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โครงการหนังสออเล็กทรอนกสด้านการเกษตร เฉลมพระเกียรตพระบาทสมเด็จพระเจ้าอยู่หัว
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TEAK IN MEKONG
and highly valued golden wood used to naturally in the northwestern provinces of
make furniture, housing material and etc. Xayyabouly and Bokeo along the Lao-Thai
.
both for internal market and for export to border (Kaosa-ard, 1989) Till a few
external markets particularly China. decades back these natural forests with
significant presence of teak used to extend
In Lao PDR, teak occurs naturally only in
the provinces of Sayabouly and Bokeo over more than 30,000 ha but are limited to
.
bordering Thailand and Myanmar, but has about 16,000 ha now (Midgley et al., 2015)
been planted extensively in the provinces of The largest natural areas occur in the
Luang Prabang, Sayabouli, and Champasak Sayabouly Province, where there may be
(Nahuel et al., 2019). Luang Prabang is one 10-20,000 ha of mixed deciduous forest
of many provinces where teak tree is with inclusion of teak with smaller extents
popularly planted by local people in large spread over the Bokeo Province (Antilla,
.
numbers. It began very small with just 3 ha 2016). Natural teak forests play an
in 1975 growing to 7,837 ha in 1999 important role in ecological system and
(Kolmert, 2001) and by 2012 the extent of environmental protection and form an
land covered by teak plantations had risen important source for supply of seed for
to 26,500 ha (Midgley et al., 2015). Most of plantations. In 2000-2003, the Lao Tree
these teak plantations were in annual crop Seed project established 102 tree seed
farmlands located along both road side, sources across the country of which 76 seed
rivers and mountain valleys, from flat lands sources remain operational till date (Figure
to steep slopes, from lower elevations to 4-1). Among these currently operational
higher reaches in the mountains. seed sources, nine serve the demand for
teak seeds in the country one of which is
Natural Teak Forests located in natural teak forests
Lao PDR forms the easternmost limits of (Khamphoumi et al., 2017) and one is
the natural habitat of teak where it occurs supported under the ITTO Teak Project in
Mekong.
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