*[Enwl-eng] Amazon rainforest is breaking up – here's why
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Wed Aug 9 19:50:49 MSK 2023
why 'degradation' outpaces deforestation
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A summit attended by eight Amazon nations in the northern Brazilian
city of Belém has ended with an agreement to bolster regional cooperation in
protecting the Amazon rainforest, but no common goal to halt deforestation
by 2030.
Brazilian president and host Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva vowed to
reverse the "plundering" which he said typified his predecessor Jair
Bolsonaro's approach to the Amazon. His government has already had some
success: satellite images indicate deforestation in July 2023 was at least
60% lower than in July last year.
Tropical rainforests like the Amazon are vast carbon sinks which keep
global temperatures in check. Scientists are worried that deforestation and
hotter and drier weather caused by climate change is pushing this naturally
humid ecosystem to the brink of collapse. But "deforestation" is an
imprecise term which can sometimes obscure what is actually happening to the
world's largest rainforest – and who needs to act.
You're reading the Imagine newsletter – a weekly synthesis of academic
insight on solutions to climate change, brought to you by The Conversation.
I'm Jack Marley, energy and environment editor. This week, we're discussing
why a gathering of countries in South America matters for the whole world.
"Just 20% of the world’s tropical forests are classified as intact,"
says Tommaso Jucker, a lecturer in biology at the University of Bristol.
"The rest have been impacted by logging, mining, fires, or by the
expansion of roads or other human activities. And all this can happen
undetected by the satellites that monitor deforestation."
Reported rates of deforestation do not capture the full picture.
Jucker says that happening on a far bigger scale, at least in tropical
forests, is degradation: once uninterrupted forest being broken into
smaller, isolated parcels. Riddled with roads and perforated with mines and
saw mills, rainforests dry out quicker and can flip from a sink to a source
of the greenhouse gases driving climate change.
A new study has confirmed that a leading cause of forest degradation
in the Amazon is fire deliberately set to clear land for farming. July
usually marks the start of this clearing season in Brazil, which is partly
why many observers have been so impressed by the recent plunge in forest
loss.
A long-term solution must involve convincing farmers in the Amazon not
to set fires, say Federico Cammelli, Jos Barlow, and Rachael Garrett,
conservation experts at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich,
Lancaster University and the University of Cambridge respectively.
"Fire is so appealing to farmers because it does the work of
fertilisers, pesticides and labourers for free," they say. "First, they
leave the land fallow to recover after a few harvests and it’s overtaken by
pioneer plants and pests. The regrowing vegetation is then slashed and
burned, providing a low-cost way to clear debris and fertilise the land
while removing pests."
Cammelli, Barlow and Garrett have shown that slash and burn farming
degrades the soil and is less profitable in the long run than using
machinery, planting trees and rotating pastures. Their research suggested
farms using fire earned 63% less than those that didn't.
But poverty prevents many farmers from investing in these changes.
Once abundant rainfall and moist forests meant fires used to remain in areas
that had been cleared before, the trio say. Climate change has increased the
risk of crop fires burning out of control. In a survey they conducted with
580 farmers in the eastern Amazon, 43% said they were on the receiving end
of an escaped fire between 2014 and 2019.
"Just as the risk of escaped fires drives more farmers to light fires
of their own, it also discourages people from investing in their own fire
control measures," Cammelli, Barlow and Garrett add.
The world's responsibility
So, how to break this cycle? The trio say subsidising alternative
farming techniques "may be the best option". At the recent summit, the
leaders of the Amazon nations called on rich countries to help develop a
programme of aid akin to a Marshall Plan for the rainforest – money which
could help the region invest in more sustainable livelihoods.
Another recent study indicates that a global effort is indeed
necessary to stop the degradation of rainforests around the Earth's
equator – by tempering demand for forest products, including fossil fuels.
"While farming continues to drive deforestation around the world, 60%
of the destruction of Earth’s large, intact forests is caused by other
forces," say Siyi Kan and Bin Chen. Kan studies emission and trade analysis
at UCL while Chen is an environmental engineer at Fudan University, China.
"In particular, our research shows that more than one-third of this
destruction can be blamed on the production of commodities for export,
particularly timber, minerals and oil and gas."
Brazil is reported to be eyeing a potentially huge deposit of oil at
the mouth of the Amazon river. Colombian President Gustavo Petro urged Lula
to block new oil developments in the region, but no agreement was reached at
the summit.
Although 60% of the Amazon lies within Brazil, there are unique
threats to the world's largest rainforest in neighbouring countries. Victor
Galaz, an associate professor at Stockholm University's Resilience Centre,
describes the situation in Bolivia, where forest loss rose by a third last
year:
"The accelerated loss of tropical rainforest is the result of
destructive and familiar combination: increased global demand for
commodities such as soy and cattle, and extractive national and regional
policies with the explicit ambition to boost economic growth with little
consideration on its environmental impact."
- Jack Marley, Environment commissioning editor
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Imagine.
Forests are breaking up in the tropics but coming together elsewhere –
here’s what it means for wildlife and the climate
Forest fragmentation is causing the deepest and darkest parts of the
world’s forests to shrink.
Read more
In the Amazon, forest degradation is outpacing full deforestation
Forest that has been disturbed – but not cleared – by logging or fire
can be hard to spot from satellites.
Read more
Amazon fires trap farmers into poverty – and into setting more fires
Fires that burn the forest burn crops and pastures alike. But farmers
in the eastern Amazon are left with few good options.
Read more
Global supply chains are devouring what’s left of Earth’s unspoilt
forests
More than 60% of global intact forest loss is unrelated to farming,
our research shows
Read more
The forgotten Amazon: as a critical summit nears, politicians must
get serious about deforestation in Bolivia
Surging deforestation in Bolivia means the country now ranks as one of
the highest carbon emitters in the world.
Read more
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Sent: Wednesday, August 09, 2023 8:02 PM
Subject: Amazon rainforest is breaking up – here's why
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