Abstract
<b>Key messages</b> <ul> <li>Secondary forest is an increasingly prevalent component of forest cover across the globe providing wildlife habitat, ecosystem services and valuable goods.</li> <li>Secondary forest in Peru mainly occurs on farming landscapes, much of it occuring as agricultural fallows, and comprises up to 45% of total forest cover in some landscapes.</li> <li>The absence of information on the extent of secondary forests, their locations, ownership, types, and persistence hampers creating relevant policy, supporting local forest governance, and ultimately improving forest condition and rural livelihoods.</li> <li>Draft normative guidelines on secondary forest management are expected to be released for public comment in early 2022, and we encourage active and informed public comment.</li> <li>Strengthening local forest governance by smallholders and communities as part of a bundle of rights for their productive mosaic landscapes can be coupled with incentives to increase and maintain forest cover on their landholdings.</li> <li>We recommend the recognition of resource rights and implementation of mechanisms that strengthen the legality and legitimacy of forest management on farms.</li> </ul>
Highlights
Regional estimates of its area range from 63 percent of all forest cover in SE Asia (Mukul et al 2016) to 34 percent in the lowland Neotropics
Estimates of secondary forest cover in Peru range from 3.7 percent of total forest cover (Smith et al 2021) to 13.3 percent (Chazdon et al 2016), but these figures depend on the scale, location, and method of analysis
Independent studies show that Peru has considerably more intact old-growth forest than other Latin American countries (Figure 1) and a correspondingly low area of secondary forest overall (13.3 percent)
Summary
Secondary forest is an increasingly prevalent component of forest cover across the globe providing wildlife habitat, ecosystem services and valuable goods. Secondary forest in Peru mainly occurs on farming landscapes, much of it occuring as agricultural fallows, and comprises up to 45% of total forest cover in some landscapes. The absence of information on the extent of secondary forests, their locations, ownership, types, and persistence hampers creating relevant policy, supporting local forest governance, and improving forest condition and rural livelihoods. Draft normative guidelines on secondary forest management are expected to be released for public comment in early 2022, and we encourage active and informed public comment. Strengthening local forest governance by smallholders and communities as part of a bundle of rights for their productive mosaic landscapes can be coupled with incentives to increase and maintain forest cover on their landholdings. We recommend the recognition of resource rights and implementation of mechanisms that strengthen the legality and legitimacy of forest management on farms
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