Paper
Cerullo, G., Barlow, J., Betts, M., Edwards, D., Eyres, A., França, F., Garrett, R., Swinfield, T., Tew, E., White, T., Balmford, A., 2023. The global impact of EU forest protection policies.
Science 381, 740–740.
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adj0728
Summary
All to often, we fail to consider the global impacts of localised conservation interventions. Where interventions reduce yields, this can simply displace production elsewhere, often at greater overall overall cost to biodiversity and ecosystem services. We argue that recent European forest protection policies that reduce domestic timber production risk doing just this, by pushing production into carbon-dense, biodiversity rich tropical rainforests.
Paper
Cerullo, G., França, F., Finch, T., Erm, P., Griffiths, H., Louzada, J., Bousfield, C.G., Massam, M.R., Peres, C.A., Barlow, J., Green, R.E., Edwards, D.P., Balmford, A., 2023. Sparing old-growth maximises conservation outcomes within selectively logged Amazonian rainforest.
Biological Conservation 282, 110065.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2023.110065
Summary
How can we produce timber in logging concessions at the least cost to biodiversity? Our research uses biodiversity responses to harvests and information from logging company records to explore the conservation outcomes of more than 8000 different ways of meeting timber demand in the a logging concession in the Brazilian Amazon. Our results suggest that sparing as much old-growth forest as possible would be best for lots of logging-sensitive dung beetles…but that such a logging approach could be up to 90% less profitable.
Paper
Edwards, D.P.
**, Cerullo
**, G.R., Chomba, S., Worthington, T.A., Balmford, A.P., Chazdon, R.L., Harrison, R.D., 2021. Upscaling tropical restoration to deliver environmental benefits and socially equitable outcomes.
Curr Biol 31, R1326–R1341.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.08.058
**Joint first author
Summary
Our review tracks the possible impacts and opportunities of different types of restoration across tropical landscapes. Restoration holds enormous potential for improving environmental and socially outcomes, but there are dangers too. We need to engage directly with trade-offs and synergies between restoration and other objectives, including food production and traditional habitat conservation, and must also ensure that restoration is fair and equitable, with the burdens of restoration not falling on the poorest people in society.
Paper
Cerullo, G.R., Edwards, F.A., Mills, S.C., Edwards, D.P., 2019. Tropical forest subjected to intensive post-logging silviculture maintains functionally diverse dung beetle communities.
Forest Ecology and Management 444, 318–326.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2019.04.025
Summary
Logged forests often have diminished economic and conservation value due to the damage caused by timber extraction. Restoration of logged forests, including through activities such as vine-cutting and enrichment planting, has the potential to speed up forest recovery. But the application of intensive restoration mainly aimed at returning timber values could also harm wildlife. We carried out dung beetle surveys in one of the largest logged forest restoration projects in the world, in Northern Borneo. We found that dung beetles were resilient to the potentially negative impacts of vine-cutting and enrichment planting, suggesting that the restoration of forests could be a powerful tool for returning economic value to exhausted timber concessions without compromising biodiversity.
Paper
Cerullo, G.R., Edwards, D.P., 2019. Actively restoring resilience in selectively logged tropical forests. Journal of Applied Ecology 56, 107–118. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13262
Summary
Restoration of logged forests is underfunded and underused across the tropics. We consider some of the evidence about the impacts of logged forest restoration for people, biodiversity, carbon and for timber values. Given commercial malaise around investing in the long-term future of logged forests, we provide recommendations for how restoration can be used to breathe new life into degraded forests, ultimately contributing to their protection.
Other papers
Bousfield, C.G., Cerullo, G.R., Massam, M.R., Edwards, D.P., 2020. Chapter One – Protecting environmental and socio-economic values of selectively logged tropical forests in the Anthropocene, in: Dumbrell, A.J., Turner, E.C., Fayle, T.M. (Eds.), Advances in Ecological Research, Tropical Ecosystems in the 21st Century. Academic Press, pp. 1–52. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.aecr.2020.01.006
Cerullo, G., Nielsen, K.S., 2022. Decade on restoration needs behavioural science. [PREPRINT] https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/g85j9
