WHAT IS REFORESTATION?

Reforestation of tropical rainforests comes in 2 main forms intensive planting and enrichment planting. Severely degraded forests that have been logged so poorly have virtually no canopy and does not provide habitat for wildlife not watershed protection for communities.

Severely degraded forests need intensive development that includes site preparation, and planting of a mix of fast growing native seedlings, high value dipterocarps and trees for habitat that include Ficusspp and fruit tree species. Typically trees are planted in lines at a density of 1250 - 1600 trees per hectare

Forests that have been over logged but the residual stand is degraded and in very poor condition can be rehabilitated through silvicultural treatments and enrichment planting. This combination consists of climber cutting to remove competition for light followed by planting of clusters of native tree seedlings in gaps occurring from previous logging activities. Typically 600-800 tree seedlings are planted in each hectare in cluster gap planting systems.

Restoration of forests is a process that includes monitoring of work done, survival and annual maintenance to ensure seedlings grow to a stage that they can compete.

 

Typical natural tropical forests can grow quickly following silvicultural treatment and planting. GFS ensures the management establishes and maintains permanent sample plots in each project area to evaluate the current condition, and monitor planting survival and growth of the forest. Growth in forests area measured by the mean annual increment (MAI) which is in m3/ha/yr. Trees planted in forests will average about 1.0-1.5 cm in diameter growth each year depending on species. Rehabilitation of forests managed according to certification standards should attain an average of 3-5 m3/ha/yr based on conservative estimates. Records of forest rehabilitation in Sabah have been stated to be up to 7 m3/ha/yr while intensive tree plantations can easily reach up to 20 m3/ha/yr.

Trees sequester carbon according to their rate of growth and specific density of the tree. On average tree biomass is about 50% carbon and 1 m3 of medium density hard wood weighs about 250 kg. The actual weight is dependent on the specific density with lighter density wood ranging about .

 

Explaining CO 2 -e (carbon dioxide equivalents)

Different greenhouse gases have differing abilities to warm the planet (“global warming potential”). To enable us to estimate how much a given mass of greenhouse gas is estimated to contribute to global warming, the gas is compared to a baseline of one unit by weight of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), and is expressed in “carbon dioxide equivalent” (CO 2 -e). Many scientists also calculate the amount of carbon stored as carbon (C). To convert to CO 2 or CO 2 -e, multiply by 44/12.

Conversion of atmospheric CO2 to stored carbon reduces the CO2 to elemental carbon plus water. The total weight of dry stored product is ~70% of the original weight of CO2, but only 30% of the converted CO2 weight is carbon. All computations of tonnage should be in dry tons. Available carbon in wood for conversion to CO2 is approximately 50% of the dry weight of wood. These conversions must be correctly applied in moving between the two types of media (Alan C. Page, http://pages.prodigy.net/afmo/co2disc.htm)

Calculations of 1 m3 of wood = 1 metric ton of carbon.

The cost of restoration is based on site preparation, silviculture and planting costs are calculated on a per hectare basis along with a 5-year maintenance program .