Martin Alfonso MENDOZA B.
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Angélica NAVARRO-MARTÍNEZ
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Carl W. MIZE
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Gerson Daniel ALDUCIN CHÁVEZ
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Patricia NEGREROS-CASTILLO
Tropical timber regions across the world share common problems such as degradation and poor regeneration after timber harvesting. Traditional Mayan land management through slash and burn is now recognized as an effective way of renewing forest stands in multispecies tropical forests. The practice of slash and burn for forest management in Mexico has led to area regulation, which has made land value a convenient means of assessing alternative forest plans. The use of expected land value as a performance indicator shifts the manager's attention from managing a species mix to balancing financial tradeoffs between liquidation or retention of the standing biomass. Since the forest-wide residual stock is so large, land value overrides the importance of revenue from timber sales. Several forest management methods along these lines have appeared in tropical regions of Mexico over a thirty-year time span and represent a patrimonial system of forest management (PS). The gradual innovation generated by PS is described here, as well as examples of PS practices. PS methods today provide stewardship for a total of 155,814 ha in different parts of Mexico. PS performance will become evident in the long run; in the meantime, the embrace of PS by private landowners and regulatory institutions is equated with a positive, independent opinion about PS design. The Mexican experience suggests pathways for rational management of all types of forests. PS features that are worth replicating are, for instance, the inclusion of disturbance patterns as factors in decision making, as well as the use of specific silvicultural regimes for roads, woodlands, closed forests, hilltops, swamps, riparian zones, clearings and forest edges.
Speciation slowing down in widespread and long-living tree taxa: insights from the tropical timber tree genus Milicia (Moraceae)