The area of high-grade hardwood plantations grew steadily in the 1960s. The focus of planting shifted later in that decade to softwood plantations for the production of pulp and paper. Later still, non-industrial plantations became more important. Between the late 1960s and the late 1970s the annual rate of establishment of plantations in the humid tropics was about 0.7 million hectares. But the share of high-grade hardwood plantations fell from 33 to just 13 percent (Grainger 1993).
The estimated annual planting rate for all tropical countries in 1990 was 2.6 million hectares. This declined to about 1.65 million hectares during 1991-1995. Most of this fall was attributed to a reduction in the planting programme in India, probably due to reduced funding (FAO 1997).
Of the 7.7 million hectares of timber plantations in the humid tropics in 1980, only 1.4 million ha. (18 percent) were dedicated to producing high-grade hardwood similar to that extracted from the tropical rainforests (Grainger 1993). The majority of “fast-growing” hardwood plantations (i.e. yielding more than 14 m3/yr.) are genera such as Acacia or Eucalyptus grown on short rotation for such relatively low value uses as fuel, fibre or roundwood. About a third are longer rotation (typically 25 years and above) crops of either softwood or hardwood species, grown principally for sawn- or veneer-wood (Kanowski 1997).
