Indeed, logging may affect wildlife in different ways that range from direct impacts related to the operations of extractive activities or indirect impacts related to the construction of roads and infrastructure and changes in demographic and socio-economic dynamics. In addition, logged forests are more likely than primary forests to be cleared or burned in some but not all nations. The rate of road construction for logging industries has increased in the last decade in many tropical forests. Roads facilitate access to remote forests by opening access to previously inaccessible areas, thus providing access to markets and often transforming hunting from a largely subsistence activity into a commercial one. Roads also result in subsequent land clearing with the consequent continued loss of wildlife habitats. The stimulation of local economies by industrial activities creates an immigration influx and locally increases human population density in previously remote forest areas. In northern Congo, the population of five logging towns rose by an average of 69% over 6 years, and the biomass of bushmeat in those towns increased by 64%. Because most companies have no enforced regulations to ban hunting and trade among their workers and because they also fail to provide workers with acceptable substitutes at low costs, most workers are involved in bushmeat hunting.
 
Recent evidence suggests that logged forests can have surprisingly high conservation values. In a meta-analysis across four tropical regions, selectively logged forests were by far the most biologically similar to primary forests, compared with agricultural and agro-forestry systems. Even after repeated, intensive logging, the biodiversity of native forests in Borneo is roughly comparable to that after the first cut. Global assessments of the impacts of logging on biodiversity (i.e., subject to the level, rate and type of logging, as well as length of roads and proximity to communities, number of vulnerable species, among other factors) indicate modest impacts on species richness of birds, mammals, invertebrates and plants. Birds represent the most severely affected of the groups. Some assessments report only a slight reduction of biodiversity in selectively logged forests, but substantial biodiversity reduction occurs in many other cases and especially after intensive logging.

Examples from Central Africa also show that the distribution of larger mammals within a forest concession is more influenced by hunting pressure and roads than by the direct effects of logging. While some generalist species that favour early successional and open habitats, such as duikers (or forest antelopes) and some rodents, benefit from the presence of patches of disturbed habitat, others such as the great apes (particularly chimpanzees and mountain gorillas) and some small monkey groups (e.g., the collared mangabey Cercocebus torquatus) are potentially seriously disturbed by logging operations. In Congo, for instance, locally monitored distribution routes have revealed a decrease in the abundance of elephants, chimpanzees and guenons near roads. In Gabon, roads have negatively affected small monkeys, but no effects from roads have yet been observed on elephants, duikers and great apes. Some carnivores are known to use roads as ways of conduct and as hunting ground. In addition, increases have been observed in small pangolin, small duikers and rodents close to roads. In Malaysia, newly logged sites had 11% lower species richness than unlogged sites, but sites logged >10 years previously had richness levels similar to those in old-growth forest. In this example, hunting was a more serious long-term threat than logging for 91% of primate and ungulate species. Several large ungulates, were either completely (elephant Elephas maximus and banteng Bos javanicus) or mostly (sambar Rusa unicolor) found in logged forest, suggesting that, in the absence of hunting, logged habitats can be important for the conservation of certain endangered and vulnerable species.

In the Yasuni National Park and the Waorani Ethnic Reserve, in the Ecuadorian Amazon, the construction of the Maxus road and of other oil extraction infrastructure projects motivated several clans of Waorani people to abandon their semi-nomadic life styles, creating permanent settlements along the road. With access to a much larger hunting area, incorporation into a market economy and increased demand of bushmeat by dealers coming to the emerging Pompeya market, the original purpose of the Waorani people’s hunting shifted from a subsistence activity to a more commercially oriented endeavor. This rapid incorporation of the cash economy and the growth of the commercial activities in Pompeya placed an extra value in the domestic trade of bushmeat, as an easy way to generate additional income. Salaried employees and their families that occupy company camps within or bordering concessions constitute a significant local source of demand for bushmeat.

Similar impacts have been observed in Central Africa. Small-scale artisanal extractive industries also increase the local demand for bushmeat. For example, the expansion of the bushmeat trade to the south of the Uele River, near Buta, in the Democratic Republic of Congo is linked to the artisanal diamond and gold mining industries. In Gamba, Gabon, oil concessions also play a role in exacerbating local bushmeat trade. Nevertheless, forest elephants can use habitat subjected to frequent human activity in oil concessions, including high road densities, provided that food is available and hunting is controlled.

In recent years, numerous forestry companies have adopted a paradigm of sustainable forest management (SFM) that, in theory, promotes biodiversity conservation. In the Congo Basin, for instance, among the 293 concessions officially recognized in 2010, 90 are operating under an approved management plan and 13% of the total area under logging concessions is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Companies developing or implementing a management plan have adopted a technical itinerary to collect data related to biodiversity, including surveys of large mammals and other major species non timber forest products (NTFPs). The data collected are processed to support decision making in order to design biodiversity specific measures to improve sustainable management of the forest. Possible biodiversity specific measures to manage for both timber and wildlife within extractive concessions are related to:

1. Spatial planning: Establish guidelines for road construction to optimize the road network and improve the control of access;
    
2. Health and safety: Provide workers with sustainable sources of protein to avoid uncontrolled rises of hunting and bushmeat trade in newly established camps and raise awareness on wild meat consumption to avoid the potential transmission of diseases stemming from the source;
    
3. Law enforcement: Contribute to wildlife law enforcement by ensuring that their workers are not violating hunting and trade laws;
    
4. Partnerships: Develop efficient co-arrangements between the extractive company, governmental bodies in charge of law enforcement, NGOs, and indigenous peoples and local communities;
    
5. Monitoring: Set up processes to monitor impacts directly attributed to the logging company and its workers;
    
6. Forbid the possession of firearms at work camps as a condition of employment.

Although multiple-use forest management (MUM) and better still – SFM - for timber, NTFPs and ecosystem services is considered as a preferable alternative to single-use (generally timber-dominant management models), few examples of MUM adequately address wildlife and the domestic bushmeat trade.

If properly managed, the large size and varied habitats of logging concessions could complement an existing system of protected areas, enlarging the ‘conservation estate’ within a broader landscape. Integrating production forests into existing conservation strategies is only part of a solution to help mitigate further biodiversity loss in primary tropical forests. Protected areas alone, however, are too small, usually with limited funding and staffing, and are unable to prevent continued biodiversity loss. Managed concessions may be especially valuable when they are adjacent to or surround protected areas, so that efforts to conserve wildlife in one landscape unit can be supported by adequately managed surrounding areas.

Evidence has shown that logged forests can, if appropriately managed, extend the conservation estate for many of west and central Africa’s most threatened species. A study in northern Congo found that the abundance of large mammals in four tropical logging concessions even rivaled that of the adjacent Nouabale-Ndoki National Park. In Gabon, a study found that a logging concession near Rabi, facilitated seasonal movements of forest elephants and other large wildlife species between inland and coastal areas across the nearby Loango and Moukalaba-Doudou National Parks and was playing a key role in sustaining certain biodiversity, by maintaining forest connectivity and by limiting human population growth near park borders.

Multi-stakeholder agreements between communities, NGOs and extractive industries, have proved to be efficient in contributing to the mainstreaming of conservation approaches in logging concessions and to the appropriation of biodiversity concerns (mainly linked to bushmeat hunting) by concession managers. Reciprocally, such agreements have helped NGOs to better understand the rules of the game and the constraints faced by forest managers.

Considerable changes will, however, be required for biodiversity values to be integrated into the mining sector. Most mining companies work without meeting any sustainability requirements; consequently, mining remains a considerable threat to many existing protected areas and key sites for biodiversity. In several instances, extractive industry operations have already led to the downgrading, downsizing and de-gazetting of protected areas in Africa, including within World Heritage sites. With fear of harassment and hunting reduced, oil concessions could act as shields from real and pervasive threats, influencing the behavior of wildlife and mimicking the positive effects of protection in national parks. Implementing sound environmental and wildlife management in these areas and harnessing private sector resources to such management could potentially complement existing formally recognized protected areas into large-scale regional conservation schemes, in particular for large mammals such as elephant species