Bad Amazon News: Deforestation Up 21% in Rondonia & Fires Intensify
12/17/97
OVERVIEW, SOURCE & COMMENTARY by EE
Following are two items that relay more bad news for the Amazon.
SEJUP reveals that deforestation in Rondonia State has increased by
20.6% during the last two years. The Environmental Defense Fund
indicates that based on satellite images, the number of fires in the
Brazilian Amazon between July and November increased over 50% between
1996 and 1997. There is persistent and ominous change occurring in
the World's biological systems, evident in rainforests, as the forces
of biological diminishment are not being balanced by
regeneration/renewal. The Amazon's spiral into a much-reduced
ecological state is intensifying. Planetary well being depends upon
maintenance of healthy managed and preserved forests--of which the
Amazon is of course foremost. Loss of the remaining intact forest
ecosystems will have implications for us all.
g.b.
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
ITEM #1
Title: Deforestation in Rondonia increases by 20.6%
Source: SEJUP
Status: Distribute freely with accreditation
Date: December 4, 1997
=================================================================
NEWS FROM BRAZIL supplied by SEJUP (Servico Brasileiro de Justica
e Paz).
Number 295, December 04,
1997.=================================================================
ECOLOGY
- Deforestation in Rondonia increases by 20.6%
According to data of the State Environmental Secretariat of
the State of Rondonia quoted in the 'Folha de Sao Paulo' on
November 30, deforestation in the state has increased by 20.6%
during the last two years. Until 1994, 4267228 hectares had been
deforested there. At the end of 1996 the area with forest cleared
in the state amounted to 5149386 hectares or 21.6% of the area of
the entire state.
''By the end of the current year we expect that the total
area deforested will reach 5.4 million hectares which is 22.7% of
the state.... There is a tendency for the deforestation rate to
even out but the problem is that this stabilization is taking
place when deforestation rates are very high'' commented forester
Ernaldo Matricardi, a functionary of the State Secretariat, in
the Folha report. He forecasts that approximately 270 thousand
hectares (1.1% of the total area of the state) will be deforested
during the current year - a figure close to that of last year.
According to Mr. Matricardi the worse period of deforestation was
between 1993 and 1995 when the Brazilian economy showed a renewed
growth - ''During this period deforestation was significantly
higher when compared to previous years'' he commented.
A number of reasons seem to be largely responsible;e for the
high rates of deforestation at that time - the increase in cattle
ranching and the occupation of new areas along the BR-429 and BR-
421 highways. Another reason was that a number of ranchers
cleared large areas on their properties at the time in order to
escape having their lands classified as unused and there apt for
exappropriation for agrarian reform projects.
The Folha article quotes Roberto Smeraldi, director of the
Brazilian office of the Friends of the Earth as commenting that
what is happening in Rondonia indicates that the same is
happening in other Amazonian states. The conclusions of the
Rondonia State Secretariat were based on data taken from the
Landsat satellite.
Meanwhile the National Institute of Space Surveys (INPE)
announced that new deforestation data referring to the Amazonian
region for 1995 and 1996 due to be publish last week would be
ready by mid December. A spokesperson for the Institute commented
that the delay was due to difficulties in analyzing some of the
images sent by the Landsat satellite. The spokesperson denied
that the Institute was delaying publication of the data until
after the Kyoto International Convention which finishes on
December 10. Some environmental activists suspect that if the
data were released before the Convention Brazil would be
suspected to very severe criticism for the increasing rate of
deforestation in the Amazonian region.
ITEM #1
Title: Fires in the Amazon: an analysis of NOAA-12 satellite data
Source: Environmental Defense Fund
Status: Distribute freely with accreditation
Date: December 1, 1997
ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND
1875 Connecticut Ave., NW, 10th Fl.
Washington, D.C. 20009
Telephone: (202) 387-3500
Facsimile: (202) 234-6049; steves@edf.org
Fires in the Amazon:
an analysis of NOAA-12 satellite data, 1996 - 1997.
Stephan Schwartzman
December 1, 1997
The number of fires in the Brazilian Amazon between July
and November increased over 50% between 1996 and 1997. The
NOAA-12 satellite recorded 29,571 fires in the Amazon region on
136 days between July 1, 1996 and November 30, 1996 and 44,734
fires on 118 days between July 1, 1997 and November 22, 1997, an
increase of over 50% from 1996 to 1997, even though data are
available for fewer days in 1997 than in 1996. The average
number of fires per day increased 75%, from 217 in 1996, to 379
in 1997. A previous analysis, based on a more limited sample
earlier in the year, had shown a smaller increase. 1/
The data are generated by the Advanced Very High Resolution
Radiometer (AVHRR) on the NOAA-12 weather satellite, which
detects thermal anomalies, and passes over the Amazon daily.
Fires are mapped and counted by the National Institute for Space
Research (INPE) in Brazil (http://condor.dsa.inpe.br/mapas_que).
The largest differences between the two years occurred in
November and October, and result from increased economic
activity, particularly burning of cattle pasture. The difference
also reflects the extended dry season of 1997 caused by El Nino.
Normally seasonal rains start in late September or early October
in most of the Amazon, curtailing fires. 5/ In 1997, airports
were still closing because of thick haze in November. The
satellite recorded 2,638 fires in 22 days in November 1997, as
opposed to 1,542 in 27 days in November 1996, an increase of
71%, over fewer days. In October 1997, 10,305 fires appear in 28
days, over three times more than the 3,119 counted for 26 days
in October 1996.
The actual number of fires in the Amazon in both years is
considerably higher than the totals obtained by the NOAA-12
satellite, for two reasons. The NOAA satellites, because of their
trajectories and the locations of current receiving stations,
cover the northern and western Amazon poorly. In addition, the
NOAA-12 satellite passes over the region at night, when the
number of fires is lower than during the day. INPE stopped
analyzing NOAA-14 images, taken during the day, for the burning
season of 1996, arguing that solar reflection on hot days could
be confused with fires by the satellite's sensors and inflate the
number of fires. While the NOAA-12 images thus under-count
fires, comparison of data sets from different years does show
changes in the level of burning.
New research from the region strongly suggests that fires
themselves are rapidly becoming at least as great a threat to the
biological integrity of the Amazon as is deforestation, as well
as increasing Brazil's contribution to global CO2 and other
greenhouse gas emissions. Fires are set in the Amazon to burn off
cleared primary forest, and also to burn old cattle pastures and
secondary forest areas. Deforestation per se accounts for only a
relatively small part of the fires every year. Some 70% of the
fires burn on land already deforested. 2/
The Woods Hole Research Center and the Institute for
Amazonian Environmental Research (IPAM) have shown that
selective logging and ground fires - fires that burn largely
undetected by the satellites, beneath the forest canopy - are
degrading an area approximately equal to the area deforested
annually in recent years. Selective logging, as studies by the
Institute for Man and Nature in the Amazon (IMAZON) show,
contributes to the flammability of the forest through opening up
the canopy and leaving combustible material behind. 3/ Ground
fires, often in previously logged areas or areas bordering
already deforested lands, in conjunction with dry weather, are
making the forest dryer. The increased burning this year means
that ground fires, which may cover hundreds or even thousands of
square kilometers, also increased, even though they do not
appear in the satellite images. Deforestation, according to
INPE's last figures (for 1994), was about 15,000 square
kilometers a year. This means that a similar area, unrecorded by
satellite images, is being degraded through selective logging
and ground fires annually.
The Woods Hole, IMAZON and other new findings indicate that
CO2 emissions and other global climatic effects of Amazon fires
have heretofore been underestimated, by as much as 30%. Recent
long- term research on forest fragments in the Amazon shows that
up to 36% of biomass is lost in fragments within 100 meters of
edges in the first 10 - 17 years after fragmentation. The
authors conclude that decline in biomass in forest fragments
could be a significant, and uncounted, source of greenhouse
gases such as CO2. 4/
The Woods Hole Research Center/IPAM research on fires has
identified an alarming new trend. Much of the forest of the
eastern and southern Amazon, which depends on deep-soil water
reserves to stay green in the dry season, is becoming flammable
because of logging and drought. Hitherto, virgin forest has
prevented the spread of fires because it was too moist to burn.
Should large parts of the intact forest dry out enough to burn,
as appears to be occurring, much quicker and larger scale
destruction of the forest becomes possible, in a vicious circle
of drying - larger fires - more drying. The Woods Hole group set
an experimental fire in intact closed forest in Par? state for
the first time this year. These results show that the rate of
deforestation of formerly intact primary forest, as measured by
analysis of Landsat images - formerly considered the central
indicator of forest destruction -- is no longer the only
significant, or even the most urgent, threat to the forest.
Should intact closed forest begin to burn, a previously
incremental process (the loss of 0.4%, or 0.5% of the forested
area of the Amazon to deforestation yearly, as was the case in
the 1980s and 1990s) could become a catastrophic positive
feedback loop. Climate models predict a slightly drier climate in
tropical areas under global warming.
While increased burning involves hundreds of thousands of
actors spread across a continental region, much can be done to
address the problem. One half of the area burned in 1994 and
1995 resulted from accidental fires . These fires have
substantial costs for small and large farmers alike and benefit
no one. Efforts to assist rural Amazonians to prevent accidental
fires (through fire breaks or enforcing compensation for fires
that damage others' property), and to rely less on the use of
fire for agriculture (through mechanization) would make a
difference. In addition, passage of the Environmental Crimes
Act, currently stalled in the Brazilian House of
Representatives, would give the Brazilian environmental agency,
IBAMA, statutory authority to enforce the law, including
restrictions on burning and deforestation, for the first time
since 1989.
Whether or not deforestation rates have increased in the
Amazon will only be known with the release of INPE's analysis of
Landsat images. INPE has promised to release data for 1995 and
1996 by end of the year. Increased burning, and new research
results on the effects of fire, however, unequivocally
demonstrate that the rate of deforestation is no longer the only
important indicator of threat to the biological integrity of the
Amazon forest. Under current conditions of drought stress, fire
itself may rapidly become the vector of greater and much quicker
destruction than previously imagined possible, with potentially
enormous global repercussions.
Notes:
1. Fires in the Amazon - an analysis of NOAA 12 satellite data
1996 - 1997. Environmental Defense Fund, September 23, 1997.
2. Fires in the Brazilian Amazon: The Story from the Ground.
November 1997. Woods Hole Research Center.
3 Fire as a recurrent event in tropical forests of the eastern
Amazon. Mark Cochrane and M. Schulze, in press. Biotropic.
4. Biomass collapse in Amazonian forest fragments. W.F.
Laurance et al, Science, Vol. 278, 7 November 1997 pp 1117-
1118.
5. Fires in Brazilian Amazonia: The story from the ground.
Ibid.
Summary of Analysis for 1996
July 1740
Aug 10293
Sep 12877
Oct 3119
Nov 1542
Actual Fires Counted 29571
Number of Days in Period 153
Data Days Available 136
Average No. Counted per day 217
Summary of Analysis for 1997
July 2453
Aug 14986
Sep 14352
Oct 10305
Nov 2638
Actual Fires Counted 44734
Number of Days in Period 153
Data Days Available 118
Average No. Counted per day 379
Note: Daily fire totals broken down by state are available on
request for July-November for 1996 and 1997.