Secondary forests as resource for promoting rural development and environmental conservation in the tropics of Latin America | Bosques secundarios como recurso para el desarrollo rural y la conservacion ambiental en los tropicos de America Latina

Recent data show that destruction of primary forests has been accompained by expansion in secondary forests. Studies also show that secondary forests are capable of providing some of the economic and ecological services of primary forests. This has led to a new strategy of increasing the value of secondary forests to farmers and cattle ranchers with the aim of inducing them to conserve these forests indefinitely or to at least delay reconversion to other uses. The objective of this paper is to contribute to a coherent strategy for realising the potential of secondary forests. We hypothesise that substantial areas of secondary forest exist on the farms of small and large land holders and that technical and political interventions can significantly increase the area and economic and environmental value of secondary forests and therefore the period for which they are conserved. We also hypothesise that secondary forests are highly variable in their ecological characteristics and also in the objectives and resources of their owners. Therefore the interventions required are likely to be highly variable. An analysis of the dynamics of secondary forests can help target interventions to those areas with the highest probability of impact. We define secondary forests as "woody vegetation of a successional character which develops in areas whose original vegetation has been removed as a result of human intervention". The area in secondary forest in Latin America is estimated by FAO to be around 165 million ha. Studies have shown that growth rates of fast-growing timber species in secondary forests are comparable to growth rates attained in plantations. Secondary forests also accumulate biomass rapidly in the first 20-30 years and thus provide ecological services such as carbon sequestration and watershed protection. Vegetation studies in degraded and non-degraded areas have identified successional phases which differ in structure and floristic composition. Factors that determine the variability of secondary forests have been identified as prior land use, soil characteristics and proximity to seed sources. Our analysis of the socio-economic aspects of the dynamics of secondary forests is based on the progressive change in the characteristics of frontier areas over time. We distinguish between two different trajectories: that followed by colonists and that of indigenous communities. Within the colonist trjectory we identify three stages: Early Pioneer, Emerging Markets and Old Frontier and distinguish between smallholders and large-scale catlle ranches. For indigenous communities the stages are Migratory Agriculture, Semi-sedentariness and Market Access. We also identify a third category of accidental circumstances, such as military conflicts and litigation, which lead to the creation of secondary forests. For each stage in each trajectory we qualitatively assess the objectives of producers, their level of access to resources, such as land, labour, capital and management capacity, their access to markets, tenure security and production system. We also qualitatively classify the secondary forests in terms of age, reason for existence, degree of management and exploitation of forest products, and their proximity to seed sources. We next characterise management options for secondary forest according to their requirements of resources (capital, land, labour and management capacity) and the time lag required to obtain output. Three categories of management systems are identified: short-cycle improved fallows, enriched medium-cycle fallows, medium-and long-cycle production forests and conservation forests. We then match the characteristics of each category of producers and their secondary forests to the characteristics of management options to target options where the likelihood of adoption is highest. Results show that there is a high degree of variability in the type of management options appropriate for different categories of producers. Thus technology targeting could considerably improve the efficiency of technology generation. They also show that the appropriate management strategy for a particular forest can change over time as biophysical and socio-economic conditions change. This illustrates the importance of using a dynamic conceptual framework. The results indicate that none of the management options appear to be suitable for certain categories of producers who are likely to have the largest areas of secondary forest: large-scale ranchers in early stages of frontier development and the category of "accidental owners". The results also indicate that indigenous communities in the Market Access stage may be more receptive to management options than colonists. The exercise identifies certain management option which do not appear to be appropriate for any producer category. It should be emphasised that the above results are primarily hypotheses based on a synthesis of the existing literature. The broad categories of policy interventions appropriate for each category of producer are then identified. We distinguish between three categories of policies, specific to secondary forests: policies related to the marketing of secondary forest products, legislative reforms policies which permit producers to capture the value of the environmental services provided by secondary forests (such as trade in carbon sequestration services). Our results show that the priority areas for policy interventions are the Emerging Market stage in the colonist trajectory and the Market Access stage in the indigenous community trajectory. We conclude by emphasising the importance of a dynamic conceptual framework for the development of a strategy for secondary forests, as this permits the prevention of resource degradation, as opposed to reversing degradation after it occurs. The conceptual framework we present also allows the analysis of secondary forests as an integrated part of the farmer's production system. Finally, we emphasise that the main contribution of this exercise is the conceptual framework. The results are merely indicative and need to be verified with empirical data.