Hello Keith and All ; Doing lots of surfing on my painfully slow connection to try to figure out the principles involved in converting a standing native forest to a multi-purpose one. Huge amounts of info on what to do with cleared land. A few tidbits on how to convert land that has not been cleared. Continuing the search.
>From "Agrofrestry Guides for Pacific Islands - Non Timber Forest Products for Pacific Islands" "Plant productivity in forests can be improved in several ways. For example, selective weeding around valued species can improve the plant's growth and yield. Enrichment plantings of the key NTFP (non timber forest product) species in the forest can boost existing populations in order for supply to keep up with demand. In some case, selective felling of trees may be used to open the canopy and stimulate seedling growth. Propagating seeds or cuttings from plants known to have superior growth and yeilds can improve the productivity of the resource over time." And from "Agrofrestry Guides for Pacific Islands - Economics of Farm Forestry : Financial Evaluation for Landowners" : "Site preparation involves clearing the land for reforestation activities. Costs for preparation vary greatly depending on the condition of the site. Pasture is often the least expensive to prepare for forestry, while rough broken land such as lava flow can be very expensive. Sites with dense, woody vegetative cover can also be costly to prepare. Land formerly used for sugarcane or other industrial crops may require clearing as well as ripping with a bulldozer in order to break through compacted soil layers." Once again, I'm finding huge amounts of info on ally cropping, wind breaks, nitrogen fixing trees, multi species tree farming, etc, etc,, but almost every example appears to start with cleared land. Continuing to search, but so far the best option looks like selective felling. Clear cutting was something I was hoping to avoid. Best Regards, Peter G. Thailand __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/