Forestry in the tropics

Introduction Tropical forests have always attracted the world's attention because of their magnificence and potential for economic exploitation. For centuries, they catered to the people's livelihood needs for timber, fruits, firewood, medicinal plants etc., and also, indirectly, animal meat. The native people lived in harmony with the forest as their populations were small and their demands did not exceed the forest's capacity to regenerate. The situation changed drastically in the colonial era between the mid seventeenth and mid twentieth centuries. During this period, large areas of tropical forests were cleared for human settlement and large-scale cultivation of agricultural and estate crops like sugar cane, tea, coffee, rubber and wattle. Forests were also logged for selective extraction of valuable timbers such as teak and rosewood in Asia, mahogany in Latin America and khaya in Africa, mainly for export. By the mid eighteenth century, forest plantation technology had developed and the natural forests were increasingly replaced by plantations. After the Second World War, forest plantation programmes received a further boost in the newly independent nations due to international exchange of information and availability of international development funds (Evans, 1992). Exotic, fast-growing eucalypts and pines were raised in the tropics on a large scale during this period. As industrialization progressed, more extensive plantations were established, mostly with exotic fast-growing species, and on land cleared of natural forests. Most of these were intended to produce pulpwood for paper, rayon and fibreboard.