Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-wpx84 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-21T07:06:27.594Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Mahoganies: candidates for the Red Data Book

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2009

Sabina G. Knees
Affiliation:
Royal Horticultural Society's Garden, Wisley, Woking, Surrey, UK.
Martin F. Gardner
Affiliation:
Crown Estate Commissioners, The Great Park. Windsor. Berkshire, UK.
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Mahogany ranks as one of the world's finest timbers and it will probably be commercially extinct by 1990. The dramatic decrease in trade of true mahogany as well as a switch to previously untapped resources since the early 1970s reflects a general pattern of over-exploitation of tropical rainforests. The lack of mahogany cultivation and a move into other, unrelated mahoganylike, primary rain forest hardwoods, such as meranti and red lauan, emphasises an inevitable and irreversible decline for many hardwood forests. The authors give a summary of historical and current trade patterns in mahogany as part of a pilot study initiated and sponsored by ffPS in 1982.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Fauna and Flora International 1983

References

Anon, . 1945. A Handbook of Empire Timbers. HMSO, London. 142 pp.Google Scholar
Anon, . 1973. Convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora. Miscellaneous No. 25. HMSO, London. 42 pp.Google Scholar
Anon, . 1982a. Dwindling forests force Japan to act. New Scient. 95, 750.Google Scholar
Anon, . 1982b. IUCN Tropical Forest Campaign document. Typescript. TPC, Kew.Google Scholar
Anon, , (no date) World Timbers. Volume 1. Timber Development Association, London.Google Scholar
Edlin, H.L. 1969. What Wood is That? A Manual of Wood Identification. Viking Press, New York. 160 pp.Google Scholar
FAO, , 1982. FAO Yearbook of Forest Products 1969–1980. FAO of UN, Rome.Google Scholar
Floresca, A.R. 1973. The shrinkage characteristics of Philippine mahogany species. Forpride Dig. 2 (2), 52.Google Scholar
Lamb, F.B. 1966. Mahogany of Tropical America: its Ecology and Management. Ann Arbor, Michigan.Google Scholar
Latham, B. 1957. Timber: its development and distribution. George Harrap, London. 303 pp.Google Scholar
Latham, J. (no date) West African Timbers. Typescript. Wood Museum, Kew.Google Scholar
Leakey, R.R.B., Last, F.T. and Longman, K.A. 1982. Domestication of tropical trees: an approach securing future productivity and diversity in managed ecosystems. Commw. For. Rev. 61 (1), 3342.Google Scholar
Lomibao, B.A. 1973. Guide to the identification of the woods of Philippine Dipterocarpaceae. Forpride Dig. 2 (2), 2630.Google Scholar
Myers, N. 1979. The Sinking Ark: a new look at the problem of disappearing species. Pergamon Press. Oxford. 307 pp.Google Scholar
Norman, C.K. 1979. UK Yearbook of Timber Statistics. Timber Trades Federation, London.Google Scholar
Pennington, T.D. and Styles, B.T. 1981. Meliaceae. Flora Neotropica Monogr. 27. New York.Google Scholar
Spears, J.S. 1980. Can the wet tropical forest survive? Commw. For. Rev. 58 (2), 165180.Google Scholar
Synge, H. (ed.) 1979. Threatened Plants Committee. Newsletter 4. IUCN.Google Scholar
Whitmore, T.C. 1981. Trees of the tropics. In: The Oxford Encyclopaedia of Trees of the World (Ed. F.B., Hora) Oxford University Press.Google Scholar