- Recovering forests in Malaysia that were once selectively logged are an important habitat for tropical forest birds, a new study has found.
- The study surveyed bird biodiversity in Kenaboi State Park, which was last logged in the 1980s and declared as a protected area in 2008.
- Unlike the state park, other selectively logged forests across Malaysia are commonly turned into oil palm plantations and agricultural land rather than being allowed to recover, the researchers said.
- They recommend foresters make use of post-harvest management techniques to speed up recovery for selectively logged forests, and for state governments to declare these forests as protected areas.
On a cold and humid morning in March, two bird surveyors stood in the dim forests of Kenaboi State Park in Malaysia, straining their ears for birdsong. From where they stood, they saw towering rainforest trees and thick undergrowth beside abandoned logging trails.
The park, which had been selectively logged almost four decades ago, had had most of its matured trees taken out. Biodiversity had suffered then. But when the surveyors spotted the warm flash of the orange-bellied flowerpecker, and heard the nasal songs of the little spiderhunter, and otherwise recorded more than 1,000 individual birds in their two-month study, they knew the forest was recovering.
Such disturbed rainforests are common across Malaysia, where under state law, stretches of once-pristine forest can be marked for timber production, selectively logged, and allowed to recover again. But this approach, though more sustainable than clear-cutting in theory, has seen problems in practice.
Once selective logging takes place, production forests are classified as degraded rather than virgin forests, which also makes it more legally permissible for companies to clear and convert their land for other uses. Recovering forests have been cut down to make way for oil palm plantations, agricultural land and commercial tree plantations.
Kenaboi State Park, once a production forest but now under protection, is an anomaly, but also a glimpse of the biodiversity Malaysia’s disturbed forests can hold if allowed to recover properly. The researchers, whose study was published in Global Ecology and Conservation, counted 1,068 birds from 111 species during 60 sampling sessions within the park.
Sharifah Nur Atikah and Muhammad Syafiq Yahya, both Ph.D. students at Universiti Putra Malaysia, visited 30 sampling points once in March, then once again in April 2018, for 10 minutes each time. They heard and saw common birds including different types of flowerpeckers, cuckoos and ground babblers.
There were rarer species too: the luminously feathered and near-threatened green broadbill, the vulnerable rhinoceros hornbill, and more. “Even after logging, disturbed tropical rainforest still serve as important habitats for a large proportion of forest birds including those species with high conservation values,” they wrote in their paper.
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| Rhinoceros Hornbill (Buceros rhinoceros). Image courtesy of Muhammad Syafiq Yahya |
The study additionally found forest and multifariousness recovery processes may well be more accelerated with the proper post-harvest techniques, like going away additional dead trees within the forest.
“Normally, we have a tendency to don’t do direct intervention management on the vegetation structure once work,” corresponding author of the study, tropical biologist and senior lecturer at University Putra Asian country. “People simply leave the place, leave it to mother nature to start out the recovery method.”
But the researchers, WHO additionally investigated the result of various site-level attributes (such as share cowl} cover and variety of shrubs) on bird multifariousness in their study, found the quantity of fallen and standing dead trees to be notably powerful.
“Our knowledge recommend the importance of dead trees,” initial in associate degree email. “Some bird teams were found to be related to the provision of dead trees as they might offer appropriate nesting sites … these dead trees ought to be maintained as they might function a crucial environs part for forest multifariousness.”
Kenaboi State Park, last logged within the Nineteen Eighties and declared a state life park in 2008, has not seen its bird multifariousness come back to levels recorded in primary forests. “It’s been virtually forty years, however vertebrate multifariousness [may] still be twenty fifth poorer compared with primary forests.
“The clear-cutting system is way worse than selective work, however this shows we'd like to refine our selective work system and notice ways that to reduce the impact on multifariousness,” he added.
Malaysia has lost twenty ninth of its tree cowl since 2000, knowledge from international Forest Watch show. Some eighteen of its total wooded space is protected these days, with commissioned work allowed within the remaining eighty two. because the climate crisis intensifies, conserving Malaysia’s decreasing forests, that act as carbon sinks, is seen as key to meeting the country’s international environmental commitments.
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