Forest Recovery In Abandoned Grassland With Assisted Natural Regeneration (anr) In The Philippines

摘要

In the Philippines, the conversion of primary forests into grasslands has increased dramatically in the last 30 years. For example, degraded areas in the Philippines are largely covered with cogon {Imperata cylindrica) grass and the total area is about 5 million hectares (Gerrits et al., 1997). Once these lands are abandoned it is unclear if they will revert to forests or if they will become permanent grasslands, but it is known that grassland areas will naturally revert to secondary forests through the process of plant succession if fires are prevented (Friday et al., 1999). However, in recent times this may not be a regular process due to the high population density in upland areas and many grassland areas being used for farming or grazing (Rebugio et al., 2005). For this reason, many rehabilitation strategies, such as agroforestry, tree plantations, and assisted natural regeneration (ANR), have been carried out to restore degraded forest lands in the Philippines.rnMore recently, the Philippine government has tried a novel approach through assisted natural regeneration (ANR). ANR is a compromise method in that it better protects biodiversity than conventional plantations and requires less investment. Therefore, ANR aims to strike a balance between high-cost efforts to restore biodiversity to small areas and the establishment of commercial plantations over large areas focused on productivity (Shono et al., 2007).