ABSTRACT
The Tropical Science Center (TSC) provides technical assistance to the forestry and land-use components of the Palcazu development project. TSC designed a vertically integrated system for local transformation and national marketing of wood products, with management of native forests based on natural regeneration and sustained yield. The Palcazu Valley’s soils, like most soils supporting tropical forests, are unsuited for conventional commercial farming. Perhaps the most important change has been the dramatic opening of national markets to a much wider range of Amazon timber species. The incredible richness and diversity of tree species in tropical forests have long been formidable obstacles to economic management of the forests. Some researchers working independently in Southeast Asia and in tropical America discovered that tropical forests are very dynamic. The harvesting and processing of timber are integral components of forest management. The management plan requires clear-cutting and the use of almost all of the cut biomass.
