[Mb-civic] CBC News - LOGGING DAMAGE IN AMAZON UNDERESTIMATED, SATELLITES SHOW

Thu Oct 20 16:22:22 PDT 2005

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LOGGING DAMAGE IN AMAZON UNDERESTIMATED, SATELLITES SHOW
WebPosted Thu Oct 20 15:56:36 2005

---The area of land cleared of trees in the Amazon is twice the estimate,
according to a new study of the environmental damage from previously
undetected logging.

Satellites record clear cuts, where all the trees on a swath of land are
removed to make room for farming or grazing.

"Selective logging," or the loss of individual trees from a forest,
wasn't detected as deforestation because satellites were unable to
penetrate the upper forest canopy.

Using new high-resolution satellite imaging techniques, researchers at
the Carnegie Institution of Washington have detected openings in the
forest canopy down to one tree.

Once selective logging is taken into account, the deforested area is
estimated to be 60 per cent to 128 per cent larger than the official
records for 1999 and 2002.

The results "proved that traditional analytical methods missed about 50
per cent of the canopy damage caused by timber harvesting operations,"
the team wrote in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

Previous research has shown the environmental damage of logging, such
as light drying out the forest floor, increasing its susceptibility
to burning.

The study's lead author, Gregory Asner of the Carnegie Institution's
Department of Global Ecology, said other problems of selective logging
include: The use of tractors that rip up the soil. Declines in animals
from insects to jaguars. An extra 25 per cent more greenhouse gases
entering the atmosphere from decomposition of litter, on top of the
estimated 400 tons of carbon that enter the atmosphere from traditional
clear cuts.

"Logged forests are areas of extraordinary damage," Asner said in a
statement. "A tree crown can be 25 metres. When you knock down a tree
it causes a lot of damage in the understorey. It's a debris field
down there."

The researchers plan to provide the results to the Brazilian government
to help them fight illegal logging.