Project/activity information

As a consequence of the deforestation process in the Peruvian Amazon Region, secondary forests account for approximately 70% of the total deforested area in the country, which has an annual deforestation rate of 261,000 ha. The reduction in deforestation rates is to a great extent linked to the sustained management of secondary forests, improved land-use management and intensive land utilisation to improve land productivity and extend rotation cycles in secondary forests and agricultural lands.

Secondary forests in the Amazon Region have become a resource base of high socioeconomic and ecological significance given the large area they cover, their accessibility, and the goods and services they provide to small and medium scale farmers; therefore, special attention should be given to their sustainable management, not only as temporary or intermediate resources, but as end-products. Planning for a sustained use of secondary tropical forests can only take place on the basis of a preliminary comprehensive evaluation of the resource base through the collection of information on the exact area of secondary forests, their socioeconomic context, their biological dynamics, biodiversity, stock volumes of commercial species, growing biomass, ownership status and local uses, which can serve as the basis for the formulation of criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management and the implementation of relevant management plans.

The main objective of this project is to generate integrated, comprehensive, detailed, updated and highly reliable information on secondary forests in the Central Forest Region of Peru and develop a regional strategy for the implementation of sustainable management plans for the benefit of the communities involved in the study as well as other areas or regions with potential for replication, on the basis of the guidelines for the management of secondary and degraded forests recently developed by ITTO.