Restoring tropical forests on lands mined for bauxite: Examples from the Brazilian Amazon

Restoring tropical forests on lands mined for bauxite: Examples from the Brazilian Amazon

Background:

Effective forest restoration is required to avoid the adverse environmental impacts of mining. However, restorationists working in most tropical regions lack the requisite knowledge of species selection and disturbance ecology to aid in mimicking the pre-disturbed ecosystem.  One noteworthy exception to this is the forest restoration initiative created by a Brazilian bauxite mining company operating at Trombetas in Pará State, central Amazonia, since the early 1980s.

Goals and methods:

The paper discusses the challenges of restoring self-sustaining tropical forest ecosystems on mined sites. The authors describe the restoration program developed by the Trombesta mining company in Brazil. The program uses a systematic nursery and field research strategy to approach restoration. This paper summarizes the major results of prior studies conducted at the Trombetas mine site on a number of reforestation methods and species selection.

Conclusions and Takeaways:

The authors determine that including a wide variety of forest species is essential for long-range restoration. However, mining companies can develop an efficient and cost-effective system for species selection by investing in research to fill the gap in basic silvicultural knowledge in the tropics. Results from the reforestation program at Trombetas show that high-diversity forest systems can be successfully established through high-diversity planting schemes.

Reference: 

Parrotta JA, Knowles OH. Restoring tropical forests on lands mined for bauxite: Examples from the Brazilian Amazon. Ecological Engineering. 2001;17(2-3):219 - 239. doi:10.1016/S0925-8574(00)00141-5.