Anyone who buys wood or paper with the well-known FSC quality mark actually contributes to forests with higher biodiversity. This is the conclusion of a team of mainly Dutch scientists in this week's magazine Nature, based on camera trap research in Gabon and the Republic of Congo. More large mammals such as elephants and western lowland gorillas live in sustainably managed forests than in other forests. Threatened species with a body weight over ten kilos in particular benefit from the quality mark.
More than a quarter of tropical forests worldwide are exploited for logging. This has a negative impact on species diversity, partly because roads are constructed and the forest therefore becomes more accessible. This encourages illegal hunting and poaching. Quality marks such as FSC (Forest Stewardship Council in full) are intended to promote biodiversity, including by closing disused roads and monitoring forests, but until now little was known about the effects of such interventions. Previous research often looked at one location at the consequences for a few specific mammal species, but no large-scale conclusions could be drawn from this.
Endangered forest elephant
For this reason, Utrecht biologist Joeri Zwerts and colleagues placed camera traps in seven FSC-certified forests and – for control purposes – seven nearby, non-certified forests in Central Africa. Such a camera trap automatically takes images of passing game, without the need for a researcher to be nearby to disrupt natural behavior. This allowed them to take more than 1.3 million photos of a total of 55 mammal species.
Zwerts discovered that the endangered forest elephant and various primate species, such as gorillas and chimpanzees, in particular benefit from the FSC measures. In certified forests, the chance of spotting an animal weighing over ten kilos (ranging from deer and brush hogs to leopards, buffalo, great apes and elephants) was at least 2.5 times higher than in non-certified forests. These unmanaged forests contained proportionately more rodents and other small mammals, which recover more quickly from hunting pressure and at the same time also benefit from reduced competition and predation from larger animal species.
Pristine
Although felling continues in FSC forests, such 'concession forests' are more effective in protecting biodiversity than poorly managed nature reserves where there is insufficient money for protection, says Zwerts. “More than 85 percent of all chimpanzees and gorillas live outside protected nature reserves, so we also need to find ways to manage those forests properly. Due to a growing human world population and prosperity, we also need more raw materials such as wood, which means we cannot leave everything untouched.”
The research contributes to the knowledge that consumers and policymakers need to choose responsible forms of production, he concludes. “The choices you make in the hardware store actually influence elephant and chimpanzee populations on the other side of the world.”
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