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Differences between primary and secondary rainforest

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Many people have no idea what is the meaning of a primary or secondary tropical rainforest, and assume all jungles everywhere are the same. In fact, the term “primary”, “old growth”, or “virgin” is bandied around far too freely, and in most cases, inaccurately. Simply put, a primary forest is an untouched forest, most often within the context of logging activities, which should have never taken place in that forest area, whereas a secondary forest is a forest that has already been logged or disturbed in a significant way, by the activities of human beings. Here I will try to explain all this in as layman terms as possible.

First off, let’s look at the background context. There are very few forests left in Malaysia, where they can be considered “primary” or “virgin”. The vast majority of forest reserves you see in Malaysia as you travel around are already secondary forests, having been logged in the past. With the local timber supply long exhausted, many forest reserves are undergoing second or even third cycles of logging.

So how do you distinguish or tell apart primary forests from secondary? The easiest way is to observe the trees. A logged rainforest will have smaller trees and the there will be a poorly defined or unclear emergent layer, consisting of scattered leftover large trees; in heavily logged forests, even these emergent trees are missing, and the entire forest will look unmistakably “shredded” in appearance with only small trees standing (depending on the severity of the logging). Worse still, many forest reserves are now completely clear felled to make way for oil palm plantations.

Untouched rainforest

This patch of rainforest is essentially untouched/primary. The trees that make up the emergent and canopy layer are mostly mature, as inferred from their broad, spreading crowns. This is actually hill dipterocarp forest, considered a variant of lowland forest (on hilly terrain).

colorful canopy of primary rainforest

Another photo of virgin (hill) dipterocarp rainforest. Depending on the season, some of the emergent trees will be either fruiting, flowering or changing their leaves. The result is a colorful canopy of billowing tree crowns. The lowland area is of course, taken up by oil palm plantations (foreground).

extreme primary lowland rainforest

Virgin lowland forest, below 150 m altitude, on flat terrain. This is the most threatened habitat in South East Asia. Practically extirpated. I actually had some difficulty finding a suitable photo to represent this ecosystem. This photo is from the Pasoh Forest Reserve, a tiny protected area managed by the Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM).

primary lowland rainforest next to oil palm

Perhaps even more RARE, is this photo of primary lowland dipterocarp rainforest on flat terrain that was miraculously spared from logging (at the time of this photo in 2013), standing next to an oil palm plantation, in Johor, Malaysia. Note the huge trees in this tiny patch of forest. Unfortunately, this little patch has been wiped out since. Logged and clear-felled.

Secondary rainforest

Logged rainforest, a very common sight throughout Malaysia. This is defined as secondary growth, and the trees are still young, as inferred from the narrow, triangular shaped crowns. The emergent (top-most) layer is very ill defined in this patch, and the canopy is low, consisting of immature trees.

Secondary rainforest growth

A couple of decades after logging, the forest canopy typically looks like this, provided the logging was not too severe. You can tell this apart from primary growth simply by the smaller, more linear tree crowns. Large trees are the exception here. But note that this particular “old-style” logging does not look severe. Nowadays, “modern” logging methods are way more destructive, almost like clear-felling in many cases.

Other obvious clues of disturbance are the dominance of secondary growth vegetation, such as bamboo, wild bananas, wild gingers, and the abundance of pioneer trees, and climbing vines that heavily enshroud the canopy of logged forest, as well as the ubiquitous resam fern (Dicranopteris linearis), which smothers the ground all along disturbed fringes, such as logging trails. Trees that regrew after logging took place many decades ago, may have curved/kinked trunks, as a result of trying to grow through dense thickets of climbers which always spring up due to increased sunlight penetrating the damaged canopy.

Resam fern

Resam ferns (Dicranopteris linearis), a smothering pioneer plant that colonizes exposed soil around forested areas in Malaysia. It is found literally everywhere.

Bamboo

Bamboo often grows abundantly in clearings and fringes of the rainforest. It is a sign of disturbance in the forest, but also serves as part of the diet of some herbivores like elephants.

Generally speaking, mature rainforest trees have large, spreading crowns often spanning 20 meters or more in width, while immature rainforest trees have smallish cone shaped crowns that look slightly like Christmas trees, from afar. A preponderance of cone shaped or narrow crowns in the canopy layer is a strong indicator of past disturbance. When you consider how long it takes for most big rainforest trees to reach maturity (studies indicate it takes trees typically 60 years just to make the canopy), you begin to appreciate why untouched lowland rainforests are so valuable today; man cannot regrow what takes nature many hundreds or even thousands of years.

Degraded rainforest

Another patch of degraded lowland rainforest, caused by logging activities decades ago. This patch happens to be on a flat plain. Notice the narrow shaped crowns of the immature trees.

Primary rainforest

Primary lowland rainforest on a hill. Notice the big difference with the photo just above, of the secondary forest. The big, broad crowns of the emergent tress are obvious, except on the steeper slopes of this hill.

A good indicator that you are in primary lowland rainforest if you enter it is the frequency of large trunks everywhere. Typical trunk diameters at breast height (dbh) should be around 70-100+ cm. Here and there, giant trees stand like gothic pillars in the dim light of the undergrowth, some individuals reaching almost 2 meters dbh or more, often arrayed with huge buttresses. Secondary forest on the other hand, would have trees more than 70 cm in trunk dbh as the exception, not the rule; large trees are rare.

Big tree in virgin rainforest

Large stature trees like this are common in any unlogged rainforest. They mostly range between 1-1.5 meters in trunk diameter, although larges ones than this are also not uncommon.

The undergrowth in primary jungle is also usually sparse. This is not a very reliable sign however, since old secondary forest where the last logging activity took place many decades ago, also has sparse undergrowth. However, another characteristic of secondary forest (from personal observation) is increased mosquitoes. It is a misconception to think that all “jungle” has plenty of mosquitoes. Logging destroys the stratified layers of the rainforest, thus “chasing” out mosquitoes that previously inhabited these micro habitats, and bringing them into contact with humans. Logging or severe disturbance likely alters the micro habitats within the jungle, making the environment more conducive for mosquitoes to multiply too, as their former predators are reduced in numbers.

A unique example of a “virgin” patch of rainforest that is also degraded at the same time, is the Bukit Nanas Forest Reserve, a tiny relic patch of lowland rainforest that still exists below the KL Tower. There are a few big trees still standing in this forest, but because its environment has been so compromised with all the development in KL, that there are relatively high numbers of mosquitoes there, although mosquitoes are mostly uncommon in untouched, virgin jungle, excluding swamplands. To see a very much larger area of primary untouched rainforest, one of the best places is Taman Negara, Malaysia’s premier protected area. And here, there are very few mosquitoes – compared to Bukit Nanas. A stark difference, even though both look quite the same (at least from the inside).

Finally, people who study animals, from birds to insects, will also readily tell you that the diversity and composition of species is drastically different, if comparing undisturbed forest with disturbed forest. Certain species of birds or insects are very rare or non existent in secondary forests, and only found in undisturbed tracts.

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12 Comments

  1. This is an extremely interesting article and is exactly what I was looking for, and about Malaysia as well! I live in Penang, and really want to know if the beautiful forests on the hills behind Tanjung Bungah are primary or secondary. Now I am always going to be looking for cone-shaped and spreading-shaped trees. Thanks so much.

  2. @ Katherine
    Glad you found this simple guide useful. I am trying to correct the widespread perception that “all jungle is the same everywhere” and hope people can better appreciate the rainforests for what they are.

  3. Hi
    I am very interested to trek in the rain forests of Malaysia. Are you able to link me to some professional jungle trekking guides ?

    thank you

    regards
    NW, from Singapore

  4. Hi NW,

    It depends on where you are going. If you are going to a particular area, my suggestion is to find someone who actually lives in that area – eg. aborigines. These people should know the terrain and land of that particular area very well.

  5. wow ,very interesting and informative. it has really been very insightful as i am researching on my school research project on forests and at least now i have an insight on what to expect.

  6. Cool, it is so much informative to me.
    Love earth and nature!

  7. Thanks for the eye-opening article man..!

  8. When serving with the Royal Marines in Borneo during the mid 1960s I had experience of both types of jungle.
    Primary was easy to patrol through and visibility was reasonable
    Secondary jungle was a nightmare to patrol. Sometimes taking hours to progress several hundred metres. The nature of the dense secondary had a myriad of bushes that simply hung on to every part of your clothing. Sometimes it was necessary for a man to pitch forward and then walk over him with the next man doing the same and so on.

  9. @Alexander Millin
    Thanks for sharing your experience. Yes, secondary jungle can be very dense due to the original rainforest canopy being destroyed by the logging or clearing and permitting sunlight to flood the ground, allowing all manner of bushes to grow and smother the earth. The problem now is Malaysia has extremely little primary lowland forest remaining, and the state governments are still BUSY clearing up what little is left.

  10. Thank you for this article. It was a fascinating read. Was just discussing primary vs secondary forests with someone and this article would answer many of the questions we had. Also, I now know exactly what to say when people ask me after a hike “aren’t there a lot of mosquitoes in the jungle?”.

  11. Hi, may I cited it in our organization socmed?

  12. @Dhaniah

    Yes you may, just use my URL.

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