Tropical moist forests: Over-exploited and under-utilized?

Tropical moist forests (TMFs) are undergoing three principal types of exploitation — commercial logging, large-scale ranching and small-scale cultivation — that generally amount to unsustainable use. These modes of exploitation, or rather over-exploitation, focus on only a very few of the many products available from the forest ecosystems, resulting in degradation if not destruction for the rest. Through systematic screening of raw materials such as phytochemicals and genetic resources for industry, agriculture, and medicine, we could make expanded use of tropical forests — and the harvesting of these low-volume products need cause little disruption of forest ecosystems. Moreover, tropical forests offer many environmental services, whose value is increasingly apparent as deforestation proceeds. A comprehensive development strategy is required if we are to make best use of these forests, with a shift in emphasis from short-term, narrow-interest exploitation of a few products, to long-term, broad-scale utilization of whatever goods and services can be made available without degradation of the ecosystem.