Plantation and development of forest

Plantation and development of forest

In some countries forest plantation production already contributes the majority of industrial wood supply. Plantations are not new in concept and practice for India. However, interest in forest plantations lacked the required impetus in the distant past. India was endowed with vast areas of natural forest. Under such superfluity it was considered unnecessary and unnatural to convert natural forest into unstable monocultures.

Plantations are under scrutiny for their assumed and sometimes real adverse impacts on the environment and society. This research/project will thus be devoted to an extensive literature review to provide an overview of the diversity of methodological approaches applied so far to test the assumption of more forest plantations leading to less natural forest degradation and deforestation. The leading research question will be: “What are the methodological limits and possible improvements to inform plantation-related policies for forest conservation?”.