Ecology and management of residual forests or How to lodge one thousand species in one cubic meter

Abstract

Residues of earlier extended forests exist or have existed in most parts of the world at some moment of their history. This is due to the fact that in most historical periods forests are of the lowest priority rating, if they are not outright forgotten. We are today in a country and at a moment which are exceptional in this respect. Hundreds of serious people are united in this second Brazilian symposium to consider not only whether they can understand the forest remnants, but also what can be done to conserve them with at least some chances of success. This is not self-evident. In fact, the past 30 or 40 years in general were one great fiasco as to the responsible conservation and use of forests worldwide. There were indeed a few success stories, such as the ecological forest management in Indonesia of the last twelve years now menaced by forest fires, the stability of European forests still menaced by their industrial environment, or the Brazilian industrial wood plantations. However, the forest area in the world has shrunk incessantly with tens of thousands of square kilometers per year, and the remaining ecosystems have become increasingly poor in biotopes and in species. Nothing in the real forests today reflects any effect of the political slogans of sustainability, biodiversity and ecocertification or labelling. This sorry state of the forests is at least partly due to the fact that very few of the ecological theories today reflect real forests. A forest in a computer, alas, has as little in common with a living forest under the sun as bookkeeping has in common with a real shop and the people in it, buying, selling, chewing gum. Unfortunately, students are taught the bookkeeping skills first and no serious attention is paid to the real, hard entreprise of sustaining the real, living forests in an indifferent, living human society.