Mahogany Harvesting - Book Report/Review Example

2008, p. 270). The team conducted 100% inventory and used statistics to simulate pre-logging scenarios as well as project post-logging harvest. Such methodologies and assumptions will be critiqued in detail, in the following sections. The site of the inventory is in North Western part of Brazil, south of the Amazonian River (Lamb 1996, cited in Grogan et al. 2008, p. 270). The eight sites assessed presented a plethora of scenarios that enables the team sufficient data to conduct this thesis.

Fifty percent of the sites were logged while the rest are either planned for logging or kept as a reserve. Given the spread of the location where the presence of mahogany was noted, the chosen sites and their corresponding conditions considered are sufficient in order to understand the circumstances required to prove this thesis. The data gathered at present from such sites did represent a comprehensive picture of the growth and commercial area of big-leaf mahogany growth and harvest, which have not been available prior to the article.

Information available did gather data related to the national and regional level, but not enough information was made available for detailed study on the logging impacts at the site level, i.e. Brazilian Amazons. The methodology presented in the article in gathering information applicable to prove the thesis was sufficient. The results were able to simulate the distribution of various diameters in the eight sites identified and obtained site-level information to predict the median and 90th percentile diameters.

The volumes gathered coincided with the diameters obtained showing high-densities where smaller tree diameters were simulated/ observed. The data gathered, particularly on sites with high densities proved previous hypothesis that after catastrophic events, uniform growth rate happens within the sizes present, thus reinforcing the need to follow the 2003 law on cutting-diameter requirement. Furthermore, the simulations proved the enforceability of the 2003 law to limit harvesting to 80% of site population, given the results of the inventory showed all sites within 80% inventory of >60 cm diameters.

Having such information will allow for the applicability of the 2003 law into the sites identified and later on in the article, would allow for suggested intervention needed to ensure sustainability of harvest. In normalizing the data gathered, statistics and algebraic estimation were used. To accurately compare sites that have been logged to those that have yet to be logged, Grogan et al. used the formula by Mayhew and Newton (1998) to simulate the conditions prior to logging (cited in Grogan et al. 2008, p. 272).

This simulation equation, though