Silvicultural intensification and agroforestry systems in secondary tropical forests: a review

• Autor(a) principal: Schwartz, Gustavo
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Outros Autores: Ferreira, Maria do Socorro, Lopes, José do Carmo
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Revista de Ciências Agrárias (Belém. Online)
• Texto Completo: https://ajaes.ufra.edu.br/index.php/ajaes/article/view/1830

Secondary forests are the woody vegetation that results from the successional processes of species colonization after the original primary forest clearance. Primary forest clearances occur due to disturbances caused by natural factors such as windstorms, hurricanes, landslides, or fire. Human activities as deforestation to implement crop fields, pastures, mines, and roads can also promote the increase of secondary forests. This paper discusses the problems faced to achieve economic profitability in tropical secondary forests, giving as example the northeast region of Pará state in the Brazilian Amazonia. One alternative to transform tropical secondary forests into more economically competitive land use is the intensification of silvicultural treatments aiming increased productivity of timber and non‑timber tree species. This can be implemented through Organized Disturbances to promote: a) the improvement of natural regeneration; b) enrichment planting in gaps; c) tending over naturally established seedlings and saplings of commercial species; and d) Assisted Densification of low density species. In addition to these silvicultural treatments, we propose a cyclic agroforestry system inside artificially created canopy gaps in small lands covered by secondary forests. This cyclic agroforestry system can provide crop production of grains and fruits with secondary forest conservation.