strategies for the sustainable use and management of timber tree ...

Table 3. Timber tree species possibly in international trade and of conservation concern, but in need of taxonomic revision.
Family
Species (& Range States) Workshop comments
1 ARAUCARIACEAE Agathis borneensis
(ID, MY, other)
A. borneensis was reported to have very limited regeneration in Kalimantan (Komar, 2007).
It was reported that in Malaysia, good populations exist in protected areas (Chua, 2007). 120,000
m 3 of logs were reported to be exported annually from Malaysia, especially from Sabah, and also
from Sarawak. The amount of exported sawn timber from the country was noted to be smaller, at
10,000 m 3 annually (Jumat, 2007). Julaihi (2007) repored exports of 170,000 to 300,000 m 3 of logs
yearly during the last 10 years from Sarawak.
Taxonomic confusion was evident for some participants, less so for others:
In Malaysia, both species were considered to be only one (Chua & Julaihi, 2007) and Agathis timber
was reportedly identified at the genus level only (Julaihi, 2007).
In the Philippines, A. dammara was not reported to occur, as the species considered to occur in the
country was A. philippinensis, which was reported to be protected and of no conservation concern.
It was suggested that reported occurrence of A. dammara in the Philippines derived from the fact
that A. philippinenis had in the past been considered a synonym of A. dammara (Madulid, 2007).
In Indonesia, A. borneensis and A. dammara were initially reported to be confused (Setyawati, 2007).
However, further discussion and literature research (Whitmore, T.C and Tantra, I.G.M. 1986. Tree
flora of Indonesia: Check list for Sumatra. Forest Research and Development Centre. Bogor) by the
Indonesian participants concluded that there are clear differences between A. borneensis and
A. dammara, and that A. borneensis has four synonyms: A. beccarii Warburg, A. endertii Meijer Dress,
A. latifolia Meijer Dress, and A. rhomboidalis Warburg.
Saw (2007) suggested that the problem may have more to do with species identification than with
real taxonomic confusion, and pointed out that Farjon (based at Kew) is a taxonomic expert in this
group. Triono (2007) argued that there seems to be a species concept problem.
It was suggested that, given the important taxonomic confusion of Agathis species, and the
significance of these species in the trade, there should be further studies on the taxonomy of the
genus. It was therefore agreed by the 2007 Workshop Participants that a proposal should be put
forward to find funds for the much-needed study.
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