3.2. Conservation impediments and opportunities
It appears that while the general ecological processes threatening
temperate and tropical forests are broadly similar – logging,
fire, forest conversion – the challenges in dealing with them are
different. In comparison with temperate forests, tropical forests
are characterised by faster rates of deforestation and land conversion,
a more limited background of prior empirical research, and a
weaker system of governance to implement conservation and
management actions. Indeed, there is an important paradox in
the research and conservation communities in tropical and temperate
forests. That is, while the greatest research and conservation
capacity resides in nations where temperate forest predominates,
tropical forests support more biodiversity, have greater conservation
needs, and typically occur in countries that have limited
capacity to address conservation problems. This highlights the
need for partnering programs, not only between developed and
developing nations but also between temperate forest researchers
and their tropical forest colleagues. In Australia, large federal government
payments have been made to Asia to encourage the cessation
of tropical forest conversion. This is a positive step, but such
partnership arrangements are sometimes not without problems.
For example, Australia–Asia funding has created unease in some
parts of the Australian conservation community because of perceptions
of hypocrisy. This is because widespread logging is continuing
in the Australian states of Tasmania and Victoria, including
clearfelling of carbon-dense and biodiverse temperate old-growth
forests (Keith et al., 2009).