Widespread Burnings in Amazonian Area
10/2/97
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Headline: Widespread Burnings in Amazonian Area
Source: News From Brazil
Date: 10/2/97
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NEWS FROM BRAZIL supplied by SEJUP (Servico Brasileiro de Justica
e Paz).
Number 288, October 02, 1997.
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ECOLOGY
- Widespread burnings in Amazonian area.
Newspaper reports in recent days show that forest burnings
have increased in recent months in Brazil especially in the
Amazonian region. According to the 'Folha de Sao Paulo' of
October 01, 38.6 thousand such burnings were registered in all of
Brazil during the months of July, August and September of this
year. This compares with a total of 32.9 thousand such burnings
during the same period last year - an increase of 17%.
In Mato Grosso alone during the month of September, 6
thousand burnings were registered by satellites. In the State of
Para, 6600 burnings were registered between July and September of
1996 as compared to 8800 during the same period this year - an
increase of 33%.
The burnings have left much smoke in the air in these
regions and has been responsible for problems in many of the
airports. The airport of Maraba, State of Para, needed to use
instruments to help planes land during 120 hours in September -
the visibility was seriously impaired. The airport in Imperatriz,
State of Maranhao, experienced such difficulties during 32 hours
in September while the airport in Carajas, State of Para, was
forced to close on two occasions. On September 29 smoke was
responsible for a 40% increase in the number of people who sought
medical aid in hospitals because of problems with breathing in
the city of Manaus, Amazonas. Pilots claim that visibility
approaching the city is usually over 5 thousand meters; during
recent days at best it has been between 2 thousand and 5 thousand
meters.
During the last week we received the following study on this
question prepared by the Environmental Defense Fund which we
would like to share with you.
ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND
1875 Connecticut Ave., NW, 10th Fl.
Washington, D.C. 20009
Steve Schwartzman: steves@edf.org
Telephone: (202) 387-3500
Facsimile: (202) 234-6049
Fires in the Amazon - An Analysis of NOAA-12 satellite data
1996 - 1997
Stephan Schwartzman
Environmental Defense Fund
September 23, 1997
Analysis of NOAA satellite data indicates that burning in
the Brazilian Amazon increased 28% between 1996 and 1997. A
sample of 41 consecutive days for which data are available
starting from 08/01/96 (08/01/96 - 09/16/96) and 41 consecutive
days for which data are available starting 08/01/97 (08/01/97 -
09/21/97) shows the increased burning. The sample was selected
taking the first 41 days starting August 1st 1997 for which NOAA
12 data could be obtained from the National Institute for Space
Research (INPE) (http://condor.dsa.inpe.br.mapas_ que) and the
first 41 days starting August 1st 1996, in order to create
comparable data sets from the burning season in the two years.
Occurrence and distribution of fires is observed from thermal
anomalies in data from NOAA satellite Advanced Very-High
Resolution Radiometers (AVHRR). Images are processed and fires
counted by INPE from June to November.
A total of 19,115 fires are reported from the NOAA-12
satellite images in the sample in 1996, while 24,549 fires appear
in the 1997 data over the period, an increase of 28%. The
average number of fires per day increased from 466 to 599. The
actual increase for the year may be even greater, since 1997 is
drier than 1996 and burning continues. INPE has not yet released
analysis of deforestation, based on Landsat Thematic Mapper
images, for 1995 or 1996. Increased burning, however, strongly
suggests that deforestation rates continue to rise. The most
recent deforestation analysis, released last year, showed that
forest clearing had risen about 34% between 1991 and 1994,
reaching 14,896 square kilometers a year.1/
Burning was concentrated principally in the Amazon states of
Mato Grosso, and Para, followed by Tocantins, Rondonia and
Maranhao. Half of the fires registered in 1997 were in Mato
Grosso alone. The state of Mato Grosso has since 1992 been the
beneficiary of a $205 million World Bank loan intended to halt
deforestation -- the Mato Grosso Natural Resource Management
Program.
These data underestimate the actual number of fires
probably by an order of magnitude, since the NOAA-12 satellite
passes over the Amazon region at night, recording only the
largest and longest- burning conflagrations. Fires to burn
cleared forest and pasture are started in the daytime. Previous
analyses of burning relied on the NOAA-14 satellite, which orbits
the region during the day, and thus records much higher totals.2/
Use of the NOAA-14 satellite data to calculate the number of
fires during the burning season was discontinued by the Brazilian
government, under the allegation that sun glint, the reflection
of the sun from bodies of water or the earth during the Amazon
dry season, could erroneously register as burning on the
satellite's sensors, inflating the number of fires.
While analysis of the NOAA-12 data under-counts the actual
number of fires, comparison of the data from two years does yield
a reliable estimate of change in burning activity.
The number of fires is not a direct measure of new
deforestation, because old cattle pasture and secondary forest
is typically burned every year, in addition to forest newly
felled for cattle ranching. Burning in areas not previously
cleared is a good indication of new deforestation, and increased
burning in past years has in fact presaged increased
deforestation.
Of the 12% to 13% of the forested area of the Amazon cleared
and burned to date, an area about the size of California, only
about 12% is farmed. The rest is cattle pasture, and most new
forest clearing is for the creation of cattle pasture. New areas
are typically first made accessible to ranching and agriculture
by building of logging roads, particularly for mahogany
extraction.
Were the 28% increase in burning to represent an equal
increase in the annual deforestation rate, and were such an
increase to have occurred twice in the three years since 1994,
when the last deforestation data were released, the current rate
would be higher than 21,130 square kilometers per year recorded
by INPE between 1978 - 1988.
The variations in annual deforestation rates since the end
of the 1980s are in part explained by economic cycles. As
Brazil's economic stabilization plan takes hold and growth picks
up, most observers expect increased deforestation.
Equally important is that since 1989, Brazil's environmental
agency (IBAMA) has had no statutory authority to enforce
environmental legislation. A recent Brazilian national security
agency (SAE) report on forestry policy concluded that 80% of the
timber produced in the Amazon is extracted illegally.3/ The
environmental agency collects about 6.5% of the fines it levies.
The 1965 Forestry Code specified penalties to be applied by the
courts, but failed to authorize executive agencies to enforce the
law. This was temporarily rectified by executive order during the
military dictatorship (Decreto-Lei 289/67), but under the 1988
Constitution this order should have been made law by the Congress
within 180 days, but was not. Consequently, IBAMA is powerless
to levy fines, apprehend timber stolen from public lands or
otherwise carry out its mandate. There is thus practically no
environmental law enforcement in the Amazon. The government
introduced draft legislation that would enable IBAMA to function
in 1991; only in 1997 did the legislation pass the Senate and it
is now blocked in the House of Representatives.
Researchers at the Institute of People and the Environment
in the Amazon (IMAZON) have shown that current fire use practices
act synergistically with selective logging in the region to
promote fire, even in normally fire-resistant living forests.4/
Individual fires of this type may encompass hundreds or even
thousands of square kilometers of forest. Amazonian forest fires
(as opposed to burning of felled forest) take place under the
tree canopy and may not be detected by current satellite methods.
IMAZON estimates that for every hectare of forest that is cut
down and burns, at least one more hectare burns beneath the
canopy. Mortality of trees subjected to even light fires can be
40%-50%. Once burned, a forest is much more likely to burn again
in subsequent years. These recurrent forest fires have been
shown to reduce living biomass in the forest by as much as 80%.
This implies carbon emissions that are not accounted for in
current estimates, which are based solely on deforestation.
Increased burning may provoke unexpected larger
consequences. The Woods Hole Research Institute and Institute of
Environmental Research in the Amazon (IPAM) estimate that as much
as half of the forest, in the eastern and southern Amazon where
deforestation and burning have been heaviest, is near the limit
of its capacity to remain evergreen during the Amazonian dry
season. With the drier climate predicted by climate models could
become flammable. Under these circumstances, much larger
conflagrations consuming larger areas of the forest and
increasing carbon emissions drastically become a serious risk.
End Notes:
1. InforMMA. Ministerio de Meio Ambiente, dos Recursos Hidricos e
da Amazonia Legal, 31 de julho 1996.
2. A.W. Setzer and M.C. Pereira. Ambio 20, 19 1991; Amazon is
Burning Again?, Diana Schemo New York Times, October 12, 1995.
3. Secretaria de Assuntos Estrategicos. Grupo de Trabalho sobre
Politica Florestal: A Exploracao Madeireira na Amazonia.
Relatorio. Brasalia, 08 de abril de 1997.
4. Mark Cochrane and M. Schulze, Fire as a recurrent event in
tropical forests of the eastern Amazon. In press, Biotropic.
(NEWS FROM BRAZIL note: The letters on the tables below denote
the following states:
AC = Acre; AM = Amazonas; MA = Maranhao; MT = Mato Grosso; PA
= Para; RO = Rondonia; TO = Tocantins)
Fires Detected by NOAA 12 in August & September 1996
Source: National Institute of Space Research;
hhtp://condor.dsa.inpe.br.mapas_que
AC AM MA MT PA RO TO Daily Totals
8/1 7 73 96 40 216
8/2 5 3 59 24 91
8/3 49 49
8/4 2 1 91 47 69 7 217
8/5 0
8/6 8 68 71 34 181
8/7 10 5 66 13 94
8/8 289 23 23 5 340
8/9 11 472 127 13 12 635
8/10 4 3 269 223 18 517
8/11 14 53 43 31 141
8/12 3 2 5
8/13 9 319 42 104 3 477
8/14 1 4 295 54 33 14 401
8/15 13 118 13 16 160
8/16 4 34 36 11 85
8/19 1 1 276 185 41 504
8/20 21 58 165 59 303
8/21 31 6 29 8 74
8/22 4 10 257 83 34 12 400
8/23 5 7 593 296 16 40 957
8/25 47 112 298 36 493
8/26 5 377 7 120 509
8/27 704 87 88 25 904
8/28 3 7 785 227 33 124 1179
8/29 39 289 72 126 526
8/31 2 342 1 312 4 661
9/1 2 11 72 164 26 35 310
9/3 41 21 199 114 375
9/4 11 40 3 54
9/5 12 8 208 18 238 26 510
9/6 24 437 131 23 151 766
9/7 42 326 457 292 1117
9/8 30 55 201 88 374
9/10 1 12 269 127 2 113 524
9/11 55 370 508 2 305 240
9/12 106 222 311 301 940
9/13 32 18 76 126
9/14 2 5 459 15 75 18 574
9/15 11 413 261 26 265 976
9/16 60 314 429 307 1110
Totals 20 57 878 8895 5229 1237 2799
Grand 19115
Total
Fires Detected by NOAA 12 in August & September 1997
Source: Source: National Institute of Space Research;
hhtp://condor.dsa.inpe.br.mapas_que
AC AM MA MT PA RO TO Daily Totals
8/1 41 409 95 4 2 551
8/3 1 19 82 231 23 356
8/4 22 5 75 20 122
8/5 1 292 54 2 349
8/7 4 19 298 849 40 1210
8/8 26 54 312 45 437
8/9 17 70 12 99
8/12 16 135 57 26 234
8/13 21 21 73 14 129
8/14 272 17 66 355
8/15 1 415 48 21 9 494
8/16 0
8/17 59 141 462 54 716
8/20 19 17 696 487 35 56 1310
8/21 68 423 591 90 1172
8/22 77 68 300 46 491
8/24 8 534 87 92 4 725
8/26 78 330 273 97 778
8/27 75 9 248 84 416
8/28 4 2 815 54 333 5 1213
8/29 4 3 1437 238 44 73 1799
8/30 1 29 862 359 280 1531
8/31 67 78 287 67 499
9/1 29 42 41 112
9/2 2 797 30 80 52 961
9/3 2 15 804 169 35 132 1157
9/5 67 21 148 70 306
9/7 2 454 18 176 32 682
9/8 23 27 296 222 67 635
9/9 54 94 78 70 296
9/10 63 48 5 116
9/12 3 37 507 312 14 83 956
9/14 90 6 191 138 425
9/15 189 1 117 307
9/16 5 465 40 104 105 719
9/17 4 25 458 209 25 48 769
9/18 129 5 171 84 389
9/19 60 84 70 214
9/20 21 1 502 7 71 602
9/21 1 7 170 32 3 213
Totals 27 115 1271 12488 7272 1219 2157
Grand 24549
Total
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