultural frontiers. This region is now facing a major challenge: halting degradation and sustainably managing these forests. Today, degraded forests represent a class of forest in their own right. They can nevertheless play a key role in combating climate change, and can also help to improve the ecological functioning of the different territories. Implementing public policies with the twin objectives of reducing degradation and promoting these forests implies strong support from research. In this Perspective, we focus on four research priorities: developing methods to characterise and monitor degraded forests; drafting specific forest management plans; understanding the role played by all social actors; and supporting policies at the territorial level.
Lilian BLANC - Joice FERREIRA - Marie-Gabrielle PIKETTY - Clément BOURGOIN - Valéry GOND - Bruno HÉRAULT - Milton KANASHIRO - François LAURENT - Marc PIRAUX - Ervan RUTISHAUSER - Plinio SIST. Perspective #40 by CIRAD, June 2017.
Publication Alert: Global biodiversity and productivity
Positive biodiversity-productivity relationship predominant in global forests
This article, in which IUFRO officeholder Sylvie Gourlet-Fleury is a co-author, has just been published in Science.
The relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem productivity has been explored in detail in herbaceous vegetation, but patterns in forests are far less well understood. Liang et al. have amassed a global forest data set from >770,000 sample plots in 44 countries. A positive and consistent relationship can be discerned between tree diversity and ecosystem productivity at landscape, country, and ecoregion scales. On average, a 10% loss in biodiversity leads to a 3% loss in productivity. This means that the economic value of maintaining biodiversity for the sake of global forest productivity is more than fivefold greater than global conservation costs.
Details at: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6309/aaf8957
First comprehensive assessment of post-logging recovery of above-ground carbon stored in trees across whole Amazon Basin
Selectively logged tropical Amazonian forest can recover their carbon stocks within a cutting cycle of 20 to 30 years, according to a new study published in the journal Current Biology on September 21st. The findings show that sustainably logged tropical forests continue to play a key role in global carbon sequestration, with important implications for global climate.
Find out more at http://www.iufro.org/science/divisions/division-1/10000/10200/publications/