Tropical forests that are logged should not be immediately “written off” for conversion to palm oil plantations, according to a new study led by the University of Oxford.
Published on January 10 in Science, the study examined over 80 metrics related to the structure, biodiversity, and functioning of undisturbed, logged, and converted tropical forest ecosystems in Borneo. The authors, who include Environmental Science, Policy, and Management professor Benjamin Blonder, say the findings could better inform whether a logged forest should be protected, restored, or converted into a plantation.
“We were really surprised by the huge variability in how different facets of the ecosystem responded to deforestation,” said lead author Charlie Marsh, a research fellow at the National University of Singapore. “We saw increases, decreases, or sometimes no change at all.”
While logging and conversion both resulted in widespread ecosystem impacts, affecting 60 of the 82 metrics measured by the researchers, the study found distinct differences. Areas that were logged exhibited an altered forest structure with canopy gaps large enough for rapid-growing species of plants with less dense wood and thinner leaves.
Converting these logged forests to oil palm plantations, however, has greater impacts on biodiversity that go beyond those of logging alone. Species of birds, bats, dung beetles, trees, vines, and soil microorganisms all showed greater reductions in abundance and diversity on plantations compared with logged forests.
The authors suggest that their findings demonstrate that logged forests can still be valuable for maintaining biodiversity while stressing the importance of conserving areas of Borneo’s tropical forests that are primarily comprised of old-growth trees.
Read the full study in Science and learn more about the findings in an accompanying commentary in The Conversation.