Biodiversity conservation and timber harvesting - opposite or apposite?

Protected areas alone, many of which are mountain areas, will not be sufficient to effectively conserve biodiversity and forest tree genetic resources, especially of the commercial timber trees (e.g. dipterocarps). These commercial species are usually restricted to lowland rain forests where much of the large-scale commercial logging in the Philippines has been undertaken for many decades. The challenge, therefore, has been to include biodiversity conservation measures, even as timber is harvested from natural forests. Modern forestry practices have, unfortunately, focused on timber productivity, often at the expense of biodiversity, and logging practices have often been criticized for their adverse impacts on biodiversity and other non-timber resources in the forest ecosystems. However, many around the world have now begun to develop measures to maintain biodiversity within the practice of forestry. Such an approach is known as reduced impact logging (RIL). RIL is said to reduce damage associated with felling and skidding practices, large felling gaps or excessive use of forest land for infrastructure, and can reduce stand damage significantly. However, it requires additional investments in planning, more developed management and information systems, training, and the construction of road and skid trails. Recent studies in Surigao, in the Philippines, indicate that very specific guidelines may be designed to conserve biodiversity within an integrated sustainable forest management plan that may include, inter alia, the following (i) tree marking will be based not only by the volume, number, class-size of the trees, and replacement growth rates, but also by the species and its biodiversity and genetic resource conservation value; (ii) adherence to the minimum 60 cm DBH requirement for trees to be cut; (iii) deviation from high grading or cutting the largest or best trees all the time; (iv) exclusion from marking or cutting of flowering and fruiting individual trees or those in priority list for conservation; (v) directional felling to minimize damage to saplings; and (vi) at least one mother tree of not less that 40 cm DBH per tree species, per hectare will be marked as residual, this is to guarantee that pre-logging tree species will continue to exist in the area. Biodiversity conservation and timber harvesting can be made apposite, rather than opposite or mutually exlusive undertakings. The challenge of making timber harvesting compatible with biodiversity conservation - rests with all foresters and conservationalists in all sectors of society