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kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #250 on: November 14, 2020, 06:39:10 PM »
Scientists discover what types of forests store CO2 best

Forests help mitigate carbon dioxide emissions by capturing it. To make the most of this natural phenomenon, an international team of scientists led by the University of Geneva (UNIGE) has defined which types of forests can store the most carbon and under what conditions.

...

Two opposing hypotheses are at the basis of their work.

A first hypothesis suggests that species diversity would allow for denser stacking and niche compartmentalisation that would favour the abundance of trees within a forest. This abundance would increase the forest’s carbon storage capacity.

According to the other hypothesis, it is not diversity that allows tree abundance but the availability of energy substrate. Areas with higher energy content allow more trees to thrive per unit area and thus increase carbon recapture.

In order to determine which hypothesis is most likely, the researchers used inventory data from forests on five continents. Their conclusion is clear: species diversity is optimal for equatorial and tropical rainforests, but in forests in cold or dry regions it is the abundance of trees rather than their diversity that favours CO2 recapture.

...

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/scientists-discover-what-types-of-forests-store-co2-best/46161820
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kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #251 on: November 17, 2020, 12:03:51 PM »
B.C. just cut back logging limits on Haida Gwaii. But is it enough to protect these ancient, carbon-rich forests?

B.C.’s chief forester has cut back logging limits on Haida Gwaii, protecting goshawk nesting habitat and cedar for Indigenous cultural use, but critics are calling for a moratorium on harvesting some of the world’s most carbon-rich forests.

The archipelago of more than 150 islands off B.C.’s northwest coast is home to ancient cedar, spruce and hemlock forests and many plants and animals not found anywhere else. Its incredible biodiversity has earned it the moniker “the Galapagos of the North.”

Decades of intensive logging on the archipelago decimated those forests and led to conflicts that ultimately resulted in the 1988 establishment of Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site, a protected area of nearly 1,500 square kilometres. But beyond the boundaries of the conservation area and other protected areas on the islands, clearcut logging continues.

Lisa White-Kuuyang, a Haida weaver from Old Masset and long-time advocate for protecting old-growth forests on the islands, said continuing to clear cut Haida Gwaii forests threatens Haida culture and the sustainability of the archipelago’s unique ecosystem.

“The disrespectful devastation to the land is not acceptable,” she told The Narwhal.

Suzanne Simard, a forest ecologist and professor at the University of British Columbia, agreed.

“These super-rich carbon areas from Northern California to Alaska should be just de facto preserved if we have any hope at all of trying to meet our global carbon targets,” she said. “As soon as we start cutting these forests, it’s like we’re just blowing a big hole into our ability to meet any of that.”

Last month’s decision by B.C.’s chief forester set the total annual allowable cut for the three main commercial logging areas on Haida Gwaii at 776,000 cubic metres, enough to fill 20,000 logging trucks. Those trees will come from 15 per cent of the archipelago and most of them will come from old-growth forests. The majority of the trees cut on Haida Gwaii are shipped by barge to mills on the Lower Mainland or directly overseas.

and more on:
https://thenarwhal.ca/haida-gwaii-bc-logging-limits-2020/
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gerontocrat

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #252 on: November 17, 2020, 11:02:12 PM »
Indonesia has not treated the Melanesians of Papua well. The forest destruction is but one example.

And even the Forestry Stewardhip Commission (FSC)  is a bad joke. My brother, a good few years back, was in the Philippines having set up a Forestry NGO there (occasionally a dangerous occupation). He always reckoned that the FSC existed mainly to provide cover to the bad guys.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-54798452
The burning scar: Inside the destruction of Asia’s last rainforests

A Korean palm oil giant has been buying up swathes of Asia's largest remaining rainforests. A visual investigation published today suggests fires have been deliberately set on the land.
Quote
The rich forests in the remote province of Papua had until recently escaped relatively untouched, but the government is now rapidly opening the area to investors, vowing to bring prosperity to one of the poorest regions in the country. Korindo controls more land in Papua than any other conglomerate. The company has cleared nearly 60,000 hectares of forests inside its government-granted concessions - an area the size of Chicago or Seoul - and the company's vast plantation there is protected by state security forces.



Quote
Many of the tribal allegations against Korindo were investigated for two years by the Forest Stewardship Council. The regulator's tree logo - found on paper products throughout the UK and Europe - is meant to tell consumers the product is sourced from ethnically and sustainable companies. The FSC report into allegations against Korindo was never published, after legal threats from the company, but the BBC obtained a copy.

The report found "evidence beyond reasonable doubt" that Korindo's palm oil operation destroyed 30,000 hectares of high conservation forest in breach of FSC regulations; that Korindo was, "on the balance of probability … supporting the violation of traditional and human rights for its own benefit"; and was "directly benefitting from the military presence to gain an unfair economic advantage" by "providing unfair compensation rates to communities".

"There was no doubt that Korindo had been in violation of our rules. That was very clear," Kim Carstensen, the FSC's executive director, told the BBC at the group's headquarters in Germany.

The report recommended unequivocally that Korindo be expelled from the body. But the recommendation was rejected by the FSC board - a move environmental groups say undermined the credibility of the organisation. A letter sent to the FSC board in August, signed by 19 local environmental groups, said the groups could no long rely on the body "to be a useful certification tool to promote forest conservation and respect for community rights and livelihoods".

Mr Carstensen, the executive director, defended the decision to allow Korindo to stay. "These things have happened, right? Is the best thing to do to say they were in breach of our values so we're not going to have anything to do with you anymore?" he said.

"The logic of the board has been, 'We want to see the improvements happen'."
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Tom_Mazanec

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #253 on: December 09, 2020, 03:08:40 PM »
Protecting forests can prevent future pandemics, and we all have roles to play
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/iowa-view/2020/12/08/pandemic-prevention-must-include-protections-forests-all-can-help/6479129002/
Quote
Our use of the land has contributed to the pandemic. Better management would take into account the need for maintaining ecosystem biodiversity.

vox_mundi

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #254 on: December 18, 2020, 11:12:35 PM »
Some Tropical Forests in Brazil Are Already Releasing More Carbon Than They Absorb
https://earther.gizmodo.com/some-tropical-forests-in-brazil-are-already-releasing-m-1845914059

For years, climate scientists have been sounding the alarm about the increasing likelihood that the Amazon rainforest, now one of the biggest absorbers of carbon in the world, could actually become a source of carbon within just 15 years. New research shows that for some other kinds of tropical forests nearby, that’s already happening.

That’s due in large part to intentional forest burning. In South America, mining, cattle ranching, and soybean farming industries frequently set trees ablaze to make room for their operations, turning forests into open pastures.

That means forests contain less foliage to suck greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere. To make matters worse, when a tree catches fire, it releases all the carbon it sequestered in its lifetime, meaning the forests become a source of planet-warming emissions. And amid the climate crisis, this problem is even more severe, because amid hotter and drier conditions, the forests don’t produce enough humidity to quickly put out the flames, meaning more area burns with less effort.

A new study, published in Science Advances on Friday, aimed to see how South American forests’ carbon intake has changed in recent years. To do so, the authors analyzed greenhouse gas monitoring data from 1987 to 2020 on 32 deciduous, semi-deciduous, and evergreen forests—each of which has seen deforestation—in the lush state of Minas Gerais in southeastern Brazil. Altogether, the area they examined spanned some 81.5 acres (33 hectares).

By plugging this data into statistical models, the authors found that on average, these forests are now sucking up 2.6% less carbon per year than they were 33 years ago. At the same time, the forests’ carbon output from fires increased by 3.4% per year, meaning overall, they’re losing their ability to absorb the gas. These changes were enough to push the forests over the edge from carbon sinks to carbon sources. The authors fear their findings may be able to be extrapolated to tropical forests in the region as a whole.

The data shows that the switch happened in 2013. That year, on average, the examined forests released 0.14 U.S. tons per 2.5 acres (0.13 metric tons of carbon per hectare), or the equivalent output of driving 323 miles in a diesel car.

The authors’ findings are particularly troubling because separate research recently found that the importance of tropical forests’ carbon sequestering is nearly as important as that of the Amazon rainforest.

Vinícius Andrade Maia, et.al, The carbon sink of tropical seasonal forests in southeastern Brazil can be under threat, Science Advances, (2020)
https://advances.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abd4548
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kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #255 on: January 06, 2021, 11:04:40 AM »
Quote
Deforestation in Indonesia

From a policy standpoint, 2020 was a disastrous year for Indonesia’s forests. The omnibus bill that passed in October removed several key legal protections for Indonesian forests. The changes look to be a boon to the palm oil and mining industries.

The government also moved forward on two initiatives that could lock in deforestation for decades to come: a “food estate” program and a biofuels mandate, which together could drive the conversion of millions of hectares of forests and peatlands to plantations. Critics say the food estate program risks a return to militarized industrial agriculture and forestry operations at the expense of local communities and the environment, while the biofuels mandate could require establishing new oil palm plantations a fifth the size of Borneo. The biodiesel mandate would create a huge source of demand for palm oil that doesn’t need to meet international standards for avoiding deforestation or human rights abuses, countering corporate zero-deforestation policies and import restrictions imposed by the European Union. Nowhere would the impacts of these programs be greater than in Papua, where vast areas of primary forest are slated to be logged and converted into plantations.

Brazil

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon topped 11,000 sq km for the 2019/2020 deforestation year, the highest level since 2008. Worse for Brazilian forests, the Bolsonaro Administration laid the groundwork for a long-term increase in deforestation with new infrastructure projects, evisceration of agencies that monitor and manage natural resources, dismantling of environmental laws, and legal and rhetorical attacks on Indigenous communities and civil society.

...

Destabilization of tropical forests

Scientists have been warning for years that the Amazon may be approaching a critical tipping point whereby large parts of the rainforest biome could shift to drier woodland or even savanna due to the combination of climate change, deforestation and forest degradation. In 2020 there were more indications that this transition is already underway, with the region experiencing widespread dry conditions, dry habitat species appearing in normally humid tropical rainforests, and increasing incidence of fire. Drying trends have also been observed in the Congo Basin and parts of Southeast Asia.

As noted above, La Niña is expected to continue into 2021, bringing wetter-than-normal conditions, which mean some of these effects may not be as apparent. But watch for scientists to release more research on how these trends tracked in 2019.

https://www.ecosystemmarketplace.com/articles/what-does-2021-hold-for-tropical-forests/

In the article you will find lots of links. Most things have been covered in this thread but it can function as a summery.
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morganism

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #256 on: January 09, 2021, 04:37:13 AM »
Amazon Rainforest Will Collapse by 2064, New Study Predicts

""A forest cannot survive if its canopy needs more than 4 years to recover from a yearly [drought] event," Walker wrote in the report. "Southern Amazonia can expect to reach a tipping point sometime before 2064 at the current rate of dry-season lengthening."
The study's models predict that once deforestation reaches 30-50% in southern Amazonia, rainfall in the west will decrease by up to 40%, cementing the deterioration in that environment from lush, tropical forest to arid, open savanna, Science Alert reported."

https://www.ecowatch.com/amazon-rainforest-collapse-2649776959.html

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00139157.2021.1842711

kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #257 on: January 09, 2021, 05:13:03 PM »
Some people can´t wait for 2064:

2020 another grim year for Brazilian Amazon

Deforestation destroyed the equivalent of more than two football pitches each minute in the Brazilian Amazon in 2020, another devastating year for a resource seen as vital to curbing climate change, according to government data released Friday.

Brazilian space agency INPE identified 8,426 square kilometers (3,253 square miles) of Amazon rainforest lost to deforestation in 2020, using its DETER monitoring program, which analyzes satellite images to track the destruction monthly.

That was the second-most devastating year for Brazil's share of the world's biggest rainforest since the program was launched in 2015.

The amount of forest destroyed was only larger in 2019, when the figure came in at 9,178 square kilometers.

...

The Brazilian space agency also operates another satellite-based monitoring program known as PRODES that analyzes deforestation once a year in greater detail.

That analysis, released in November, was even more alarming: it found deforestation surged 9.5 percent annually in the 12 months to August 2020, destroying 11,088 square kilometers of the Brazilian Amazon—an area larger than Jamaica.

The destruction in Brazil, the world's biggest exporter of beef and soybeans, is being driven largely by farmers, ranchers and land speculators bulldozing trees and burning them to make way for crops and pasture.

That has also fueled a surge in destructive wildfires.

The number of fires in the Brazilian Amazon increased 16 percent last year, to a total of more than 103,000.

Fires also devastated the Pantanal wetlands to the south, a paradise of biodiversity that saw an estimated one-quarter of its surface area go up in flames last year.

https://phys.org/news/2021-01-grim-year-brazilian-amazon.html
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kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #258 on: January 19, 2021, 02:24:41 PM »
Indian ´reforestation´.

Tree planting pushes out pastoralists in the Himalayas

Poorly planned tree planting programmes in Himachal Pradesh have squeezed pastoralists and put greater pressure on fragile ecosystems


The paper points out that between 1950 and 2005, India’s government reported afforestation of an area equivalent to 10% of the country’s land area, or just less than half of its total forest cover. Data from the Himachal Pradesh Forest Department indicate a similarly widespread distribution of plantations along the migratory routes of the Gaddis.

What is more, India aims to increase forest cover from the current 21% to 33% under its UN climate commitments, without visible thought given to the impacts on rural livelihoods such as pastoralism.

Responding to this, Rajesh Sharma of the Himachal Pradesh forest department said, “In2015 India pledged in the Paris Agreement to create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes by increasing its tree cover through afforestation activities on 45 lakh [4.5 million] hectares across the country by 2030. The target was distributed to all the states and union territories as per their geographical area and forest cover. Himachal Pradesh is meeting its target of afforestation on 10,000 hectares land every year successfully.”

....

The effect on Gaddis

Gaddis are an agro-pastoral community, listed as a scheduled tribe by the Government of India, who have herded their sheep and goats around the Dhauladhar range for centuries.

“We found that decades of [growing] plantations have decreased the availability of fodder, contributed to increased incidence of invasive species, disrupted migratory routes and changed access to land,” researchers wrote in the paper.

Gaddis move seasonally to find fodder in the lower and middle altitude of Kangra during the winter and the higher altitudes of Kangra, Chamba, and Lahaul and Spiti valleys in the summer.

As well as forests, Gaddis use high-altitude commons, village commons and private land owned by farmers. The forest department and other government officials issue permits for using high-altitude commons. The permission to graze on village commons is obtained from local government bodies, while access to private lands relies on personal relations with individual farmers.

Livelihood shocks
Plantations have made Gaddi livelihoods more vulnerable because the land is enclosed and their access routes blocked.  The planting of tree species which animals cannot eat means there is less fodder available. New plantations also provide habitats for invasive shrubs, which decrease livestock health and growth.

Viay Ramprasad, senior fellow at the Centre for Ecology, Development and Research at Dehradun and co-author of the report, said, “Plantations change species composition for grazing and affect fodder availability; plantation closures force changes in migratory routes and also alter access dimensions to pasture lands.”

Ratna Devi from Thala village in Kangra described how last year 180 of the 250 goats and sheep of her flock became ill from grazing on an unknown plant in their winter pasture and died at once. She felt badly shaken and helpless. Despite this shock, her family continued herding and invested again in goats and sheep.

Gaddis earn their living by selling milk, meat, and wool. But now they sell young livestock as well.

Musafir Ram, another Gaddi from the area, said, “Young [animals] are more susceptible to harm from ‘outside’ plants so many [people] have resorted to selling almost all young goats and sheep prior to their winter migration.”

The wrong trees

Researchers found that most of the varieties of trees planted by the forest department in the last 40 years have been unpalatable to livestock. Until the 1990s, government plantations replaced broad-leaved tree species (such as Ban oak or Acacia catechu) and pastures with pine species, which produce commercially viable resin and timer but are unpalatable to animals. More recently there has been a greater emphasis on native broad-leaved species, but shrubs, herbs and native meadows have been ignored.

Govind Jeet, a Gaddi, agreed with one observation in the research paper, “We have noticed that palatable species like grasses such as garna and basoti and plants such as peepal and kangu are now almost absent in winter pastures.”

and much more on:
https://www.thethirdpole.net/2021/01/19/tree-planting-pushes-out-pastoralists-in-the-himalayas/

The paper:
https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol25/iss4/art1/
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vox_mundi

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #259 on: January 22, 2021, 11:01:01 PM »
something new has happened that hasn't occurred in the last 2000 years ...

Yosemite Closed After High Winds Bring Down Two Giant Sequoias
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/22/yosemite-national-park-closed-winds-sequoias

... Yosemite was struck on Monday night. Two giant sequoias in the lower grove of Yosemite’s Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias were among trees that fell, a park spokesman, Scott Gediman, told the Sacramento Bee.

Trees crushed trucks and damaged buildings, including employee homes. Also crushed were a boardwalk and bathroom installed during a $40m restoration that was finished in 2018, Gediman said.
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kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #260 on: January 26, 2021, 06:59:10 PM »
A well timed article to go with #258.

Scientists address myths over large-scale tree planting

Scientists have proposed 10 golden rules for tree-planting, which they say must be a top priority for all nations this decade.

Tree planting is a brilliant solution to tackle climate change and protect biodiversity, but the wrong tree in the wrong place can do more harm than good, say experts at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

The rules include protecting existing forests first and involving locals.

Forests are essential to life on Earth.

They provide a home to three-quarters of the world's plants and animals, soak up carbon dioxide, and provide food, fuels and medicines.

...

The 10 golden rules are:

Protect existing forests first

Keeping forests in their original state is always preferable; undamaged old forests soak up carbon better and are more resilient to fire, storm and droughts. "Whenever there's a choice, we stress that halting deforestation and protecting remaining forests must be a priority," said Prof Alexandre Antonelli, director of science at RGB Kew.

Put local people at the heart of tree-planting projects

Studies show that getting local communities on board is key to the success of tree-planting projects. It is often local people who have most to gain from looking after the forest in the future.

Maximise biodiversity recovery to meet multiple goals

Reforestation should be about several goals, including guarding against climate change, improving conservation and providing economic and cultural benefits.

Select the right area for reforestation

Plant trees in areas that were historically forested but have become degraded, rather than using other natural habitats such as grasslands or wetlands.

Use natural forest regrowth wherever possible

Letting trees grow back naturally can be cheaper and more efficient than planting trees.

Select the right tree species that can maximise biodiversity

Where tree planting is needed, picking the right trees is crucial. Scientists advise a mixture of tree species naturally found in the local area, including some rare species and trees of economic importance, but avoiding trees that might become invasive.

Make sure the trees are resilient to adapt to a changing climate

Use tree seeds that are suitable for the local climate and how that might change in the future.

Plan ahead

Plan how to source seeds or trees, working with local people.

Learn by doing

Combine scientific knowledge with local knowledge. Ideally, small-scale trials should take place before planting large numbers of trees.

Make it pay

The sustainability of tree re-planting rests on a source of income for all stakeholders, including the poorest.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55795816

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gerontocrat

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #261 on: March 10, 2021, 12:13:47 PM »
The Forests are changing.... and this article suggests that much will be irreversible.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/10/is-this-the-end-of-forests-as-weve-known-them
Is this the end of forests as we've known them?

Trees lost to drought and wildfires are not returning. Climate change is taking is a toll on the world’s forests - and radically changing the environment before our eyes
Quote
Camille Stevens-Rumann never used to worry about seeing dead trees. As a wildland firefighter in the American west, she encountered untold numbers killed in blazes she helped to extinguish. She knew fires are integral to forests in this part of the world; they prune out smaller trees, giving room to the rest and even help the seeds of some species to germinate.

“We have largely operated under the assumption that forests are going to come back after fires,” Stevens-Rumann said.

But starting in about 2013, she noticed something unsettling. In certain places, the trees were not returning. For an analysis she performed of sites across the Rocky Mountains, she found that almost one-third of places that had burned since 2000 had no trees regrowing whatsoever. Instead of tree seedlings, there were shrubs and flowers.

This shift – echoed across a warming world – is a distinct phenomenon from trees dying because of direct human intervention such as logging. These trees are dying without humans laying a hand on them, at least physically, and they are not resprouting. Forests cover 30% of the planet’s land surface, and yet, as humans heat the atmosphere, some locations where they would have grown now appear too dry or hot to support them.

In western North America, huge swaths of forested areas may become unsuitable for trees owing to climate change, say researchers. In the Rocky Mountains, estimates hold that by 2050, about 15% of the forests would not grow back if felled by fire because the climate would no longer suit them. In Alberta, Canada, about half of existing forests could vanish by 2100. In the south-western US, which is experiencing a “megadrought”, as much as 30% of forests are at risk of converting to shrubland or another kind of ecosystem.

“Now’s a good time to go visit national parks with big trees,” said Nate McDowell, an earth scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the lead author of a paper forecasting that in southwestern US forests more than half of conifers, the dominant type of trees, could be killed by 2050. “It’s like Glacier national park – now’s a good time to see a glacier before they’re gone.”

The change isn’t unique to the US. In the Amazon, some experts warn that a forest mortality tipping point is looming. The boreal forests of Canada and Siberia are under attack from higher temperatures. Temperate European forests thought to be less vulnerable to climate change are showing worrying symptoms.
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kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #262 on: March 10, 2021, 01:26:14 PM »
Related to this:

Atmospheric drying will lead to lower crop yields, shorter trees across the globe

A global observation of an ongoing atmospheric drying -- known by scientists as a rise in vapor pressure deficit -- has been observed worldwide since the early 2000s. In recent years, this concerning phenomenon has been on the rise, and is predicted to amplify even more in the coming decades as climate change intensifies.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210308111954.htm

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kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #263 on: March 11, 2021, 09:33:02 AM »
'Frightening' data show two-thirds of world's rainforest now damaged or destroyed

A new report claims that two-thirds of the Earth’s original tropical rainforest cover has been destroyed or degraded by humans.

The Rainforest Foundation Norway (RFN) analysis released this month found that of the approximately 14.5 million square kilometers of tropical rainforest that once covered the planet, 34 percent is gone, 30 percent is in various forms of degradation and just 36 percent remains intact.

...

“The good news is that we have an area half the size of Europe that is still completely intact. However, the remaining tropical rainforests are either severely damaged or increasingly fragmented,” Anders Krogh, a tropical forest researcher and author of the report, said in a news release.

“Humans are chopping these once vast and impenetrable forests into smaller and smaller pieces, undermining their ability to store carbon, cool the planet, produce rain and provide habitats,” he said.

Tropical rainforests cover 6.5 percent of the Earth’s surface, yet hold more than half of the planet’s biological diversity. The diverse ecosystems store more carbon in live biomass than any other, meaning further destruction and degradation of tropical rainforests can accelerate human-caused global warming.

...

More than 70 percent of the world’s intact tropical rainforests is located in the Amazon, with 42 percent in Brazil. Asia ranks second in terms of forest destruction and holds just 7 percent of the world’s rainforests today.

https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/environment/542556-frightening-data-show-two-thirds-of-worlds
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Reginald

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #264 on: March 13, 2021, 07:13:58 PM »
First study of all Amazon greenhouse gases suggests the damaged forest is now worsening climate change

The first broad look at all of the gases that affect how the Amazon works—not just CO2—reveals a system on the brink.

National Geographic, By Craig Welsh, March 11

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/amazon-rainforest-now-appears-to-be-contributing-to-climate-change

The Amazon rainforest is most likely now a net contributor to warming of the planet, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis from more than 30 scientists.

For years, researchers have expressed concern that rising temperatures, drought, and deforestation are reducing the capacity of the world’s largest rainforest to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and help offset emissions from fossil-fuel burning. Recent studies have even suggested that some portions of the tropical landscape already may release more carbon than they store.

[...]

Yet no team had ever tried to assess the cumulative impact of these processes, even as the region is being rapidly transformed. The research, supported by the National Geographic Society and published today in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, estimates that atmospheric warming from all of these sources combined now appears to swamp the forest’s natural cooling effect.

(https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2021.618401/full)

“Cutting the forest is interfering with its carbon uptake; that’s a problem,” says lead author Kristofer Covey, a professor of environmental studies at New York’s Skidmore College. “But when you start to look at these other factors alongside CO2, it gets really hard to see how the net effect isn’t that the Amazon as a whole is really warming global climate.”

[...]

A recent analysis by Lovejoy and Carlos Nobre (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/how-cutting-the-amazon-forest-could-affect-weather), a climate scientist with the University of São Paulo's Institute for Advanced Studies, suggests that rising deforestation might so alter the flow of that moisture that it could push large stretches of the Amazon toward a permanent transition to a drier woodland savanna. The duo believes that tipping point could be reached if as little as 20 to 25 percent of the rainforest is cleared.

That would spell big trouble for the climate, substantially reducing even more the forests’ potential to scrub the skies of some of our fossil-fuel emissions. By the Brazilian government’s own measure, forest clearing already tops 17 percent.




kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #265 on: April 11, 2021, 10:28:51 PM »
Rich world’s demands fell poorer world’s forests

he tropical forests maintain global climate and nurture the riches of nature. The rich world’s demands are destroying them.

LONDON, 9 April, 2021 − The world’s great ecosystems − moderators of climate, nurseries for evolution − are still being destroyed in the service of global trade, to meet the rich world’s demands. Once again, researchers have confirmed that the wealthy nations are in effect ploughing savanna and felling tropical forests at a distance.

In the first 15 years of this century, the growing demand from the well-heeled for chocolate, rubber, cotton, soy, beef and exotic timber has meant that poorer nations have actually increased their levels of deforestation.

In effect, every human in the G7 nations − Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US − is responsible for the loss of at least four trees a year, mostly in the developing world.

And in a separate study in another journal, another team of scientists has examined satellite data to confirm that between 1985 and 2018, humans cleared or altered 268 million hectares of natural ecosystem on the continent of South America. This is 2.68 million sq kilometres: an area almost the size of Argentina.

...

Ironically, many of the richer nations have expanded the areas of forest on their own soil. More than 90% of the deforestation caused by five of the G7 nations was beyond their own borders. In effect, the rich were exporting the destruction of the natural world, and the cost to the planet was disproportionate. The loss of three trees in the Amazon might be more damaging than the loss of 14 trees in Norway, the scientists argue.

https://climatenewsnetwork.net/rich-worlds-demands-fell-poorer-worlds-forests/
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vox_mundi

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #266 on: May 02, 2021, 08:43:25 PM »
Climate Change: Amazon Turning From Friend to Foe
https://phys.org/news/2021-04-climate-amazon-friend-foe.html

The Brazilian Amazon released nearly 20 percent more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over the last decade than it absorbed, according to a stunning report that shows humanity can no longer depend on the world's largest tropical forest to help absorb manmade carbon pollution.

From 2010 through 2019, Brazil's Amazon basin gave off 16.6 billion tonnes of CO2, while drawing down only 13.9 billion tonnes, researchers reported Thursday in the journal Nature Climate Change.

"We half-expected it, but it is the first time that we have figures showing that the Brazilian Amazon has flipped, and is now a net emitter," said co-author Jean-Pierre Wigneron, a scientist at France's National Institute for Agronomic Research (INRA).

"We don't know at what point the changeover could become irreversible," he told AFP in an interview.

... The study also showed that deforestation—through fires and clear-cutting—increased nearly four-fold in 2019 compared to either of the two previous years, from about one million hectares (2.5 million acres) to 3.9 million hectares, an area the size of the Netherlands.

"Brazil saw a sharp decline in the application of environmental protection policies after the change of government in 2019," the INRA said in a statement.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was sworn into office on January 1, 2019.

Yuanwei Qin et al. Carbon loss from forest degradation exceeds that from deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, Nature Climate Change (2021)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01026-5
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kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #267 on: May 02, 2021, 08:50:58 PM »
Same article but by ScienceDaily (with link to journal article at the bottom of the link).

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210430120343.htm

Some quotes:
The study found that degradation (parts of the forest being damaged but not destroyed) accounted for three times more carbon loss than deforestation.

....

"Degradation is a pervasive threat to future forest integrity and requires urgent research attention."

Degradation is linked to deforestation, especially in weakened portions of a forest near deforested zones, but it is also caused by tree-felling and forest fires.

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kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #268 on: May 02, 2021, 08:56:45 PM »
Northern forest fires could accelerate climate change

New research indicates that the computer-based models currently used to simulate how Earth's climate will change in the future underestimate the impact that forest fires and drying climate are having on the world's northernmost forests, which make up the largest forest biome on the planet. It's an important understanding because these northern forests absorb a significant amount of Earth's carbon dioxide.

The finding, reached by studying 30 years of the world's forests using NASA satellite imaging data, suggests that forests won't be able to sequester as much carbon as previously expected, making efforts to reduce carbon emissions all the more urgent.

"Fires are intensifying, and when forests burn, carbon is released into the atmosphere," says Boston University environmental earth scientist Mark Friedl, senior author on the study published in Nature Climate Change. "But we're also seeing longer growing seasons, warmer temperatures, which draws carbon out of the atmosphere [and into plants]. More CO2 in the atmosphere acts as a fertilizer, increasing growth of trees and plants -- so, scientifically, there's been this big question out there: What is happening on a global scale to Earth's forests? Will they continue to absorb as much carbon as they do now?"

Today's forests capture about 30 percent of all human-related CO2 emissions, which Friedl calls a "huge buffer on anthropogenic climate change." The new study, however, reveals that scientists have so far been underestimating the impact that fires and other disturbances -- like timber harvests -- are having on Earth's northern forests and, at the same time, have been overestimating the growth-enhancing effect of climate warming and rising atmospheric CO2 levels.

"Current Earth systems models appear to be misrepresenting a big chunk of the global biosphere. These models simulate the atmosphere, oceans, and biosphere, and our results suggest [the model-based simulation of northern forests] has been way off," says Friedl, a BU College of Arts & Sciences professor of earth and environment and interim director of BU's Center for Remote Sensing. He is an expert in utilizing satellite imaging data to monitor Earth's ecosystems on a global scale.

"It is not enough for a forest to absorb and store carbon in its wood and soils. For that to be a real benefit, the forest has to remain intact -- an increasing challenge in a warming, more fire-prone climate," says Jonathan Wang, the paper's lead author. "The far north is home to vast, dense stores of carbon that are very sensitive to climate change, and it will take a lot of monitoring and effort to make sure these forests and their carbon stores remain intact."

and more:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210430093222.htm

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vox_mundi

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #269 on: May 04, 2021, 11:42:11 PM »
Forest Fires Drive Expansion of Savannas In the Heart of the Amazon
https://phys.org/news/2021-05-forest-expansion-savannas-heart-amazon.html

White-sand savannas are expanding in the heart of the Amazon as a result of recurring forest fires, according to a study published in the journal Ecosystems.

... "The edges of the Amazon Rainforest have long been considered the most vulnerable parts owing to expansion of the agricultural frontier. This degradation of the forest along the so-called 'deforestation arc' [a curve that hugs the southeastern edge of the forest] continues to occur and is extremely troubling. However, our study detected the appearance of savannas in the heart of the Amazon a long way away from the agricultural frontier," Flores told Agência FAPESP.

The authors studied an area of floodplains on the middle Negro River near Barcelos, a town about 400 km upstream of Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, where areas of white-sand savanna are expanding, although forest ecosystems still predominate. They blame the increasing frequency and severity of wildfires in the wider context of global climate change.

"We mapped 40 years of forest fires using satellite images, and collected detailed information in the field to see whether the burned forest areas were changing," Flores said. "When we analyzed tree species richness and soil properties at different times in the past, we found that forest fires had killed practically all trees so that the clayey topsoil could be eroded by annual flooding and become increasingly sandy."

They also found that as burnt floodplain forest naturally recovers, there is a major shift in the type of vegetation, with native herbaceous cover expanding, forest tree species disappearing, and white-sand savanna tree species becoming dominant.

It is important to stress that in the Amazon floodplain forest is far less resilient than upland terra firma forest. It burns more easily, after which its topsoil is washed away and degrades much more rapidly. "Floodplain forest is the "Achilles heel' of the Amazon," Holmgren said. "We have field evidence that if the climate becomes drier in the Amazon and wildfires become more severe and frequent, floodplain forest will be the first to collapse."

These two factors—a drier climate, and more severe and frequent fires—are already in play as part of the ongoing climate change crisis. The study shows that wildfires in the middle Negro area during the severe 2015-16 El Niño burned down an area seven times larger than the total area destroyed by fire in the preceding 40 years.

Bernardo M. Flores et al, White-Sand Savannas Expand at the Core of the Amazon After Forest Wildfires, Ecosystems (2021)
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10021-021-00607-x
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kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #270 on: May 05, 2021, 12:19:11 PM »
UK supermarkets warn Brazil over Amazon land bill

Nearly 40 UK food businesses have threatened to stop sourcing products from Brazil over proposed land reforms.

An open letter from the group calls on Brazil's legislature to reject a bill which could legalise the private occupation of public land.

The letter said the proposal could accelerate deforestation in the Amazon.

The bill is being considered just months after Brazil pledged to end illegal logging.

...

At a summit in April hosted by US President Joe Biden, Mr Bolsanaro declared that Brazil would end illegal logging. The letter says these measures "run counter" to this "narrative and rhetoric."

The new law would allow land that has been illegally occupied after 2014 to be put up for sale. This would potentially allow illegal occupants to buy it.

Similar controversial measures were first put forward in a different bill last year, but were withdrawn after more than 40 organisations made the same threat over supply chain sourcing.

...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-56989711
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gerontocrat

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #271 on: May 05, 2021, 04:56:08 PM »
And by a serendipity....

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/30/brazilian-amazon-released-more-carbon-than-it-absorbed-over-past-10-years
Brazilian Amazon released more carbon than it absorbed over past 10 years

International team of researchers also found that deforestation rose nearly four-fold in 2019



A fallen tree lies in an area of the Amazon jungle that was cleared by loggers and farmers near Porto Velho, Rondonia State. Photograph: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters
Quote
The Brazilian Amazon released nearly 20% more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over the past decade than it absorbed, according to a startling report that shows humanity can no longer depend on the world’s largest tropical forest to help absorb manmade carbon pollution.

From 2010 through 2019, Brazil’s Amazon basin gave off 16.6bn tonnes of CO2, while drawing down only 13.9bn tonnes, researchers reported Thursday in the journal Nature Climate Change.

The study looked at the volume of CO2 absorbed and stored as the forest grows, against the amounts released back into the atmosphere as it has been burned down or destroyed.

“We half-expected it, but it is the first time that we have figures showing that the Brazilian Amazon has flipped, and is now a net emitter,” said co-author Jean-Pierre Wigneron, a scientist at France’s National Institute for Agronomic Research (INRA).

“We don’t know at what point the changeover could become irreversible,” he told AFP in an interview.

The study also showed that deforestation – through fires and clear-cutting – increased nearly four-fold in 2019 compared with either of the two previous years, from about 1m hectares (2.5m acres) to 3.9m hectares (9.6m acres).

“Brazil saw a sharp decline in the application of environmental protection policies after the change of government in 2019,” the INRA said in a statement.

Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro was sworn into office on 1 January 2019.

Terrestrial ecosystems have been a crucial ally as the world struggles to curb CO2 emissions, which topped 40bn tonnes in 2019.

Over the past half-century, plants and soil have consistently absorbed about 30% of those emissions, even as those emissions increased by 50% over that period. Oceans have also helped, soaking up more than 20%.

The Amazon basin contains about half of the world’s tropical rainforests, which are more effective at soaking up and storing carbon than other types of vegetation.
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Reginald

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #272 on: May 08, 2021, 05:28:48 AM »
One of Canada’s biggest carbon sinks is circling the drain
By Barry Saxifrage | News | May 7th 2021

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/05/07/news/canada-carbon-sink-managed-forests-circling-drain

Canada's continent-spanning forest used to remove massive amounts of CO2 from the air each year. It was a hugely valuable "carbon sink", slowing the pace of climate change and benefiting our logging industry.

But that carbon sink has steadily collapsed to the point where the forest now emits CO2. That adds fuel to our accelerating climate crisis, and spells trouble for Canadian logging.

That is the grim story told by the data in Canada's latest National Inventory Report (NIR).

I've dug into that data to create a series of charts that illustrate what's happening in Canada's managed forest, and what it means for our climate emergency and our logging industry.

[...]

Over the last two decades, the once great carbon sink has steadily drained away. It's now gone, and the balance in the forest has tipped to emitting CO2 instead.


kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #273 on: May 08, 2021, 02:07:17 PM »
So we lost the Amazon and Canadian forest as sinks about the same time...  >:(
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gerontocrat

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #274 on: May 08, 2021, 06:00:55 PM »
And to add to Reginald's post....

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-06/world-s-top-lumber-firm-to-expand-u-s-mill-capacity-amid-boom
Canadian Lumber Producers to Expand U.S. Mills Amid Home Boom
Quote
North American lumber companies plan to ramp up production by expanding existing mills as strong home construction fuels the need for more wood.

West Fraser Timber Co., the world’s biggest lumber producer, plans to expand capacity at five of its lumber mills in the U.S. South. Interfor Corp. is rebuilding a sawmill in Georgia that is on track for completion by the end of 2021. Both companies expect home-building and renovation demand to continue supporting strong prices for wood products in the near future.

Interfor shares soared to a new high Friday after the company reported record quarterly earnings. West Fraser climbed as much as 1.9%.

The pandemic-fueled surge in home construction last year took North American sawmills by surprise, sending lumber prices to new records. U.S. futures this week hit $1,600 per 1,000 board feet for the first time, a four-fold increase from a year ago. While production has since ramped up, demand continues to outpace supply.

The expansions will be primarily in the southern U.S., where there is an abundance of planted timber available to be harvested. They should help to increase overall inventories in the country and push prices off their record highs over time. But that won’t come fast enough to alleviate supply constraints during the peak building season.

“We remain optimistic about the favorable market fundamentals we’re currently seeing supported by the underlying environmental benefits of building with wood, which have never been more clear and more widely accepted,” said West Fraser Chief Executive Raymond Ferris, speaking to analysts Friday.

Though 80% of the Vancouver-based company’s operations are now outside of British Columbia, which has historically provided significant amounts of spruce-pine-fir wood that is preferred by many home builders, Ferris noted the log costs in the province are rising.

West Fraser plans to invest roughly $150 million at five of its U.S. South lumber mills under its strategic capital program. Already, it’s increasing the number of working shifts at mills where possible, the company said.
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gerontocrat

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #275 on: May 08, 2021, 07:10:13 PM »
So we lost the Amazon and Canadian forest as sinks about the same time...  >:(
Only now a question of how much worse it gets (at least while Bolsonaro and his Government and Private Sector cohorts are in power)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-57017271
Brazil's Amazon: Deforestation rises ahead of dry season
Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil rose by 43% in April compared to the same month last year, government data has shown.
Quote
[/b]
A total of 1,157 sq km (446 sq miles) of rainforest were destroyed in the first four months of 2021. This was down 4% from a year earlier.

The Amazon is a vital carbon store that slows down the pace of global warming.

Scientists say the loss of forest has accelerated since Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro took office in 2019.

The president has encouraged agricultural and mining activities in the world's largest rainforest, and rolled back environmental legislation.

At a US-led climate summit last month, President Bolsonaro promised to double the money reserved for environmental enforcement and to end illegal deforestation by 2030.

But critics have questioned his commitment to those pledges.

They have pointed to a recent cut to the environment ministry's budget as an example of President Bolsonaro reneging on his promises.

They have also condemned proposed legislation that could legalise the private occupation of public land.

Next week, Brazil's upper house of parliament - the Senate - is expected to vote on a bill, which critics say could accelerate deforestation in the Amazon.

A group of food businesses in the UK have threatened to stop sourcing products from Brazil if the bill is passed.

"The Amazon has become an open bar for land grabbers, illegal loggers and miners," says Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of Observatorio do Clima, a campaign group.

"And several attempts are being made by the government and Congress to eliminate legal protection of forests, such as the amnesty for land grabbing and now the licensing bill."
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kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #276 on: June 07, 2021, 09:30:11 AM »
May deforestation in the Amazon hits 14-year high, with 4 days of data still to process

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon rose sharply in May, reports the country’s national space research institute INPE.

According to INPE’s satellite-based deforestation tracking system, DETER, forest destruction in the Brazilian portion of the Amazon through the first 27 days of the month amounted to 1,180 square kilometers, an area 20 times the size of Manhattan.

Deforestation in May was the highest for any May dating back to at least 2007. The next highest May on record is May 2008, when 1,096 square kilometers was cut down.

Scientists are bracing for a bad fire season in the southern and eastern Amazon due to below average rainfall during the most recent rainy season. A resurgence of fire and deforestation in the Amazon is heightening concerns about the fate of Earth’s largest rainforest, which some researchers say could be approaching a point where vast areas transition toward drier habitat.


...

That represents a 42% increase over May 2020 and puts deforestation nearly on pace with last year’s rate, when forest loss in the region reached 11,088 square kilometers (4,281 square miles), the highest level since 2008.

With four days still left to tabulate for the month, the final figure for May is expected to rise when INPE releases its next update a week from today. So far, 96% of the deforestation registered in May has occurred in just four states: Pará (36%), Amazonas (24%), Mato Grosso (21%), and Roraima (15%). Pará and Mato Grosso normally rank as the top deforesters in Brazil due to cattle ranching and clearing for agriculture. Amazonas and Roraima typically do not top the list of states in terms of deforestation.

Deforestation associated with mining, which is attracting more attention due to the surging price of gold and associated land invasions by wildcat miners, reached the second highest monthly level since August 2016.

For details:
https://news.mongabay.com/2021/06/may-deforestation-in-the-amazon-hits-14-year-high/
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kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #277 on: June 07, 2021, 02:12:38 PM »
Mining-related deforestation in the Amazon

...

The team focused on an area around the Tambopata National Reserve in Peru from 2001 to 2014. During this time period, Naughton says, demand for gold rose, roads penetrated the region and mining surged. In turn, mining-related deforestation rose by almost 100,000 acres over their study period.

"Because the gold is in the sediment scattered under the forest floor, to extract the gold, you have to remove the forest and dig," Álvarez-Berríos says. "You have to cut a lot of the forest and excavate sensitive waterways."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210604213547.htm
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kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #278 on: June 21, 2021, 02:46:44 PM »
B.C.’s old-growth forests not out of the woods

...

Decades later, I never expected to be back on the blockades or fielding calls again from concerned customers of British Columbia forest products. When I was arrested by the RCMP with other forest defenders at a blockade in Fairy Creek last month, I had just visited one of the most beautiful old-growth forests I have ever seen. These old-growth forests on Pacheedaht and Ditidaht territories, on the west coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, are among the last of their kind anywhere in the world. I was astonished to see yellow cedars more than a thousand years old. The ancient giant trees that are iconic around the globe are not only the pillars of these rare temperate rainforest ecosystems – they are part of the most carbon-rich forests on earth. Standing among these giants, there is no question that they are worth more than any dollar amount their felled lumber can deliver. It’s clear why Indigenous leaders, scientists and their allies are risking their safety and freedom to defend them.

Civil disobedience is a last resort, especially in the middle of a pandemic. When it comes to old-growth forests in British Columbia, it is no secret how desperate we are. More than 97% of the original large, old forests that stood in this province prior to colonization and the advent of industrial logging have been destroyed. But even more shockingly, the majority of what remains is still unprotected and open to logging. In the case of forests on Ditidaht and Pacheedaht territory, those old-growth forests are still standing thanks to the tireless efforts of forest defenders, but they remain at imminent risk.

https://www.corporateknights.com/channels/natural-capital/b-c-s-old-growth-forests-not-out-of-the-woods-16240372/

Go to the link to see a before and after photo of a really big old tree.  >:(
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Tor Bejnar

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #279 on: June 21, 2021, 03:29:07 PM »
 :( >:( :'(
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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #280 on: June 22, 2021, 09:01:06 PM »
Unchecked Climate Change Will Cause Severe Drying of the Amazon Forest
https://phys.org/news/2021-06-unchecked-climate-severe-amazon-forest.html

Amazon rain forests could be at far higher risk of extreme drought than previously thought, according to new research.

An international study, led by the University of Leeds, warns that huge areas in the eastern part of the Amazon face severe drying by the end of the century if action is not taken to curb carbon emissions.

As a result, large amounts of carbon dioxide would be released from the forest into the atmosphere, adding to the greenhouse gas effect and driving further climate change.

The increased dryness during the Amazon dry season would further threaten the viability of large parts of the rainforest, as trees are already water stressed and there is greater risk of forest fires.

The predicted droughts could also have far-reaching consequences for the Amazon water cycle, biodiversity, and the population that lives in the region.

The findings, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, predict reductions in rainfall that are comparable to the drying seen during the major droughts of 2005 and 2010, which caused widespread tree mortality and had major impacts for Amazon communities.

... The research team analyzed the results of 38 known Amazon climate models. By ruling out climate predictions from unrealistic models, the patterns of future rainfall change in the Amazon became clearer.

According to the new study, only a third of the 38 models correctly reproduced the interactions between the atmosphere and land surface previously shown by Amazon fieldwork.

By focusing on this smaller group of models, uncertainty in rainfall changes over the whole Amazon basin was reduced by a half.

This group showed wide agreement in predicting future rainfall changes, with severe drying expected in the eastern Amazon over the next 80 years, and, conversely, rainfall increases in the western basin.

J C A Baker et al, Robust Amazon precipitation projections in climate models that capture realistic land–atmosphere interactions, Environmental Research Letters (2021)
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abfb2e
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kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #281 on: July 06, 2021, 03:43:42 PM »
As climate warms, a rearrangement of world’s plant life looms

Scientists are seeing the beginnings of a sudden, disruptive rearrangement of the world’s flora.

...

As human-generated greenhouse gas emissions cause the world to rapidly warm, this movement is once again under way. Scientists have observed plants shifting toward the poles and upslope. They’ve noted old ecosystems suddenly replaced by new ones, often in the wake of fire, insect outbreaks, drought or other disturbances. They’ve observed an increase in the number of trees dying and watched as a growing number of the world’s biggest and oldest plants, including the baobabs of Africa and the cedars of Lebanon, have succumbed. Just this month, scientists announced that the Castle Fire, which burned through California’s Sierra Nevada last year, singlehandedly killed off more than 10 percent of the world’s mature giant sequoias.

...

The climate is currently warming at least 10 times faster than it did at the onset of the PETM. Under its worst-case scenario, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects that, over the next 100 to 150 years, Earth’s average temperature could rise by roughly the same amount as it did during the PETM. Dramatic vegetational shifts could arrive not in a matter of centuries or millennia, but decades; a 2019 study, for example, projected that Alaska’s vast interior forests will shift from being dominated by conifers to being dominated by broadleaf trees as soon as the middle of this century.
...

These shifts in species’ ranges also have serious implications for conservationists. Experts say the changing climate means that Sequoia National Park will eventually be left without its sequoias, Joshua Tree National Park without its Joshua trees. As with Gill’s sugar maples, this is distressing from a human perspective, though potentially of little importance from the plants’ perspective. The question is whether sequoias, Joshua trees, and countless other plants will be able to reach newly suitable habitats.

...

Not all of the rearrangement of the world’s flora will happen slowly or subtly. As Gill pointed out, for the composition of an ecosystem to change, members of new species need to arrive, but members of old species also need to make way. “Death has to be part of that story,” she said. Mature plants, especially long-lived plants like trees, are often capable of surviving under physical conditions that no longer suit their seedlings. “Trees can hang out a really long time in unsuitable climates and just not reproduce,” she said. Like a rubber band, this disequilibrium between plants and environment stretches and stretches. When the mature plants die, the tension is suddenly released. New species flood in.

Scientists around the world have noted ecosystems transforming suddenly into new states — from dense forest to open woodland, for example, or woodland to brushland. Most often, these transformations come in the wake of a fire, insect outbreak or heat wave — all of which are expected to increase in intensity as the world grows warmer. Warmer temperatures stress plants and speed up the lifecycles of the insects that attack them. Currano and her colleagues have found that during the PETM, insects did far more damage to leaves than they did before or after.

...

As Breshears and climate scientist Jonathan Overpeck pointed out in a recent editorial, the tendency of climate change to kill trees means that, by themselves, tree-planting campaigns won’t provide a climate-mending panacea. “The first-order action has to be emissions reduction,” Breshears said.

https://grist.org/climate/as-climate-warms-a-rearrangement-of-worlds-plant-life-looms/

Cross posted from the Holocene Extinction thread and quote edited down to trees.
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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #282 on: July 14, 2021, 06:24:12 PM »
Amazon Rainforest Now Emitting More CO2 Than It Absorbs
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/14/amazon-rainforest-now-emitting-more-co2-than-it-absorbs

The Amazon rainforest is emitting a billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, according to a study. The giant forest had been absorbing the emissions driving the climate crisis but is now causing its acceleration, researchers said.

Most of the emissions are caused by fires, many deliberately set to clear land for beef and soy production. But even without fires, hotter temperatures and droughts mean the south-eastern Amazon has become a source of CO2, rather than a sink.

The research used small planes to measure CO2 levels up to 4,500m above the forest over the last decade, showing how the whole Amazon is changing. Previous studies indicating the Amazon was becoming a source of CO2 were based on satellite data, which can be hampered by cloud cover, or ground measurements of trees, which can cover only a tiny part of the vast region.

The research, published in the journal Nature, involved taking 600 vertical profiles of CO2 and carbon monoxide, which is produced by the fires, at four sites in the Brazilian Amazon from 2010 to 2018. It found fires produced about 1.5bn tonnes of CO2 a year, with forest growth removing 0.5bn tonnes. The 1bn tonnes left in the atmosphere is equivalent to the annual emissions of Japan, the world’s fifth-biggest polluter.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03629-6

The scientists said the discovery that part of the Amazon was emitting carbon even without fires was particularly worrying.

Luciana Gatti, at the National Institute for Space Research in Brazil and who led the research, said: “The first very bad news is that forest burning produces around three times more CO2 than the forest absorbs. The second bad news is that the places where deforestation is 30% or more show carbon emissions 10 times higher than where deforestation is lower than 20%.”

Prof Scott Denning, at Colorado State University, said the aerial research campaign was heroic. “In the south-east, the forest is no longer growing faster than it’s dying. This is bad – having the most productive carbon absorber on the planet switch from a source to a sink means we have to eliminate fossil fuels faster than we thought.”

A satellite study published in April found the Brazilian Amazon released nearly 20% more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over the past decade than it absorbed. Research that tracked 300,000 trees over 30 years, published in 2020, showed tropical forests were taking up less CO2 than before. Denning said: “They’re complementary studies with radically different methods that come to very similar conclusions.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/30/brazilian-amazon-released-more-carbon-than-it-absorbed-over-past-10-years

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/04/tropical-forests-losing-their-ability-to-absorb-carbon-study-finds

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X21001972

Research published on Friday estimated that Brazil’s soy industry loses $3.5bn a year due to the immediate spike in extreme heat that follows forest destruction.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X21001972
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

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kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #283 on: July 14, 2021, 07:23:14 PM »
Lazy head line but good new data.

Quote
The 1bn tonnes left in the atmosphere is equivalent to the annual emissions of Japan, the world’s fifth-biggest polluter.

These sort of details and people chatting about carbon negative by 2050 somehow not match up. We cannot really see sinks failing so we ignore them mostly but this + siberian permafrost + northern forests all dropped out. Next up expiring tropical glaciers and carbon losses from the areas they provided with water?

Of course the Amazon contribution will only rise if we keep doing what we do.

It really grinds my gear how we can see all of the planet and we can see how little old growth forests there are and we keep cutting into it.

PS: One other thing in these studies they count carbon but there is so much more like whole plant/animal/fungi types getting lost forever.
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Alexander555

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #284 on: July 14, 2021, 10:02:21 PM »
Yesterday there was something on television about a belgian reporter that showed the world why these immigrants from Central-America are moving to the US because of climate change. And i'm not an denier. But it was pretty clear that in this case climate change had nothing to do with it. He was in Guatemale with poor farmers. He was in the hills, the slopes had an a average angle of 45 degree. Most of them were living on the tops of the hills, and they used the slops to farm. On top of the hill you could see many other hills. It was a very large area. Before it was all rainforest. And now 95 % of all the forest was gone. As far as you could see. So he showed the river bed that was dry because of climate change. And sometimes it was meters higher. But if you cut down all that forest, on basically a big rock. That little bit of soil they had was gone. And how long would it take for rain to go down from a 500 meter long slope if there is nothing to stop it. Probably just a few minutes. There is nothing left to stop that water from going to that river. They made everything nice and flat for farming (on that 45 degree slope) If you have that for hundreds of square kilometers. You probably have a giant flood, and no water after it. The entire harvest failed, because it was  dry. Maybe they took the land because it was free, i don't know. But the forest is gone, and you can't use the land.

kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #285 on: July 15, 2021, 05:54:38 PM »
Overexploitation of natural resources goes hand in hand with climate change. One of the biggest threats to the Amazon are the roads cut into it for legal and illegal farming , legal and illegal mines etc. It increases the edges of the forest and just drought.

In the example above over exploitation comes first and then there is severe local climate change as a result.

For some more perspective on Guatemala:
Bernays unmaking Guatemala
https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/23/tye.php
 
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kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #286 on: July 15, 2021, 08:25:17 PM »
Wilson et al. (2021) finds that:

"Our results show that the Amazon alone was responsible for 24 ± 18 % of the total global increase in CH4 flux during the study period, and it may contribute further in future due to its sensitivity to temperature changes."

This suggests that as global warming continues, tropical rainforest degradation will likely be a major source of additional (beyond that assumed by consensus climate science model projections) methane concentration in the atmosphere in coming decades.

Wilson, C., Chipperfield, M. P., Gloor, M., Parker, R. J., Boesch, H., McNorton, J., Gatti, L. V., Miller, J. B., Basso, L. S., and Monks, S. A.: Large and increasing methane emissions from eastern Amazonia derived from satellite data, 2010–2018, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 10643–10669, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10643-2021, 2021.

https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/21/10643/2021/

Abstract: "We use a global inverse model, satellite data and flask measurements to estimate methane (CH4) emissions from South America, Brazil and the basin of the Amazon River for the period 2010–2018. We find that emissions from Brazil have risen during this period, most quickly in the eastern Amazon basin, and that this is concurrent with increasing surface temperatures in this region. Brazilian CH4 emissions rose from 49.8 ± 5.4 Tg yr−1 in 2010–2013 to 55.6 ± 5.2 Tg yr−1 in 2014–2017, with the wet season of December–March having the largest positive trend in emissions. Amazon basin emissions grew from 41.7 ± 5.3 to 49.3 ± 5.1 Tg yr−1 during the same period. We derive no significant trend in regional emissions from fossil fuels during this period. We find that our posterior distribution of emissions within South America is significantly and consistently changed from our prior estimates, with the strongest emission sources being in the far north of the continent and to the south and south-east of the Amazon basin, at the mouth of the Amazon River and nearby marsh, swamp and mangrove regions. We derive particularly large emissions during the wet season of 2013/14, when flooding was prevalent over larger regions than normal within the Amazon basin. We compare our posterior CH4 mole fractions, derived from posterior fluxes, to independent observations of CH4 mole fraction taken at five lower- to mid-tropospheric vertical profiling sites over the Amazon and find that our posterior fluxes outperform prior fluxes at all locations. In particular the large emissions from the eastern Amazon basin are shown to be in good agreement with independent observations made at Santarém, a location which has long displayed higher mole fractions of atmospheric CH4 in contrast with other basin locations. We show that a bottom-up wetland flux model can match neither the variation in annual fluxes nor the positive trend in emissions produced by the inversion. Our results show that the Amazon alone was responsible for 24 ± 18 % of the total global increase in CH4 flux during the study period, and it may contribute further in future due to its sensitivity to temperature changes."

And stuff just got a little bit worse...

In the example above over exploitation comes first and then there is severe local climate change as a result... also counts for this one.
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kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #287 on: July 26, 2021, 10:56:35 PM »
B.C.’s rare inland rainforest at risk of collapse, international scientists warn in new study

The province’s unique inland temperate rainforest is home to endangered species and cedar trees more than 1,000 years old — but its old-growth ecosystems could be destroyed in less than a decade if logging continues at its current pace

Ecosystem collapse in B.C.’s rare inland temperate rainforest is imminent in nine to 18 years if logging rates continue at current levels, according to a new study by Canadian and American scientists that classifies the old-growth forest as “critically endangered.”

“Within a decade or two we could really be facing a major extinction event in the inland temperate rainforest,” Darwyn Coxson, one of the study’s nine authors, told The Narwhal.

“We usually think of things like that happening far away, in the tropical rainforest or in a coral reef — ecosystems far removed from British Columbia,” said Coxson, a professor in the ecosystem science and management program at the University of Northern B.C.

...

One century ago, B.C. had 1.3 million hectares of inland temperate rainforest. But only about 60,000 hectares of the core, old forest remain, Coxson said. “We have lost most of it. In that context, it’s really disconcerting how quickly we’re still logging those remaining core habitats.”

For details:
https://thenarwhal.ca/bc-old-growth-inland-rainforest-study-2021/

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gerontocrat

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #288 on: August 03, 2021, 09:46:08 AM »
Sometimes it feels every day is a bad day...

https://news.mongabay.com/2021/07/hotter-and-drier-deforestation-and-wildfires-take-a-toll-on-the-amazon/

Hotter and drier: Deforestation and wildfires take a toll on the Amazon

Drought and high temperatures amplify the destructive effects of deforestation and wildfires.

Across the Amazon Basin, tree species adapted to drier conditions are becoming more prevalent, and in the Central Amazon, savannas have replaced floodplain forests in just a few decades.

While deforestation remains a main concern, the impacts of forest degradation are becoming increasingly important.

Quote
The climate in the Amazon has been changing over the last few decades. The average temperature in the basin rose about 1º Celsius (1.8° Fahrenheit) between 1979 and 2018, with increases of up to 1.5ºC (2.7°F) in some regions. And there have been three “one-in-a-century” episodes of extreme drought in the last 15 years: in 2005, 2010 and 2015.

When the forest becomes too hot, trees need more water to cope. Extreme temperatures have a huge impact on the forest: When temperatures exceed 32.2°C (90°F), forests begin to lose biomass and release carbon, a large international study has found. The authors estimate that these temperatures will affect most of the Amazon by mid-century, even if greenhouse gas emissions are curbed.

As the region becomes hotter and drier, the forest is beginning to adapt. Recent research shows that trees that thrive in moist environments are dying and being replaced by species that are more adapted to dry conditions.

“If you stop to think that forests that don’t have a direct human action are changing in such a drastic way that we can detect them with data from 30 years, that by itself is something worrying to me,” says Adriane Esquivel-Muelbert, an ecologist at the University of Birmingham who was the lead author of the study. She also notes that these new species grow faster and die earlier than the ones they are replacing. “With that increased turnover rate their carbon stocks will likely be much lower because they are smaller and accumulate carbon for less time.”


Cleared land in the Amazon. There is evidence that deforestation is driving some climatic changes along the southern and eastern regions of the Amazon basin. Image by Ricardo Pravettoni.

The biggest changes to the climate are occurring along the southern and eastern regions of the basin, where precipitation is lower and where agriculture has historically encroached into the forest. In some of these areas, the average temperature is now up to 3ºC (5.4°F) higher during the hottest months, and the dry season is becoming longer, increasing the likelihood of droughts and fires.

In this region, there is evidence that deforestation is driving some of these changes in climate. One study estimated that in the state of Rondônia, in the southern part of the Amazon, deforestation alone is responsible for a delay in the onset of the rainy season of about 11 days.

But what has scientists worried is that the impacts of temperature, drought and wildfires are also beginning to be felt in remote and well-conserved areas, where human impacts are still low.

“Trees in Central Amazonia are not adapted to fire so potentially it could have a very large impact,” says Aline Pontes-Lopes, a researcher at the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE), who has just authored a study that looks at how forest plots in Central Amazonia recovered from wildfires caused by the 2015 drought.

Although humidity in this region has rendered fires less destructive historically, new research has found that humidity may not protect the region from “higher intensity fires arising from climate change.”

Already, repeated fires in the region in recent years have created white-sand savannas. The process takes place in floodplain forests locally known as igapós. These forests experience intense annual pulses of drying and flooding. During the wet season, water levels cover large parts of the trees. However, when the dry season comes, water levels drop more than 5 meters (16 feet).

The soils of these forests are relatively rich in nutrients because the tree roots form a mat that protects the soil from water erosion. But during the dry season, the root mat can become exposed and flammable. If fires occur repeatedly over a short period, the areas are unable to recover. Soils lose nutrients and become sandy. And over the next few years, the area is colonized by savanna tree species, which are more adapted to these new open spaces.


Igapo forest in Anavilhanas National Park. Image courtesy of Ignacio Amigo.

“Nobody expected this could happen in just 40 years,” says Bernardo Flores, a researcher at the Federal University of Santa Catarina and co-author of the study. Flores also noted that the wildfire regime is “increasing abruptly.”

“During the 2015-2016 drought, which was the strongest of the century, the area burned in my field site was seven times higher than all the area burned during the previous 40 years.”

Forest degradation

Wildfires and deforestation have long-lasting effects in the regions where they occur. Because the structure of the forest is changed, many areas become vulnerable and progressively less resilient to new disturbances. These effects are amplified by droughts and high temperatures, and are often grouped under the term “forest degradation.”

More vegetation is lost today in the Amazon due to forest degradation than to direct deforestation, according to two recent studies.

While significant amounts of carbon are released during wildfires, the majority of carbon released actually occurs in the years after fires have stopped burning. This happens through delayed mortality and decomposition, and is only partially offset by regrowth in the burned areas. A study estimated that plots that had experienced a single fire store about 25% less biomass 30 years later than undisturbed plots.


More vegetation is lost today in the Amazon due to forest degradation than to direct deforestation, according to two recent studies. Image by Oregon State University via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).

Something similar happens with deforestation, which also has a long-lasting effect on the trees that are spared. When an area is logged it becomes fragmented. This increases the exposure of trees that were once surrounded and protected by other trees to drier air, intense winds, and more solar radiation, a phenomenon called “edge effect.”

This edge effect has important consequences. A 2020 study showed that these areas lose carbon for five to six years. When they became stable, their biomass stores 37% less carbon than it did originally.

Tackling deforestation and improving land planning are two key points to address forest degradation, says Luiz Aragão, a researcher at INPE.

“We already have a framework of tools for territorial planning that would allow us to minimize these impacts, mainly from carbon emissions,” he says. “It is obvious that many areas need infrastructure, but it must be done in such a way as to minimize the damage to the forest’s environmental services.”

Yet politicians do not seem to be following these frameworks.

The government, for instance, plans to repave the BR-319, a major Amazonian road that runs more than 800 kilometers (500 miles) across Indigenous lands and protected areas and lacks an environmental impact study. According to recent modeling, it would increase the rates of deforestation in the region fourfold.

“We can’t continue to follow development plans from the ’60s and ’70s,” Aragão says.
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kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #289 on: August 10, 2021, 12:47:33 PM »
German Forest Summit: 3 ways to revive dying woods

n 2018, German forests burnt at around four times the rate they had in previous years, especially in the northern state of Brandenburg. But wildfires are not the problem for monoculture spruce conifer forests that dominate the wooded area covering one-third of Germany. These forests are instead falling victim to bark beetle plagues thriving in the dryer and hotter weather induced by global heating.

Germany's second national forest summit, appropriately titled "Waldsterben 2.0" (Forest Dieback), explores how to manage the German woods back to health in the midst of a climate crisis. Here are three suggestions that are on the table.

1. Better ecological forest management
One of the key themes at the second national forest summit being hosted at the Wohlleben Forest Academy in western Germany is forest restructuring and ecological forest management.

German woods have almost no old growth, and very little biodiversity. That makes them extremely vulnerable to climate change. This is due to poor forest management, say some of the experts attending the summit.

The prime target for reformation is "artificial" conifer forests that were largely planted after the war because they were fast-growing and could provide wood for reconstruction. Making up 25% of German forests today, the predominant spruce tree is an Alpine species that requires wet and cold conditions. Now they are badly struggling in non-native areas as they age, a process exacerbated by climate change.

"Our forests are not natural forests," said Christopher Reyer, a researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and national forest summit participant.

Planted with very few other species, and containing very little biodiversity, these historical forest management "legacy effects" are being compounded by "unprecedented climate impacts on these types of trees," Reyer told DW.

Peter Wohlleben, forester, founder of the Wohlleben Forest Academy, and author of the bestseller, The Hidden Life of Trees, said that 50% or more of German forests could die in the next decade "because of bad management."

"My suggestion is to leave the forest alone," he said. "Natural forests can create their own local climate, whereas plantations get drier and hotter and cause their own problems," he added.

2. Fostering climate resilience through biodiversity
Climate impacts on forests are compounded by invasive timber harvesting, which also compacts the soil and limits its ability to retain water. On the first day of the summit, Wohlleben described a healthy native beech forest very close to his academy which had virtually no water runoff during the heavy rains that flooded nearby regions.

...

Leaving forest undergrowth to build up for the sake of biodiversity might increase fire risk in the short term. But the nurturing of old growth will ultimately increase the climate resilience of all forests, especially in terms of remaining cool and wet.

"Don't harvest trees that have biodiversity attached to them," suggested Sebastian Kirppu, a Swedish forest conservationist, during the summit.

Kirppu said that in terms of biodiversity, forests in "Europe and Russia are the worst in the world."

...

3. Using wood in a sustainable way
There are no easy solutions to Germany's forest crisis. While conservationists are calling for the forests to be left alone, low carbon timber products can also help fight global heating — especially as an alternative to CO2-heavy construction materials like steel and concrete.

"If we can use wood products in the best possible way, with the best possible life cycle, and the best possible recycling and upcycling strategy. If we rethink the way we use this wood, then it's a very powerful solution," said Reyer of the climate benefits.

...

One strategy, as a forester from Lübeck in northern Germany said at the summit, will be to shift from clear-felling to single-tree cutting to create "an ecological system in forestry."

https://www.dw.com/en/german-forest-summit-3-ways-to-revive-dying-woods/a-58782039

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kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #290 on: August 10, 2021, 12:56:38 PM »
How has 30 years of logging saved the rainforest in Guatemala?

In the heart of Central America’s most populated country, Guatemala, lies one of the most important spaces in the world for biodiversity: the Maya Biosphere Reserve.

At over 21,000 km2, the reserve covers around a fifth of Guatemala’s total land and is the largest protected area in Central America. As the biggest tropical forest north of the Amazon, the park has a vital biological and cultural heritage, providing a home to countless endangered species and ancient Mayan archaeological sites dating back thousands of years.

The forest also serves as a critical carbon sink - a space which absorbs more carbon than it produces, an ecosystem essential to fighting the climate crisis.

But the Maya Biosphere Reserve is as vulnerable as it is powerful. Its geographical positioning along a major drug smuggling route, has led to deforestation as narcotraffickers clear the forest to use as a landing zone on the journey from South America to Mexico and the USA. Illegal farming and logging has also posed a serious threat to the park, as people look to profit from the land. In the last 20 years, the reserve has shrunk in size by 8 per cent just from illegal cattle ranchers clearing the forest..

So why, in 1990, did the Guatemalan government grant 12 communities the right to farm and log in this critical space?

Indigenous and local communities as guardians of the forest
The idea was a concessions programme, where Indigenous and local communities were allowed to harvest the park’s natural resources - as long as any logging or farming was sustainable. All permitted economic activities were regulated and monitored by external groups like the Forest Stewardship Council.

These practices weren’t allowed throughout the entire reserve, which was (and continues to be) divided into several zones with different levels of protection. Human settlement, extraction of natural resources, and logging are explicitly banned in the core zones - which take up just over a third of the park. These are primarily made up of biotopes and national parks.

The buffer zones take up around a quarter of the reserve. These sit between the core zones and non-protected areas, and have little formal protection or monitoring. Their purpose is primarily to act as a barrier around the core zones. Finally, there are the multiple-use zones, which represent 40 per cent of the total park. This is where the concessions were allowed to take place.

Extraordinary as it may seem, thirty years on, the spaces which actively permit logging and farming are the areas with the lowest rate of deforestation. Since 2005, the multiple-use zones have maintained a near-zero deforestation rate. In comparison, the rate is twenty times higher in areas outside the community-managed concessions.

...

Unsurprisingly, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused major financial problems for the communities involved in the programme. Due to a breakdown in global supply chains, they are facing an estimated €1.3 million loss in sustainable timber revenue and an additional €30,000 per week from the sale of palm fronds.

The other major threat to the reserve and the programme in general is perhaps a little less expected. An American archaeologist and anthropology professor, Richard Hansen, is fighting to create an ecological tourist centre in El Mirador, an ancient Mayan city in the forest.

Hansen wants to establish a US-funded, privately-managed park - completely with hotels, restaurants, and a mini railway for tourists. He’s spent a huge portion of his life dedicated to the forest, and argues that his development would protect the ruins and the reserve far better than anyone in Guatemala.

But Indigenous and local communities who live in the reserve, working every day to safeguard the forest, feel that this eco-tourist development would be a disaster for the reserve and its inhabitants.

https://www.euronews.com/green/2021/08/09/how-has-thirty-years-of-logging-saved-the-rainforest-in-guatemala

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gerontocrat

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #291 on: August 21, 2021, 12:52:54 AM »
ana so it goes on...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/20/brazil-amazon-deforestation-report-bolsonaro-climate
Deforestation in Brazilian Amazon hits highest annual level in a decade

Rainforest lost 10,476 sq km between August 2020 and July 2021, report says, despite increasing global concern


Quote
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has hit the highest annual level in a decade, a new report has shown, despite increasing global concern over the accelerating devastation since President Jair Bolsonaro took office in 2019.

Between August 2020 and July 2021, the rainforest lost 10.476 square kilometers – an area nearly seven times bigger than greater London and 13 times the size of New York City, according to data released by Imazon, a Brazilian research institute that has been tracking the Amazon deforestation since 2008. The figure is 57% higher than in the previous year and is the worst since 2012.

“Deforestation is still out of control,” Carlos Souza, a researcher at Imazon said. “Brazil is going against the global climate agenda that is seeking to urgently reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Souza called for the urgent resumption of government actions to stop the destruction, including the enforcement of illegal agriculture-led deforestation in the region, which has been impaired by budget cuts for the environment ministry and environmental protection agencies.

Even as he faces accusations of systematically dismantling environmental protections, Bolsonaro has deployed thousands of soldiers to combat illegal deforestation and fires.

But the policy has proved ineffective, said Marcio Astrini, the executive-secretary of the organisation Climate Observatory.

“The data shows that it didn’t work,” said Astrini. “No army operation will be able to mask or reverse the attacks of the federal government against the forest.”

Astrini said that the deforestation rates in 2021 are expected to be almost 50% higher than in 2018, before Bolsonaro took office.

In June, then-environment minister Ricardo Salles resigned amid a criminal investigation over allegations that a police investigation into illegal Amazon logging was blocked.

But the ministry’s leadership “hasn’t shown any progress,” Astrini said.

“The measures that benefit the export of illegal timber – the reason why Salles had to leave office – are still in place,” he said.

The new figures were released as lawmakers held a public hearing to push for changes in Brazil’s environmental policies.

“We are going through a very tough moment in Brazilian history. There’s a lot of denialism, and many attempts to weaken our environmental policy,” senator Eliziane Gama told the hearing.

"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!"
"And that's all I'm going to say about that". Forrest Gump
"Damn, I wanted to see what happened next" (Epitaph)

kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #292 on: August 24, 2021, 04:53:59 PM »
Paraguay wildfires: Massive forest fire rips through national park
Multiple wildfires have raged throughout Paraguay in recent days, destroying thousands of hectares of protected wetlands and damaging the air quality in metropolitan areas.

National Emergency Ministry authorities reported on Monday (23 August) that a wildfire in the Cerro Corá National Park had been extinguished after five consecutive days of firefighting.

Over half of the park’s more than 5,000 hectares were devoured by the fire, according to local authorities. Extreme drought and strong winds have not helped firefighters and volunteers in their efforts to put out the fires in the region.

https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/climate/paraguay-wildfires-cerro-cora-national-park-va8572250

Short 1m04 clip on link.
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kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #293 on: August 28, 2021, 08:59:17 AM »
Fires rage in Bolivia’s Chiquitania region

Satellite data show fires have intensified over the past two weeks and are invading protected areas.

The fires are destroying habitat spared by Bolivia’s extreme fire season of 2019.

Wildfires in Bolivia are often associated with burning for agriculture, and satellite data and imagery show recent fires on agricultural land that directly preceded nearby blazes that have spread into protected forest.

...

Alarm was sounded on Aug. 1 when fires broke out along a highway just south of the reserve and, propelled by high winds, quickly grew out of control. Three days later, the fire entered the Tucavaca Valley reserve. Authorities from the municipality of Roboré, aided by those from regional and federal governments, sprang to action and were able to get that particular fire under control. But satellite data from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NAS) show more fires have broken out and spread through Tucavaca Valley reserve and other protected areas in the region such as San Matiás Natural Area of Integrated Management (ANMI), gobbling up forest and other habitat as they grow.

...

The Chiquitano is the world’s largest remaining area of healthy dry forest ecosystem and one of its most biologically diverse. Jaguars (Panthera onca) prowl through its sparse jungle and grasslands, as do cougars (Puma concolor), giant armadillos (Priodontes maximus), tapirs (Tapirus terrestris), ocelots (Leopardus pardalis) and maned wolves (Chrysocyon brachyurus). The ecoregion is still relatively unstudied, but scientists suspect it contains species that live nowhere else in the world.

Maps and pictures:
https://news.mongabay.com/2021/08/fires-rage-in-bolivias-chiquitania-region/
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kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #294 on: August 28, 2021, 09:05:24 AM »
African Mountain Forests Store More Carbon Than We Thought But They're Vanishing Fast

Tropical forests in Africa don't receive nearly as much attention as the Amazon rainforest or the jungles of southeast Asia, but that says nothing of their overall importance in the global carbon cycle.

New research has shown the highest mountain forests in Africa can store more carbon per hectare than even the Amazon – far more than we assumed they were capable of.

"The results are surprising because the climate in mountains would be expected to lead to low carbon forests," says tropical forest ecologist Aida Cuni-Sanchez from the University of York in the United Kingdom and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences.

"The lower temperatures of mountains and the long periods they are covered by clouds should slow tree growth, while strong winds and steep unstable slopes might limit how big trees can get before they fall over and die."

But Africa seems to have trees unlike any other continent. Even under harsh mountainous conditions, researchers found numerous trees growing over 70 centimeters in diameter (28 inches), storing just as much carbon as lowland forests elsewhere in Africa and also in Borneo.

Unfortunately, these same old-growth forests are the ones cut down for logging, mining, and farming operations and due to political unrest. Since the turn of the century, at least 0.8 million hectares of mountain forest have been lost, mostly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, and Ethiopia.

According to the calculations of researchers, that's equivalent to emitting over 450 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.

And in the next decade, if we do nothing to curb deforestation, the African continent could lose 0.5 million hectares more.

...

And yet, to date, very little research has been done on the ability of African forests to store carbon. In fact, the authors say data from African mountain regions is "exceptionally sparse."

For instance, a 2019 update to the 2006 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report gave old-growth forests in the mountains of Africa the same carbon-storing potential as secondary forests in other high-altitude regions, roughly 89 tons of carbon per hectare.

But that could be a major underestimation. In the new study, when researchers analyzed old-growth forests in 44 mountain sites across a dozen African countries, they found a carbon-storing potential of 150 tons per hectare – nearly two-thirds more than the IPCC report.

...

"While we know what makes African forests special, we don't yet know why they are different," explains Cuni-Sanchez.

"It is possible that in Africa, the presence of large herbivores such as elephants plays an important role in mountain forest ecology, as these large animals disperse seeds and nutrients, and eat small trees creating space for others to grow larger, but this requires further investigation."

https://www.sciencealert.com/african-tropical-forests-store-way-more-carbon-than-we-thought-but-it-s-disappearing-fast
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beachykeen

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #295 on: August 30, 2021, 03:55:49 PM »
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/invasive-earthworms-threat-forests-climate-change-1.6154164

"Earthworms are not native to most of North America. Until about 10,000 years ago, a vast ice sheet covered the northern third of the North American continent. Scientists think it killed off the earthworms that may have inhabited the area before the last glaciation.
...
Lejoly estimates that only around 10 per cent of the boreal forest currently has earthworms, but she projects that by 2050, most of the boreal forest will be invaded — which means the boreal forest soil could potentially lose most of its carbon stock."

kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #296 on: August 31, 2021, 05:50:45 PM »
Brazil’s Grain Railway alarms indigenous groups

Brazil’s Grain Railway will cut right through the Amazon forest. Indigenous people and ecologists are aghast at the plan.

SÃO PAULO, 26 August, 2021 − A controversial 933 km-long line planned to run through the Amazon rainforest, Brazil’s Grain Railway, is one of a package of railway infrastructure projects which the UK-based Climate Bonds Initiative is considering for green certification.

The Ferrogrão, as it is known locally, will run north from Sinop in the heart of the soy- and maize-growing state of Mato Grosso to the port of Miritituba on the Tapajos river, an Amazon tributary.

The chosen route runs close to indigenous areas of the Munduruku, Kayapo and Kayabi peoples, and cuts through the Jamanxim national park, a protected area. To permit this route the Brazilian government introduced a law to reduce the park limits, but this has been suspended by the Supreme Court.

The government plans to auction the proposed railway, which will cost an estimated R$12.7 billion, or almost £2bn, in January 2022. To convince foreign investors that it is environmentally sustainable, in September 2019 it signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Climate Bonds Initiative, a non-profit organisation which awards green certification to sustainable projects.

and more on:
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/brazils-grain-railway-alarms-indigenous-groups/

Anyone who green certificates this or even considers it should be tried for crimes against humanity.  >:(
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kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #297 on: September 01, 2021, 01:15:03 PM »
One in three trees face extinction in wild, says new report


At least 30% of the world's tree species face extinction in the wild, according to a new assessment.

They range from well-known oaks and magnolias to tropical timber trees.

Experts say 17,500 tree species are at risk - twice the number of threatened mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles combined.

Conservation groups are calling for urgent protection efforts amid threats such as deforestation, logging and climate change.

"We have nearly 60,000 tree species on the planet, and for the first time we now know which of these species are in need of conservation action, what are the greatest threats to them and where they are," said Dr Malin Rivers of the charity Botanic Gardens Conservation International in Kew, London.

...

Some 142 species have already vanished from the wild, while 442 are on the very edge of extinction, with fewer than 50 individual trees remaining.

The biggest threats to trees globally are forest clearance for crops (impacting 29% of species), logging (27%), clearance for livestock grazing or farming (14%), clearance for development (13%) and fire (13%).

...

The experts are calling for a number of actions, including:

-Preserving existing forests and expanding protected areas (currently at least 64% of all tree species can be found in at least one protected area)
-Keeping threatened species in botanic gardens or seed banks in the hope they can one day be returned to the wild (currently about 30% of all trees are backed up in this way)
-Providing education to ensure reforestation and tree planting schemes are carried out scientifically, with the right tree in the right place, including rare and threatened species
-Increasing funding for tree conservation.

...

Over the past 300 years, global forest area has decreased by about 40% and 29 countries have lost more than 90% of their forest cover.

Research shows that seven main commodities drive more than half of deforestation worldwide.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58394215
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kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #298 on: September 04, 2021, 11:19:49 PM »
Rich countries may be buying illegal gold that’s driving Amazon destruction

...

Ninety percent of this illegal extraction was carried out by garimpeiros, wildcat miners, with the gold valued at $229 million. It was also linked to 21,000 hectares (nearly 52,000 acres) of Amazon deforestation in the states of Pará, Mato Grosso and Amazonas, according to the report.

...

Rajão points to the northern Amazonian state of Roraima as a prominent example of this kind of laundering. According to Rajão, the state doesn’t have any gold mining concessions — yet it’s an exporter of the precious metal. “How is this possible? One obvious explanation is the invasion of the Yanomami Indigenous Reserve by [illegal] miners,” he told Mongabay in a phone interview.

Rajão called for stronger due diligence from buyers to ensure the legality of the entire gold production chain. Agricultural produce from Brazil is already subjected to legality verification checks, though these aren’t always effective; when it comes to gold, however, there’s less scrutiny from buyers.

“This is the moment to discuss transparency in gold production,” Rajão said. “Illegal gold from the Amazon is feeding European banks.”

...

https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/rich-countries-may-be-buying-illegal-gold-thats-driving-amazon-destruction/
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kassy

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Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource
« Reply #299 on: September 04, 2021, 11:25:10 PM »
Old-growth forests of Pacific Northwest could be key to climate action

Coastal temperate rainforests are among the rarest ecosystems on Earth, with more than a third of their total remaining global area located in a narrow band in the U.S. and Canadian Pacific Northwest. These are some of the most biodiverse, carbon-dense forests outside the tropics, thus crucial to carbon sequestration

...

“We are walking in an ancient landscape that’s been here since at least the retreat of the Pleistocene glacier period 10,000 years ago,” DellaSala tells me. “These old trees have built up a massive accumulation of carbon in their trunks and soil, acting like a sponge to pull greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere, helping to cool the planet. The diversity of life that is all around us is incredibly rare. It’s all working together. And there’s not much left here on the Olympic Peninsula or just north of us in British Columbia.”

...

This is what the wood pellet industry refers to as “forest residue.” Biomass company representatives say that much of the pellets manufactured for burning to make electricity in the U.K., the EU and elsewhere come from such residue, which they argue is healthy for the forest and keeps the industry from needing to cut as many live trees.

DellaSala shakes his head at what he describes as a lack of understanding of forest mechanics and nature’s intricate balance, all of which accrues to humanity’s benefit.

He leans over a moldering tree in the understory just off the trail. He sinks his hands into its loose, moist exterior.

“This is starting to become soil; it’s getting broken down by decomposers. Feel this. It’s nice and cool and soft, a great place to grow seedlings. Look! You have a hemlock seedling growing out of the side of this dead tree. It might be the progeny of the tree that died. In an ecological sense, it’s all part of nature, of a forest rejuvenating itself. When a tree dies, it jump-starts the whole [ecological] succession process. From seedling to old-growth and back again. It’s a big loop, a circle of life.”

When loggers clear residue for wood pellet production, they rob the forest of this essential element. The industry says dying trees give up their carbon as they rot, which is true, just like burning wood pellets, which is not the same. A decomposing tree releases carbon so gradually that the moss and seedings growing atop absorb what’s being released, DellaSala explains. Burning wood pellets releases a gusher of carbon emissions all at once; nature’s balance is thrown off for many decades

https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/old-growth-forests-of-pacific-northwest-could-be-key-to-climate-action/
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