Wednesday, April 14, 1999 Published at 20:36 GMT 21:36 UK
Sci/Tech

Amazon forest loss estimates double

Logging's damage is less obvious than forest clearance, but no less real

By Environment Correspondent Alex Kirby

The true extent of rainforest damage in the Amazon is more than
twice as great as present estimates suggest, researchers say.

Daniel Nepstad: "The degradation will continue"
The team says field surveys of logging and burning show far more
deforestation than satellite monitoring has revealed.

The researchers are based at several Brazilian and US institutions,
including the Woods Hole Research Center, Massachusetts.
Their work is reported in the current issue of Nature magazine.

The researchers interviewed 1,393 wood mill operators, representing
more than half the mills in 75 Amazonian logging centres.
As well, they interviewed 202 landlords, whose properties covered 9,200 sq km.

They found that logging crews annually cause severe damage to between
10,000 and 15,000 sq km of forest that are not included in current deforestation estimates.

Insidious damage

They also discovered that fires burning on the surface consume large
areas of forest which again are not recorded.
The researchers say the failure so far to register the much greater
loss rate they have discovered is because the loggers reduce tree
cover, but do not eliminate it.

By contrast, ranchers and farmers deforest land in preparation for
pasture and crops by clear-cutting it, and by burning whole areas.

[ image: The more the forest burns, the more vulnerable to fire it becomes]
The more the forest burns, the more vulnerable to fire it becomes
And where logging and fires have caused damage, they say, the vegetation
will grow back fast enough to dupe a satellite.

The only reliable way to find out what is happening is by field
surveys. Logging and surface fires seldom kill all the trees. But
they help to make them more vulnerable.

Logging increases the flammability of the forest by reducing leaf
canopy coverage by up to 50%. This lets the sunlight strike through
to the forest floor, where it dries out the organic debris created by the logging.

Worsened by drought

And fires leave the surviving trees more susceptible to future blazes.
The researchers say the area of surface fires may be much larger
than usual during severe droughts.

An unpublished Brazilian Government report says 15,000 sq km of
standing forest may have burned in the northern state of Roraima
alone during the 1997-98 El Nino drought.

[ image: More deforestation means more carbon emissions]
More deforestation means more carbon emissions

These so far unreported forms of forest loss, the researchers say,
imply a need to look again at climate change calculations.

They write: "Forest impoverishment through logging and surface fire
causes a significant release of carbon to the atmosphere that is
not included in existing estimates of the Amazonian carbon balance."

Carbon dioxide is the principal gas caused by human activity that
is implicated in global warming. The team says: "Logging and fire
can virtually eliminate previously undisturbed forest in regions
with seasonal drought and high concentrations of wood mills."

One area in eastern Amazonia, they say, was classified as 62% forested
according to conventional deforestation mapping techniques.

Satellites not enough

But they found that only about a tenth of the area classified as
forest actually supported undisturbed forest.

The researchers say: "Satellite-based deforestation monitoring is
an essential tool in studies of human effects on tropical forests,
because it documents the most extreme form of land use, over large areas, and at low cost.

"But this monitoring needs to be expanded to include forests affected
by logging and surface fire if it is to accurately reflect the full
magnitude of human influences on tropical forests."

******************************************************
Distribuido por: Distributed by:
'AMAZON ALLIANCE' FOR INDIGENOUS AND
TRADITIONAL PEOPLES OF THE AMAZON BASIN
1367 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 400
Washington, DC 20036-1860
tel (202)785-3334
fax (202)785-3335
amazoncoal@igc.org
http://www.amazoncoalition.org

Disclaimer: All copyrights belong to original publisher.
The Amazon Alliance has not verified the accuracy of the forwarded
message. Forwarding this message does not necessarily connote agreement
with the positions stated there-in.

Todos los derechos de autor pertenecen al autor originario.
La Alianza Amazonica no ha verificado la veracidad de este
mensaje. Enviar este mensaje no necesariamente significa que
la Alianza Amazonica este de acuerdo con el contenido.

La 'Alianza Amazonica' para los Pueblos Indigenas y Tradicionales
de la Cuenca Amazonica es una iniciativa nacida de la alianza entre
las organizaciones ambientales y de derechos humanos de la Coalicion
para los Pueblos Amazonicos y su Medio Ambiente y los pueblos indigenas
y tradicionales de la Amazonia. Las ochenta organizaciones del norte
y del sur activas en la Alianza Amazonica creen que el futuro de la
Amazonia depende de sus pueblos y el estado de su medio ambiente.

The 'Amazon Alliance' for Indigenous and Traditional Peoples of the
Amazon Basin is an initiative born out of the partnership between
the human rights and environmental organizations of the Coalition
for Amazonian Peoples and Their Environment and the indigenous and
traditional peoples of the Amazon. The eighty organizations from the
North and the South active in the Amazon Alliance believe that the
future of the Amazon depends on its peoples and the state of their
environment.

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