ABSTRACT
Logging, the second major human impact on the tropical rain forests, is essential if they are to be managed as renewable sources of wood, for mature trees need to be felled and removed from the forest so that young trees can grow up to replace them. Not all tropical rain forest has to be managed in this way of course but timber production does give an incentive to protect large areas from being cleared. The tropical rain forests contain vast reserves of high quality timbers, some of which have been commercially exploited for hundreds of years, but exploitation has only been widespread and intensive since 1945 in response to the rapid rise in overseas and domestic demand for tropical hardwood. Although selective logging degrades the forest rather than causing deforestation as such, there is concern that poor logging practices result in too much forest damage and, together with the limitations of present selective logging systems, mean that forest management is currently not as sustainable as we would like. After distinguishing between deforestation and logging, this chapter gives a brief introduction to the tropical hardwood trade, describes selective logging systems and how they work in practice, and ends by discussing the sustainability of current logging practices and the prospects for future improvements.
