Spittler, P.  2001. Potencial del manejo de los bosques secundarios en la zona seca del noroeste de Costa Rica.  GTZ-TÖB.  Institut für Waldbau, Universidad de Göttingen.  104 p.  ISBN 3-933984-81-5.

Summary

Due to the decreasing profitability of cattle ranching, the economic situation of the farmers, particularly  in the dry region of Costa Rica, has worsened during the past two decades.  As a consequence, secondary forest have established themselves on abandoned pastures and they have reached interesting successional stages fron the silvicultural point of view.

Comercial tree species as well an non-timber forest products (NTFP) that can be found in secondary forests may be an interesting option to increase farmers’ income.  This research is aiming at generating silvicultural information, which constitutes the basis for the análisis of the economic potencial of secondary forests during different stages of succession.  This information shall help provide farmers with new strategies for ecologically friendly and economically attractive land-use alternatives.

Secondary forest in the dry region of Costa Rica develop relatively slowly compared to tose in the humid regions of the country.  Nevertheless, it was found that they hardly differ from a primary forest regarding species diversity adn structure after some 50 years of development.

120 different  species have been recorded in the secondary forests, of which 47 are actually processed in local sawmills.  In addicion, NTFP from 28 species are traded on the national markets.  Almost half of the total volume of a 50 years-old secondary forest can be used as lumber for sawmills.  Monocyclic silvicultural systems are see to be a better investment that polycyclic ones.  The revenues from the forest protection certificate (CPB) help especially tose farmers with little acreage to use their secondary forests in a profitable way.