Inventory Procedures for Smallholder and Community Woodlots in the Philippines: Methods, Initial Findings and Insights

Abstract

This paper details the processes and challenges involved in collecting inventory data from smallholder and community woodlots on Leyte Island, Philippines. Over the period from 2005 through to 2012, 253 woodlots at 170 sites were sampled as part of a large multidisciplinary project, resulting in a substantial timber inventory database. The inventory was undertaken to provide information for three separate but interrelated studies, namely (1) tree growth, performance and timber availability from private smallholder woodlots on Leyte Island; (2) tree growth and performance of mixedspecies plantings of native species; and (3) the assessment of reforestation outcomes from various forms of reforestation. A common procedure for establishing plots within each site was developed and applied in each study, although the basis of site selection varied. A two-stage probability proportion to size sampling framework was developed to select smallholder woodlots for inclusion in the inventory. In contrast, community-based forestry woodlots were selected using stratified random sampling. Challenges encountered in undertaking the inventory were mostly associated with the need to consult widely 123Small-scale Forestry DOI 10.1007/s11842-013-9242-6 before the commencement of the inventory and problems in identifying woodlots for inclusion. Most smallholder woodlots were only capable of producing merchantable volumes of less than 44 % of the site potential due to a lack of appropriate silviculture. There was a clear bimodal distribution of proportion that the woodlots comprised of the total smallholding area. This bimodality reflects two major motivations for smallholders to establish woodlots, namely timber production and to secure land tenure.

Next‐generation tropical forests: reforestation type affects recruitment of species and functional diversity in a human‐dominated landscape

“…In particular, harvesting of timber products for sawmills occurs more sporadically and silvicultural practices such as thinning and weed control are often neglected (Herbohn et al . ); therefore, understories often develop within these plantations. This increases the potential of these plantations to contribute to conservation, including increasing species diversity at a site and landscape.…”

Correction: Designing Mixed Species Tree Plantations for the Tropics: Balancing Ecological Attributes of Species with Landholder Preferences in the Philippines

“…Experience has shown however that this has not occurred even though some fruit trees are now more than 15 years old. Typically fruit trees require wide spacing and full sun to bear productively [15,[35][36][37][38][39][40]. But in the Rainforestation Farming design they were incorporated into a closely spaced system and were quickly shaded by faster growing pioneer species.…”

“…The identity of these species has been based on their performance in the field (See Herbohn et al [15] for the initial assessment) and the prospective markets likely to be available to farmers in this region. They include fast-growing species currently preferred by most farmers as well as slow-growing species likely to generate higher value timbers in the long term [26].…”

“…The Rainforestation Farming plantations in the Philippines present an ideal opportunity to explore basic questions concerning forest dynamics, optimal planting densities and human-use patterns of tropical polycultures [15][16][17][18][19]. We hypothesise that these mixed species plantations could balance the ecological attributes of species with landholder preferences in the Philippines.…”

Restoration of soil microbes and organic matter through tropical reforestation

“…Understory plant community For a subset of sites (4 of 5 sites for each of mahogany and rainforestation plantations and all 5 reference forest sites), understory plant traits were also assessed as described by Wills et al (2016), using methods based on those established by Herbohn et al (2014 were collected following standard protocols (Pérez-Harguindeguy et al, 2013). LNC and LPC were determined using a single digestion method, which used a colorimetric determination of LNC, using the salicylate-hypochlorite method (Baethgen and Alley, 1989), and LPC using an adaptation of a single solution method (Anderson and Ingram, 1989) used by Murphy and Riley (1962).…”