Explorers and naturalists have long been fascinated by moist tropical forests. It is not difficult to see why. The mass of luxuriant vegetation and rich diversity of living species represents an ecosystem that is unrivaled on earth. Such forests provide not just a magnificent spectacle and a sanctuary for an incredible array of plants and wildlife but also protection for fragile soils against erosion and degradation by the torrential rainfall that sustains these very forests. But alongside the explorers and naturalists came timber merchants. The latter, too, developed a keen interest in the forests, but for very different reasons: the vast volumes of potentially harvestable timber. Logging operations in tropical forest areas have burgeoned in the last decades as mechanization has permitted the exploitation of previously inaccessible areas, and at an ever-quickening pace.

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