Cedar and Mahogany Logging in Eastern Peru

摘要: TN SCATTERED areas of the Amazon Basin, removed from concentrations activity along major rivers, small parties natives and mestizos are extracting valuable timbers. Work is done without assistance power machines or animals direct financial support corporate governmental sources. Wood production per enterprise generally low because numerous inconveniences, including environmental hazards a prejudicial system financing, bear heavily upon activities. My purposes in examining this form tropical logging to provide record rudimentary human industry that has largely escaped detailed attention geographers foresters determine nature permanence disturbance caused by such logging. In study frontier area Spanish cedar (Cedrela odorata) mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) lower Urubamba River eastern Peru will be considered (Fig. i). The natural vegetation region, almost entirely intact, seasonal rain forest with an uneven but relatively high canopy. tallest emergents reach 40 meters height 2 2.5 diameter. At ground level aspect open. intermediate upper levels laced large vines lianas, tree trunks sometimes carry extravagant loads epiphytes. Although characteristic associations few species often noted riverbanks swampy areas, plant composition mixed. Climax on may consist as many hundred trees.1 implications extreme heterogeneity for conduct operations more fully below. climate subhumid tropical, yearly average temperature 26?C. Rains extend October April May, reaching their greatest intensity December January. They followed dry season four five months, which becomes severe only July August. Annual precipitation totals not available, they probably range between 1,5oo 2,200 millimeters.2 terrain directly adjacent flat widths various miles downstream narrows upstream mere sandbars Pongo de Mainique, deep gorge separates Andean foothills Basin. Farther floodplain highly dissected hills. Along tributaries, particularly reaches, broken borders stream directly, forming massive rock clay cliffs. elevation ranges 300 above sea at Sepahua approximately 500 Yavero River. Slight, localized uplift still occurs, accounting active downcutting landscape covers much region.