ALBERT

Description: This study investigated the main causes of accidents, levels of injuries, and mitigation measures to wood processing accidents. Structured interviews were conducted on 45 respondents drawn from various portable sawmills. The Chi square test showed that there were highly significant differences on frequency distribution of causes of sawmill accidents. However, a principal component analysis revealed that accidents were mainly caused by inappropriate equipment setup or operation and harsh weather conditions. Secondly, results showed that the frequency distribution of responses on levels of accidents was highly significantly different among the respondents. Near-misses accounted for most of responses (55.6%). This is because near-misses are precursors to secondary accidents. Furthermore, the results showed highly significant differences on the frequency distribution of various mitigation measures available. Use of personal protective equipment and provision of special training were highly appraised. Forest workers need occupation safety and health and ergonomic knowledge before engaging in wood processing.

Description: This paper aims to (i) optimize the application of multiple bands of satellite images for land cover classification by using random forest algorithms and (ii) assess correlations and regression of vegetation indices of a better-performed land cover classification image with vertical and horizontal structures of tropical lowland forests in Central Vietnam. In this study, we used Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 to classify seven land cover classes of which three forest types were substratified as undisturbed, low disturbed, and disturbed forests where forest inventory of 90 plots, as ground-truth, was randomly sampled to measure forest tree parameters. A total of 3226 training points were sampled on seven land cover types. The performance of Landsat-8 showed out-of-bag error of 31.6%, overall accuracy of 68%, kappa of 67.5%, while Sentinel-2 showed out-of-bag error of 14.3% and overall accuracy of 85.7% and kappa of 83%. Ten vegetation indices of the better-performed image were extracted to find out (i) the correlation and regression of horizontal and vertical structures of trees and (ii) assess the variation values between ground-truthing plots and training sample plots in three forest types. The result of the t test on vegetation indices showed that six out of ten vegetation indices were significant at p

Description: The study was conducted in Kafta Sheraro National Park (KSNP) dry woodland natural forest located in Kafta Humera and Tahitay Adiyabo weredas (districts), Western and Northwestern Zones of Tigray regional governmental state, North Ethiopia. The objective of the study was to explore the floristic composition, structure, and regeneration of woody species in the home of Loxodonta africana L., Hippotragus equinus, Anthropoides virgo, Ourebia ourebi, Crocuta crocuta, Tragelaphus strepsiceros, Phacochoerus africanus, and unidentified crocodile and fish species. In the park, the vegetation ecology has not been studied up to date which is necessary for conservation. The systematic sampling technique was used to collect vegetation and human disturbance (presence and absence) data from August to December 2018. The vegetation data were collected from 161 plots each with a size of 400 m2 (20 m × 20 m) for tree/shrub while subplots of size 100 m2 (10 m × 10 m) and 25 m2 (5 m × 5 m) for sapling and seedling, respectively, were established in the main plots. Individual tree and shrub diameter at breast height (DBH) ≥2.5 cm and height ≥ 2 m were measured using tape meter and clinometer, respectively. Diameter at breast height (DBH), frequency, density, basal area, and importance value index (IVI) were used for vegetation structure description while the density of mature trees, sapling, and seedling was used for regeneration. A total of 70 woody species (46 (65.7%) trees, 18 (25.7%) shrubs, and 6 (8.6%) tree/shrub) were identified. The total basal area and density of 79.3 ± 4.6 m2·ha−1 and 466 ± 12.8 stems·ha−1, respectively, were calculated for 64 woody species. Fabaceae was the most dominant family with 16 species (22.9%) followed by Combretaceae with 8 species (11.4%). The most dominant and frequent species throughout the park were Acacia mellifera, Combretum hartmannianum, Terminalia brownii, Balanites aegyptiaca, Dichrostachys cinerea, Acacia senegal, Acacia oerfota, Boswellia papyrifera, Ziziphus spina-christi, and Anogeissus leiocarpus. Abnormal patterns of selected woody species were dominantly identified. The regenerating status of all the woody plant species was categorized as “fair” (18.75%), “poor” (7.81%), and “none” (73.44%). There was a significant correlation between altitude, anthropogenic disturbance (grazing and fire frequency), and density of seedling, sapling, and mature trees. But there was no correlation between gold mining and regeneration population. However, there is a good initiation for the conservation of the park; still, the vegetation of the park was threatened by human-induced fire following intensive farming, gold mining, and overgrazing. Therefore, the study area was the habitat for the population of the African elephant; species with low importance value indices and lack or having few seedling and sapling stage should be prioritized for conservation, and their soil seed banks should be studied further.

Description: The Europe Union (E.U.) has agreed to grant the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) license to Indonesia as the first country in the world to receive it. FLEGT VPA (Voluntary Partnership Agreement) is a bilateral agreement between the European Union (E.U.) and wood exporting countries, to improve forest governance sector and ensure that timber and wood products imported into the E.U. are produced by the laws and regulation of partner countries. The Indonesian government has obliged to implement Article 12 relating to social safeguards. Indonesia has to periodically monitor to see the extent to which the VPA has an environmental and social impact that affect the lives and welfare of vulnerable and marginalised groups. The purpose of this study is to analyse how the effect of implementation of the Sistem Verifikasi Legalitas Kayu (SVLK) as part of VPA in the small and medium forestry industry sector. Methodology survey with focus group discussions, structured interviews, and semistructured interviews to find out the response and opinion of SME’s owner and employee addressed the effect of SVLK in East Java and Central Java, Indonesia. The theory of change (ToC) was used to consider the implications of SVLK implementation on the sustainable livelihood of small and medium enterprises (SME’s). The results of this study showed that SVLK had a more significant impact on livelihoods, as follows. First, the vulnerable and marginalised groups need to be supported by stakeholders to encourage readiness in faces of SVLK impact. Second, SVLK is susceptible to the effects and at risk of losing livelihoods for women and disabled groups in a short time. This group includes vulnerable groups of aspects of adaptability and sensitivity to the effect. Third, SME’s worker groups who do not have a labour organisation are sensitive to the impact on the workplace company. This group is classified as a group that is quite vulnerable if the effect lasts long enough and on a large scale of impact.

Description: The role of forest plantations in carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation is a topical issue among researchers and policymakers globally. This study compares understorey floristic diversity and carbon stock of a 15-year-old monoculture Tectona grandis plantation under intensive and poor management in a dry semideciduous ecological zone of Ghana. The study employed a nested plot design with twelve (12) 50 m × 50 m plots laid at 50 m intervals along a diagonal line transect on both study sites for the sampling of Tectona grandis trees. Understorey trees, shrubs, and climbers were sampled within 10 m × 10 m subplot, whilst grasses and herbs were sampled within 1 m × 1 m quadrats. The study revealed a significantly higher understorey species diversity in the intensively managed plantation (Shannon index; species richness) compared with that of the poorly managed plantation. Similarly, total biomass (189.80 ± 1.846 Mg/ha) and carbon stock (94.90 ± 0.92 Mg C/ha) in the intensively managed plantation were observed to be significantly higher than the poorly managed plantation (biomass: 138.54 ± 3.70 Mg/ha; carbon stock: 64.27 ± 1.85 Mg C/ha), whiles the species composition between the two sites was different (Sorenson’s similarity index: 0.47). The study, therefore, concludes that silvicultural forest management interventions improve the understorey floristic diversity and carbon stock in monoculture plantations. Consequently, the study recommends the adoption of silvicultural interventions in plantation management in Ghana to improve their contributions to carbon sequestration and floristic diversity conservation.

Description: Forest biomass is an important ecological indicator for the sustainable management of forests. The aim of this study was to estimate forest aboveground biomass (AGB) by integrating SPOT-6 data with field-based measurements using the random forest (RF) algorithm. In total, 52 remote sensing variables, including spectral bands, vegetation indices, topography data, and textures, were extracted from SPOT-6 images to predict the forest AGB of Xuan Lien Nature Reserve, Vietnam. To determine the optimal predictor variables for AGB estimation, 10 different RF models were built. To evaluate these models, 10-fold cross-validation was applied. We found that a combination of spectral and vegetation indices and topography variables offer the highest prediction results (Radj2  = 0.74 and RMSE = 61.24 Mg ha−1). Adding texture features into the predictor variables did not improve the model performance. In addition, the SPOT-6 sensor has the potential to predict forest AGB using the RF algorithm.

Description: In Nepal, forest management priority is shifting to scientific management from conventional management. Though, the forest officials claims that scientific management is beneficial to the forest user groups, comparative financial assessment with conventional management remains unexplored. Following a case study approach, this study compares financial efficiency of two forest management systems in the community forests, focusing on benefit-cost ratio. The study conducted documents review, focus group discussions, and rapid survey to quantify costs and benefits from each forest management system. Conventional management gave a higher benefit-cost ratio to the forest user groups, irrespective of whether forest products are sold at a subsidized price or par with the market price. However, scientific management required high forest management costs and thus had a lower benefit-cost ratio. Sensitivity analysis between two systems revealed that conventional management gave a higher benefit-cost ratio in all cases. The study concludes that forest user groups would bear financial loss if they do not fix the price of the timber at par with the market in scientific management, and in such a case, the tagged price will be beyond affordability of the forest users. Furthermore, scientific management has discouraged kind contribution of users in managing forest. Besides, social and environmental consequences of scientific management cannot be ignored. Hence, the study argues for reconsidering current scientific management considering likely economic and social consequences to the forest user groups.

Description: The influence of mesquite trees (Prosopis juliflora (Swartz) D.C.) on the physicochemical properties of soils and annual understory plants was investigated in the deserted rangelands of Bahrain. Soil properties were measured in the understory and the uncanopied adjacent areas of mesquite trees. Likewise, the number of plant species was assessed in four 1 × 1 m randomly distributed quadrates in the understory and the uncanopied adjacent areas. The results showed that sand particles exceed 96% of soil composition. Soil bulk density at the 0–5 cm soil depth was significantly higher in the understory of trees compared to the uncanopied adjacent areas. However, moisture at a depth of 40–60 cm was significantly higher in the uncanopied adjacent areas. No differences in the pH, EC, K, Na, and Ca were found between understory and the uncanopied areas in all soil depths. Levels of N, P, Mg, and organic matter were significantly higher in the understory of trees compared to the uncanopied adjacent areas. Organic matter was twice the amount in the upper 20 cm of soil layers in the understory of mesquite trees. Species richness did not differ between the understory and the uncanopied areas. Nevertheless, the density of ephemerals in the understory of mesquite trees was higher than the uncanopied areas by 18%. The Shannon-Weaver index of diversity was higher in the uncanopied areas compared to the understory. The study concluded that the canopy effects of mesquite trees on soil vary with depth. Nonetheless, the influence of mesquite on flora could be beneficial for annual understory plants but subject to many operating factors, including density and cover of mesquite trees.

Description: Small areas of the wetter parts of southeast Australia including Tasmania support high-biomass “wet” eucalypt forests, including “mixed” forests consisting of mature eucalypts up to 100 m high with a rainforest understorey. In Tasmania, mixed forests transition to lower biomass rainforests over time. In the scientific and public debate on ways to mitigate climate change, these forests have received attention for their ability to store large amounts of carbon (C), but the contribution of soil C stocks to the total C in these two ecosystems has not been systematically researched, and consequently, the potential of wet eucalypt forests to serve as long-term C sinks is uncertain. This study compared soil C stocks to 1 m depth at paired sites under rainforest and mixed forests and found that there was no detectable difference of mean total soil C between the two forest types, and on average, both contained about 200 Mg·ha−1 of C. Some C in subsoil under rainforests is 3000 years old and retains a chemical signature of pyrogenic C, detectable in NMR spectra, indicating that soil C stocks are buffered against the effects of forest succession. The mean loss of C in biomass as mixed forests transition to rainforests is estimated to be about 260 Mg·ha−1 over a c. 400-year period, so the mature mixed forest ecosystem emits about 0.65 Mg·ha−1·yr−1 of C during its transition to rainforest. For this reason and because of the risk of forest fires, setting aside large areas of wet eucalypt forests as reserves in order to increase landscape C storage is not a sound strategy for long-term climate change mitigation. Maintaining a mosaic of managed native forests, including regenerating eucalypts, mixed forests, rainforests, and reserves, is likely to be the best strategy for maintaining landscape C stocks.

Description: Fuelwood species are a crucial part of the ecosystem; they provide energy for cooking, heating, and lightening for both domestic and industrial uses. As a result of their value, there is a need for frequent evaluation of elemental and chemical compositions for management and conservation purposes. Since fuelwood is the most common and cheapest source of energy in both rural and urban areas in northern Nigeria, the study area is facing serious challenges due to indiscriminate felling of trees for energy use, irrespective of species quality for combustion. Therefore, ten fuelwood species were selected for this study. The selected trees were harvested at Dbh level, replicated three times. Four fuel materials were obtained from each tree sample; these include wood without bark (100% wood sample), wood with 5% bark inclusion, wood with 10% bark inclusion, and whole bark samples and they were evaluated for their inherent elemental and chemical compositions by employing ASTM and TAPPI methods. The results showed that there were significant differences in the tree species and fuel material types obtained from all the ten fuelwood species used. The results of carbon content ranges from 49.54% in A. sieberiana to 50.98% in A. leiocarpus. Meanwhile, the addition of 5% and 10% bark reduces carbon content of wood by 1.25% and 2.74%, respectively. Nitrogen content ranged from 0.31% in A. leiocarpus to 1.00% in A. sieberiana. Among the fuel materials used, isolated bark contained approximately 0.45% nitrogen content compared with wood without bark. Among the tree species, hydrogen content ranged from 3.99% in P. reticulatum to 4.66% in C. arereh. The variation in sulphur contents ranged from 0.24% in C. arereh to 0.93% in A. sieberiana. Lignin content ranged from 10.68% in A. sieberiana to 25.39% in A. leiocarpu and extractive content values ranged from 7.31% in A. leiocarpus to 19.33% in P. reticulatum. Meanwhile, the fuelwood species observed in this study with higher percentage of carbon, hydrogen, and lignin and lower nitrogen and sulphur and extractive content possessed quality fuel value and thereby were encouraged to be incorporated in fuelwood plantation establishment programs (A. leiocarpus, C. molle, C. arereh, and B. aegyptiaca). Lower energy fuelwood species should be allowed for environmental amelioration and carbon sequestration. However, bark contents should be removed for better heating and low ash production during combustion.