Remainforest

Nepstad et al think an end to deforestation in the Amazon is possible.

Norway: one billion points

Fear, but not despair

I enjoy John Schellnhuber's deadpan style as much as anyone, and his warning should be taken seriously.

It's also good to see Yadvinder Malhi arguing against a counsel of despair regarding the Amazon:

I must say I find it frustrating that the gloomiest take on news gets such a big profile. This is based on one model, and that model has flaws (especially its temperature sensitivity that seems too great..., and its rainfall that seems too low... The danger is that that such apparent bad news makes all the efforts to conserve the Amazon forests worthless (why bother saving them if they are already doomed?), and encourages disengagement and hopelessness rather than action. If that conclusion was based on solid empirical science then so be it, but when such a story goes out on a pure model study (not yet peer-reviewed) with significant imperfections, it may do a lot of damage in the real world.

Amazonia burning

Could parts of Amazonia follow Australia?

new computer models suggest that, although the Amazon will not dry out as much as feared, humans clearing land with fire pose a huge risk as the region dries.

'Climate Change and the Fate of the Amazon'

Timmons Roberts circulates a note that the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B has recently released online for free download the full special issue on Climate Change and the Fate of the Amazon.

To coincide with publication, Royal Society Publishing has also set up an online forum, dedicated to the same subject.

Articles here. Forum here.

[In Papua New Guinea, a study finds that he countries forests were being cleared or degraded at a rate of 1.4% per year in 2002, increasing to 1.7% per year in 2007. If clearing and degradation continues unchecked, over half of the forest that existed when PNG became independent from Australia in 1975 will have been destroyed by 2021, according to the report. The Brazilian Amazon is losing forest at the rate of 0.9% per year (New Scientist).]

Stop and think

Today we are living through the challenge of prevention, of looking twice before doing something, discussing twice before doing something. Because each thing that we alter can lead to ... dramatic consequences. Those who celebrated the industrial revolution never thought that we were injuring the planet, almost fatally. We didn't have this knowledge. Today we know.

-- Marina Silva

Deforestation

Marina Silva goes, "definitively defeated". A prince chips in.

Mauricio Torres says

The idea that the caboclo way of life is environmentally destructive is not supported by my research. Communities have often been there for generations, living sustainably. To deny their achievements is a convenient lie - one that allows large companies and their government vassals to justify land grabs.

Eating the forest

Garimpeiros work from daybreak to sundown and sleep in hammocks on site. Even though they live with the hope of striking it rich, the reality is that their lives are spent in what is almost bonded labour. The workmen are entitled to only a 30% share of the gold found at the mine. The rest goes to the owner of the motor, usually a businessman living in a city miles away.

One typical mine being operated by a handful of men was producing just 15g (half an ounce) of gold a day - almost £200 - leaving less than £10 a day each for the workers.

While in other circumstances this could be an acceptable wage, the garimpeiros never leave the rainforest, face endemic malaria and settle disputes by the law of the gun. Their wages are all spent on food, drink and prostitutes.

-- from Illegal, polluting and dangerous: the gold rush in French Guiana by Alex Bellos

Burn baby, burn

Yadvinder Malhi and his colleagues have published an overview paper, Climate Change, Deforestation, and the Fate of the Amazon, drawing on work from their valuable conference earlier this year (which I mentioned in my third caveat here).

Some of the introductory faclets are likely to be familiar: Amazonia hosts about a quarter of the world’s terrestrial species. Some may be less so. For example, Amazonia accounts for about 15% of global terrestrial photosynthesis, and its forests been a significant and continuous part of earth system functioning since the Cretaceous.

Predicted temperature changes more than a little dramatic:

In recent decades the rate of warming in Amazonia has been about 0.25 °C per decade. Under mid-range GHG emission scenarios, temperatures are projected to rise 3.3 °C (range 1.8–5.1 oC) this century, slightly more in the interior in the dry season, or by up to 8 °C if significant forest dieback affects regional biophysical properties. At the end of the last glacial period, Amazonia warmed at only ~0.1 °C per century.

But there are scraps that suggest that not all is necessarily unmitigated gloom. For example:

There is mounting evidence …that intact Amazonian forests are more resilient (though not invulnerable) to climatic drying than is currently represented in vegetation-climate models...The probability of significantly enhanced drought under mid-range greenhouse gas emissions scenarios ranges from > 60% in the southeast to <20% in the west.

The authors sketch a climate reslience plan, which includes:

1. Keep the total extent of deforestation safely below possible climatic threshold values (about 30–40% cleared), in a matrix that includes large protected areas with limited fragmentation, and managed landscapes (…).
2. Control fire use through both education and regulation, probably for net economic benefit (…).
3. Maintain broad species migration corridors in ecotonal areas that are most likely to show early signals of climate impacts (…).
4. Conserve river corridors to act as humid refugia and migration corridors for terrestrial ecosystems, sedimentation buffers, and as refugia for aquatic systems (…).
5. Keep the core northwest Amazon largely intact as a biological refuge that hosts the highest biodiversity and is the least vulnerable to climatic drying (…).

They ask whether such a plan is feasible. ‘Recent developments suggest the good governance is achievable’...[but]...in particular, new financial incentives are needed to act as a countervailing force to the economic pressures for deforestation.’