Saving the Tropics' Dry Forests
By Cindy Wagner
As developers move in, mahogany trees and other species may be lost.
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tropics' dry forests are as much threatened by human encroachment as the rain forests, yet
they receive far less international attention and protection, according to a newly formed
research network, Tropi-Dry. Dry forests once made up 42% of all the forests in the
tropics, but less than 1% of them are protected.
"There is this romanticized view of rain forests, yet the tropical dry forest is
being forgotten even though the most fertile soils are there," says Tropi-Dry's
director, Arturo Sanchez-Azofeifa of the University of Alberta. "It's a mystery to me
why, when both ecosystems are in danger, one is ignored over the other."
Mahogany and rosewood trees face possible extinction in Costa Rica, where half of the
country's dry forests have been cut down. In Mexico, local communities that view the
natural beauty of the dry forests as an attraction for tourism have cut much of it away in
order to build resorts and golf courses.
This development comes at the price of species loss, not only of the trees themselves
but of the life they support. According to Tropi-Dry, the most-diverse tropical dry
forests are in southern Mexico and the Bolivian lowlands, where the levels of
endemism—having species unique to those areas—are higher than in rain forests.
The Tropi-Dry network comprises top research scientists at institutes in the United
States, Cuba, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Panama, Brazil, Mexico, and Canada. The goal of the
network is to help translate research into policy proposals for governments balancing the
needs of economic development and environmental sustainability. That balance may come from
private conservation, according to Sanchez-Azofeifa. One strategy is for governments to
pay service fees to landowners in exchange for their not using tropical dry forestlands
for commercial development. For example, the Costa Rican government has paid out more than
$175 million in environmental service fees since the late 1990s.
Source: University of Alberta, Public Affairs, 685 General Services Building,
Edmonton, Alberta T6E 2H1, Canada. Web site www.ualberta.ca/.
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