Limits of selective logging techniques including RIL in tropical forests to sustain timber yields and to achieve sustainable forest management in general

Since the early 1950s, numerous silvicultural systems have been experimented in the tropics, particularly in Africa and Southeast Asia. However, most of the tropical countries adopted a polycyclic silvicultural system, also called selective logging. Over the past 2 decades, sets of timber harvesting practices known as reduced-impact logging (RIL), designed to mitigate the deleterious environmental impacts of logging operations, have been implemented mainly at the experimental scale in tropical forests. However, RIL techniques have also shown strong limitations in sustaining timber yield within a 30-40 year rotation as usually recommended in forest legislation in the tropics. Based on long-term forest dynamics monitoring of the impact of selective logging in permanent sample plots implemented in three continents (Central Africa, Indonesia, and Brazilian Amazon), this paper assesses the main impact of selective logging on forest dynamics and ecology of timber species. These results allow identification of the main limitations of selective logging, including RIL, to achieve both sustainable timber yield in particular and sustainable forest management in general in tropical forests. 5ilvicultural paradigms common to the three continents can be found, such as the need to Iimit logging intensity and to define specific minimum and maximum diameter cutting. (Texte intégral)