In international policy, Trinidad has acquired a reputation for sustainable natural forest management. Definitions, criteria and indicators of sustainability are premised on ecological and social predictability; that forests and people will respond to rational management in rational, predictable and known ways.
These premises are incorporated within the Periodic Block System; a ‘blueprint’ system for selective logging in particular blocks every 25-30 years in the ‘Mora excelsa’ forests of the south and east.