Caring for Asia-Pacific’s forests

Forests are major environmental assets and important natural resources on which many people across the world depend, either directly in their daily subsistence livelihoods or for employment in forest-based industries. Forests also provide people with valuable services such as clean water, carbon storage and sequestration and soil protection, and we all enjoy spending time in forests.

Balancing these different values and demands on forests is the challenge of sustainable forest management. These problems are particularly acute in the Asia-Pacific region where growing populations and growing wealth are placing increasing demands on forests for goods and services and increasing threats due to clearance of forests for agriculture, or for infrastructure projects such as dams and roads.

Nineteen students from the Melbourne School of Land and Environment recently explored these issues on a two-week field study tour through Lao and Viet Nam as part of the subject ‘Forests in the Asia-Pacific’, offered in the Master of Forest Ecosystem Science degree and offered jointly with the Australian National University (ANU). The Melbourne contingent was joined by ANU students, three students from the University of Freiburg in Germany and two local Lao students.

The study tour started in Vientiane and continued through Lao along the Mekong River to Savannakhet and across the Annamite Range to Hue and Da Nang in Viet Nam. Along the way students were briefed by government officials and representatives of international organisations and met with local villagers and people working in forest-based industries. Field visits included biodiversity conservation areas, watershed management, hydro-electricity developments, farm forests, plant nurseries and timber production facilities.

“Students came away with a comprehensive picture of the issues facing forest managers in developing countries,” said subject co-ordinator Professor Rod Keenan. “Lao and Viet Nam share many issues relating to the interaction between forests and people with other countries in the region. Students consider these issues from environmental, social, governance and industry and technical perspectives.”

Professor Keenan explains that while successive wars in the region have had major impact on people, these conflicts have also had a major impact on the region’s forests, particularly through the use of defoliants such as Agent Orange and the dropping of over two million tonnes of bombs in the ‘secret war’ in Lao.

“The legacy of these bombs remains today because many are still live in the landscape. Clearing of this unexploded ordinance (UXOs) is required before any agricultural or reforestation activity can proceed.

“Students inspected an innovative pilot project where Scandinavian company Stora Enso Ltd is clearing land of UXOs in the Sepon region in Lao, and planting trees at wide spacing so that land can be used by local villagers to grow rice, as well as timber for the company.”

In a collaboration with Australian scientists, acacias and eucalypts have been successfully used to re-establish forests on heavily degraded soils in both countries. Near Hue, in Viet Nam, 70,000 hectares of acacias have been established by about 2000 families and now form the basis of significant industries including pulpwood for papermaking and timber for furniture.

“Acacias have also been used extensively as a ‘nurse crop’ under which native rainforest species can re-establish themselves,” says Professor Keenan. “After about 10 to 15 years, the acacias will be removed to reveal the restored native vegetation.”

Additional stress on the region as a by-product of the Laotian aspiration to become the hydro-powered “battery of Asia” is also predicted.

“There are 36 dams on the tributaries of the Mekong expected to be operating by 2015, with potentially 15 more by 2030,” says Professor Keenan. “These dams will have a huge effect on water resource management, and therefore on forest habitats, forest dwelling species and local people living in the catchments.”

Significant quantities of timber are now being harvested and exported to other countries from the areas planned for damming.

“Capacity to control these operations is limited and there are concerns about illegal timber harvesting outside the catchment areas. Students met with officials from the recently established Department of Forest Inspection to discuss the challenges of monitoring forest operations in often remote and inaccessible locations’” says Professor Keenan

Students enrolled in the subject are assessed on a pre-trip reading assignment, a field journal, group exercises undertaken during the tour and a major essay completed after the trip. The subject is available to other programs across the University and Master of Environment and Urban Horticulture students were also on this year’s trip.

The field component generally takes place in the last two weeks of November each year.

More: Contact Professor Rod Keenan
rkeenan@unimelb.edu.au