The area of primary forest is decreasing throughout the tropical world and being replaced by secondary
forests. Many policy makers regard these secondary forests as being unworthy of protection since they
are too degraded to have any commercial or conservation value. Because of this many are now being
cleared for alternative land uses. But there are a variety of types of secondary forest differing in the extent
to which they have been disturbed, the frequency at which this has taken place and, because of their position
in the landscape, in their capacity to be recolonized from species from intact primary forests. This
means that some secondary forests may not be as degraded as is supposed and many may have the capacity
to recover if protected from further disturbances. This study reports on a comparison between remnant
forest, and frequently and infrequently disturbed secondary forests in Lao PDR. The frequently
disturbed forest had been cleared for shifting cultivation 3–5 times in the past 30 years while the infrequently
disturbed sites had been cleared only once. The study found comparatively small differences in
the occurrence of primary forest species in these two types of secondary forest and that they still contained
a large proportion of primary forest tree species despite the disturbance history. This apparent
resilience may be due to the capacity of many species to resprout after disturbances and their ability
to recolonize across the present agricultural matrix.