A study on the development and implementation of enrichment planting in Peninsular Malaysia

Abstract

Hill dipterocarp forest areas in Peninsular Malaysia are inherently poor within the natural regeneration. Enrichment planting scheme was implemented with the main objective of expediting the restructuring of the forest content to a desired level in terms of marketable and high quality economic species composition. Effective rehabilitation action plan for degraded logged-over forests such as enrichment planting has been developed to ensure that stocking of commercial trees in the next harvest is sufficient to sustain the supply of logs for the domestic and international market requirements. Besides that the implementation also aimed to support the reforestation of forest abandon areas during the post-harvesting period. The implementation was also considered as an integral part of the silvicultural system. At the high cost in establishment of the enrichment planting, it compensated the economic return with a greater yield of commercial and variable economically timber species. The absence of adverse growing seasons and high growth rate of dipterocarp trees with valuable and quality commercial timber species further accentuates the economic necessity for enrichment planting. The objectives of this paper were to discuss the development and characteristics of enrichment planting in Peninsular Malaysia. With regard to the sustainable forest management practices, key constraints and future prospects of the enrichment planting in Peninsular Malaysia will also be assessed.