Subsidient: Louis König/Wageningen University
Subsidy: S182.63
Mining is increasingly threatening tropical forests, contributing with 10 % to the deforestation of the Amazon. Legal obligations and increasing demand for sustainable mining require restoration measures to compensate for the environmental impacts such as topographic reconstruction and reforestation. However, the underlying mechanisms that drive reforestation success are yet poorly understood. In this study I analyse the influence of ecological and management factors on forest structure recovery, forest diversity recovery and the species composition of the recruits on 40 reforestations areas in 7 deactivated mines in Rondônia state, Brazil. I included successional age and the landscape composition as ecological factors. The management factors were assessed by the planted species composition, the planting diversity and the mine zone which is a result from the mining process. I found that forest structure recovery is influenced by complex interactions between the soil quality and the planting parameters. Forest diversity recovery is additionally determined by the area of surrounding forests. The species composition of the recruits is shaped by the planted species composition and interactions between the soil quality and the landscape composition. This study confirms the complexity of mine land restoration and presents a list of suggestions to improve reforestation measures towards the development of self-sustaining forest ecosystems.
