In situ and Ex situ Conservation of Commercial Tropical Trees - ITTO

and tree farms. The annual log production by TLAs often does not exceed theannual allowable cut granted to them. The overall volume of log production forthe entire Philippines has generally dropped from about 6.5 million m 3 in 1980to 0.5 million m 3 in 1997.Natural forestsAbout 1.3 million ha or 50 % of the residual dipterocarp forests have beenleased under timber license agreements to 26 private logging companies with atotal annual allowable cut of 854,252 m 3 . About 72% of this area is on theisland of Mindanao. At least 360,670 ha (or 27% of country total) are in theprovince of Surigao del Sur in eastern Mindanao. In 1997, this province alonecontributed 43% of the total volume (555,917 m 3 ) of timber production for theentire country.Forest plantations and tree farmsNearly 600,000 ha of the production forests are industrial forest plantations andtree farms currently established mainly for pulp and paper. The species commonlycultivated in the plantations are Paraserianthes falcataria, Gmelina arborea,Endospermum peltatum, and Eucalyptus deglupta. The last two are indigenousspecies that occur naturally in the lowland dipterocarp forests. Some plantationsand tree farms include other exotic species such as Acacia mangium, Pinuscaribaea, and Eucalyptus urophylla. About 75% of the forest plantationsand tree farms are in Mindanao. Three of the large companies with forestplantations and tree farms are discussed further below.Timber tree species in the PhilippinesThere are an estimated 3500 species of trees indigenous to the Philippines(Salvosa 1963); about 10% of these have economic importance as a timbersource (Meniado et al. 1974). The bulk of the commercial timber extractedfrom Philippine forests, however, belongs to species of Dipterocarpaceae.The Dipterocarpaceae is the pre-eminent timber family of the Asian tropics(Newman et al. 1996) and about 45 species of this family occur in the Philippines(Ashton 1982, Newman et al. 1996, Table 2).71