Managing the Wild by Charles M. Peters

Author:Charles M. Peters
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2017-04-04T04:00:00+00:00

(Opposite) Maya forester putting a growth band around a tzalam (Lysiloma latisiliquum) tree in the Selva Maya of Quintana Roo, Mexico.

ELEVEN

Measuring Tree Growth with Maya Foresters

Eight forestry ejidos along the eastern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in Quintana Roo, Mexico, based in Chetumal (N18°30´13´´, W88°18´19´´), 2005–2007

The Selva Maya extends through Guatemala, Belize, and the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico. Comprising more than five million hectares, it is the largest contiguous tract of tropical forest in Central America, second only to Amazonia in the Western Hemisphere. Much of the intact forest in Amazonia is conserved in parks, extractive reserves, and other types of protected areas under government control. In contrast, over half of the forests in the Selva Maya are owned by ejidos, communities that collectively control, use, and manage their agricultural and forest lands.

Local communities have been managing forests in the Selva Maya since pre-Columbian times.1 In recent years, community forestry activities in the region have largely focused on the production of timber—in particular, export-quality mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla).2 The forestry operations of several ejidos in the region have been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) to be sustainable, and some have been able to maintain their certification for more than twenty years. These are some of the oldest certified tropical forests in the world.

Many ejidos in the Selva Maya are facing a critical period in the conservation and management of their forests. Several are coming to the end of the rotation period (the length of time between establishment and harvest; it usually includes a series of intermediate cutting cycles) and require new management plans, and others have been given a detailed list of deficiencies that must be corrected before their certification is renewed. In each case, the stumbling block is lack of basic information about tree growth. These data are not expensive or difficult for villagers to collect, but most rural farmers do not know how to make a dendrometer band or conduct a growth study. The growth estimates used in the management plans of many ejidos, for example, are based on government research conducted in other parts of the country, which may not be representative. If the growth estimates are too high, the allowable cuts calculated in the management plan will also be too high, and more wood will be harvested than the forest can sustain. If the growth estimates are too low, valuable timber that could be harvested sustainably will be left in the forest. The best management plans are those based on growth data collected from trees in the forests being managed.

I started working with a group of eight forestry ejidos in 2005 to initiate growth studies on local timber species. In addition to mahogany, the ejidos monitored the growth of twenty important tree species; almost three thousand trees were fitted with dendrometer bands. This might have been the largest community-based study of tree growth ever initiated in the tropics.

We held three workshops in Quintana Roo to train ejido foresters to conduct a growth study. The format

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