Forest recovery assessment in degraded dry evergreen forestlands in Vientiane Province, Lao People's Democratic Republic
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Abstract. Alias MAB, Rahmani W, Azizi F, Ninchaleune B, Abdu A. 2024. Forest recovery assessment in degraded dry evergreen forestlands in Vientiane Province, Lao People's Democratic Republic. Asian J For 8: 31-40. Shifting cultivation and logging are the significant causes of deforestation and forest degradation in tropical region. Lao PDR has vast shifting cultivation areas, and regrowth forests have spontaneously been established on fallow fields. This study aims to assess the forest recovery through vegetative succession after fallow cultivation and logging in degraded dry evergreen forestlands in Vientiane Province, Lao PDR. Braun-Blanquet method was applied to assess vegetation composition in primary forest, logged-over forest and fallow lands with age of 1-, 5- and 15-year-old. Data obtained from the vegetation study has enabled the community plant identification and forest recovery calculation by various analytical methods using statistical software. Based on the phytosociological analysis, logged-over forests had the highest vegetation composition similarity to primary forests with a similarity of 42.29%, followed by the 15, 5, and 1-year-old fallows with similarity value of 39.90%, 34.80%, and 26.10%, respectively. The three fallows with 1-, 5- and 15-year-old age and two forest types were compared for their canopy structure recovery with each other. The logged-over forest, harvested by wood logging companies and local villagers in the past two decades, recorded the lowest recovery in the canopy structure. The sites of 1-, 5- and 15-year-old fallows have not fully recovered their top layers (ST and T1). Only the T2 layer of the 15-year-old fallow recovered. This indicated that the three fallow types heavily degraded and required a longer time to recover naturally. In conclusion, local authorities should avoid over-using the natural forest in the future and should control timber and non-timber forest products. Alternative land use with integrated land management should be established. Long-term tree planting programs will enable the people to use and own their land.
2017-01-01
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