Valuing chaos – new policies for disturbed forests

Abstract

A significant amount of global forests is affected by natural disturbances and subsequent post-disturbance logging to ‘salvage’ some of economic returns. Such salvage logging occurs in all types of forests, including protected areas. The present talk reviews extents and motivations for salvage logging in protected and unprotected forests globally. Motivations for salvage logging are mainly economical, followed by interests of pest control. To reduce biodiversity loss caused by salvage logging five key policy reforms are necessary: (1) salvage logging must be banned from protected areas; (2) forest planning should address altered disturbance regimes for all intact forests to ensure that significant areas remain undisturbed by logging; (3) new kinds of integrated analyses are needed to assess the potential economic benefits of salvage logging against its ecological, economic, and social costs; (4) global and regional maps of natural disturbance regimes should be created to guide better spatio-temporal planning of protected areas and undisturbed forests outside reserves; and (5) improved education and communication programs are needed to correct widely-held misconceptions about natural disturbance regimes. Also, we argue that prominent forest certification organizations such as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) valuing set asides of naturally disturbed forests as ecologically sustainable forest management to protect biodiversity and natural processes.