Research for Restoring Tropical Forest Ecosystems: A Practical Guide

Aimed at researchers and their supervisors, this technical manual describes how to establish a forest restoration research unit (FORRU) and implement a research program to determine how best to restore tropical forest ecosystems to deforested sites. Based on 15 years’ experience of running a FORRU at Chiang Mai University (CMU), N. Thailand, the authors describe in detail the fundamental concepts of forest restoration and how to set up and run a research tree nursery and field trial plot system. Techniques for phenology studies, seed germination trials as well as monitoring the performance of tree species after planting out and biodiversity recovery are all described in detail, including data collection, analysis and interpretation. How to use the research results, to implement effective forest restoration programs for biodiversity conservation and environmental protection, is dealt with comprehensively in the final part.

Also available in Thai, Lao, Khmer, Indonesian and Chinese.