POPULATION-DYNAMICS OF SOME TROPICAL TREES THAT YIELD NON-TIMBER FOREST PRODUCTS

The population biology of Aquilaria malaccensis, one source of gharu, and Cinnamomum mollissimum, one source of wild cinnamon, was studied i n a 50 ha permanent plot of primary rain forest in Malaysia. Median di ameter growth rates of 0.22 cm yr(-1) and 0.1 cm yr(-1) should not be prohibitive of economic exploitation, and suggest that the trees could be grown commercially. However, the natural densities were between 2 and 3 trees over 1 cm d.b.h. per ha, which is roughly the median for a ll trees in the plot, would preclude economic exploitation of these na tural populations. The economics of harvesting natural populations is considered in a preliminary fashion by allowing favorable assumptions of quantity and quality of production. The price likely to be fetched from either a first time extraction (on the order of US$l0.00 per ha) or from sustained production (on the order of US$0.10 per ha per yr), are too small to be of interest as single-product schemes, and are neg ligible compared to the extraction of multi-species crops of timber. H owever, it is possible that by combining multiple products under a ''H igh Diversity Forestry'' scheme, one could increase the density of har vestable products, reduce the unit cost of labor and improve the econo mic portrait.