Abstract
The Eastern Cape Province harbours 46% of South Africa’s remaining indigenous forest cover, and is one of the country’s poorest and least developed provinces. Forest resources thus represent a vital component of rural livelihoods in this region. Consequently, forest management policies aim to balance the needs of resource users with the ecological integrity of forest ecosystems. In a recent study, forest bird ranges were shown to have declined in the Eastern Cape over the past 20 years, despite increases in forest cover over the same time period, indicating that habitat degradation may be driving forest bird losses. Given that harvesting of forest products represents the primary human disturbance in forests in the Eastern Cape today, insight is needed regarding the link between resource use and habitat modification. We report on effects of harvesting of three key forest products – poles, timber and medicinal bark – on habitat structure at the ground, understorey and canopy layers in indigenous forests in the province. Harvest activities had considerable impacts on habitat structure, depending on the nature and extent of harvesting. Bark and timber harvesting resulted in canopy gaps, whereas pole harvesting reduced tree density, resulting in understorey gaps. Overall, harvest activities increased the frequency of canopy disturbance, and density of understorey layer foliage. Unsustainable bark harvesting practices increased the mortality rate of canopy trees, thereby increasing dead wood availability. By providing insight into human-mediated habitat modification in forests of the Eastern Cape, this study contributes to the development of ecologically informed sustainable resource management policies.
 Significance:
 
 Unregulated harvesting of forest products in state-managed indigenous forests of the Eastern Cape results in habitat modification.
 The nature and extent of habitat modification is dependent on the type and intensity of resource use, indicating that resource use may be sustainably managed.
 Timber and medicinal bark harvesting activities result in canopy disturbances, thereby altering natural canopy gap dynamics, with concomitant impacts on understorey habitat structure.
 Changes in forest habitat structure associated with high levels of resource use are likely to have ramifying effects on forest biodiversity.
Highlights
Habitat loss and modification are currently the primary drivers of forest biodiversity loss globally.[1]
The findings of this study indicate that resource use from state forests in the Eastern Cape has a significant impact on forest structure, the nature and extent of the impact is dependent on the type and intensity of resource use
The effects of long-term human exploitation are likely to have affected the current condition of all sampled forests, such that the findings of this study are indicative of habitat responses to more recent resource use disturbances
Summary
Habitat loss and modification are currently the primary drivers of forest biodiversity loss globally.[1] Unlike many parts of Africa, forest cover in the Eastern Cape, which harbours close to half (46%) of South Africa’s remaining indigenous forest cover, has increased over the past 20 years2 – an increase which is attributed to the revegetation of previously cultivated fields in response to increasing trends of de-agrarianisation in rural areas[3], together with carbon fertilisation[4]. While habitat loss appears not to be a major threat to forest biodiversity, degradation has been identified as a major concern.[5,6,7,8,9] While much forest degradation in South Africa is attributed to extensive historical logging[10], commercial-scale logging has not occurred in indigenous forests in the Eastern Cape for the past 80 years, after being outlawed in 1939 in all but one forest complex, where limited commercial harvesting was re-introduced in 19759. A de facto open-access system governs forest resource use in South Africa today, leading to increasing concern that unregulated resource use is degrading forest habitats and compromising the conservation of forest biodiversity
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