Sound forest management practices have been seen as an interesting strategy to ally forest conservation and rural economic development in Amazônia. However, the implementation of Reduced Impact Logging (RIL) techniques in the field has been incipient, while most of the Amazonian timber production is generated through predatory and illegal logging. Despite several improvements in remote sensing technologies focused on improved monitoring of illegal logging, a consolidated methodology to assess the quality in the implementation of management practices in the field – and therefore the level of degradation caused by harvesting – is needed. We present here a method based on a study conducted in 1996 at a forest site in Paragominas, Eastern Amazônia. The original objective of this study (Holmes et al. 2002) was to compare the costs and benefits of Conventional Logging (CL) with Reduced Impact Logging (RIL) under an economic perspective. This study created a method to assess ecological impacts caused by logging, which has been intensively replicated in the last 14 years in the field activities of the Instituto Floresta Tropical (IFT). The method is based on two assessments: (i) Damage to the residual trees in the forest stand; (ii) Proportion of ground area disturbed during harvesting by heavy machines.

Type of Case
Printed publication (book, sourcebook, journal article…)

Publisher
FAO

Region
Americas

Biome
Tropical

Forest Type
All forest types (natural and planted), Degraded forest

Primary Designated Function
All