Amazon deforestation and climate change

A coupled numerical model of the global atmosphere and biosphere has been used to assess the effects of Amazon deforestation on the regional and global climate. When the tropical forests in the model were replaced by degraded grass (pasture), there was a significant increase in surface temperature and a decrease in evapotranspiration and precipitation over Amazonia. In the simulation, the length of the dry season also increased; such an increase could make reestablishment of the tropical forests after massive deforestation particularly difficult.     

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation: global land-use implications

Recent climate talks in Bali have made progress toward action on deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries, within the anticipated post-Kyoto emissions reduction agreements. As a result of such action, many forests will be better protected, but some land-use change will be displaced to other locations. The demonstration phase launched at Bali offers an opportunity to examine potential outcomes for biodiversity and ecosystem services. Research will be needed into selection of priority areas for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation to deliver multiple benefits, on-the-ground methods to best ensure these benefits, and minimization of displaced land-use change into nontarget countries and ecosystems, including through revised conservation investments.     

Selective logging in the Brazilian Amazon

Amazon deforestation has been measured by remote sensing for three decades. In comparison, selective logging has been mostly invisible to satellites. We developed a large-scale, high-resolution, automated remote-sensing analysis of selective logging in the top five timber-producing states of the Brazilian Amazon. Logged areas ranged from 12,075 to 19,823 square kilometers per year (+/-14%) between 1999 and 2002, equivalent to 60 to 123% of previously reported deforestation area. Up to 1200 square kilometers per year of logging were observed on conservation lands. Each year, 27 million to 50 million cubic meters of wood were extracted, and a gross flux of approximately 0.1 billion metric tons of carbon was destined for release to the atmosphere by logging.     

Conservation biology. Combined insults spell trouble for rainforests

Scientists are now saying that a combination of interacting factors--including forest fragmentation, logging, and El Ni?o-driven drought--has altered the fire regimes of tropical forests and is changing regional climates and reconfiguring the landscape. These interactions are synergistic, they say--that is, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The concept provides a new paradigm for understanding the dynamics of fragmented rainforests and for approaching their conservation.     

Comment on "The incidence of fire in Amazonian forests with implications for REDD"

Arag?o and Shimabukuro (Reports, 4 June 2010, p. 1275) reported that fires increase in agricultural frontiers even as deforestation decreases and concluded that these fires lead to unaccounted carbon emissions under the United Nations climate treaty's tropical deforestation and forest degradation component. Emissions from post-deforestation management activities are, in fact, included in these estimates--but burning of standing forests is not.     

Land-use allocation protects the Peruvian Amazon

Disturbance and deforestation have profound ecological and socioeconomic effects on tropical forests, but their diffuse patterns are difficult to detect and quantify at regional scales. We expanded the Carnegie forest damage detection system to show that, between 1999 and 2005, disturbance and deforestation rates throughout the Peruvian Amazon averaged 632 square kilometers per year and 645 square kilometers per year, respectively. However, only 1 to 2% occurred within natural protected areas, indigenous territories contained only 11% of the forest disturbances and 9% of the deforestation, and recent forest concessions effectively protected against clear-cutting. Although the region shows recent increases in disturbance and deforestation rates and leakage into forests surrounding concession areas, land-use policy and remoteness are serving to protect the Peruvian Amazon.     

中国南方高保护价值森林判定研究

高保护价值森林的判定标准是高保护价值森林研究的基础,对高保护价值森林的研究可以将人们对森林的关注重点从传统的森林经营、森林采伐等方面转移到森林所具有的生态、社会、文化等特殊价值上来。目前在高保护价值森林判定过程中存在最主要的问题是判定标准不统一,本研究拟在现有的6大判定标准的框架内,结合研究区的实际情况建立了各判定标准的评判指标体系,提出了适合我国南方森林特点的高保护价值森林判定标准,并对福建永安林业(集团)有限公司经营区进行高保护价值森林判定。结果表明:研究区内森林存在高保护价值1、3、4、5,各高保护价值森林面积分别为4 742、656、14 641、3 828 hm2。     

山西省吉县人工油松林水土保持效益的研究

从土壤理化性质、土壤入渗、地表径流、土壤侵蚀和土壤水分动态等几个方面比较系统地研究了山西省吉县人工油松林水土保持效益。结果表明,油松林具有明显的水土保持效益;水土保持效益受林龄和林分结构的影响,林龄越大,水土保持效益越显著;混交林的水保效益高于纯林。本文还对影响地表径流及土壤侵蚀的各因子作了逐步回归分析,并用谐波分析方法和Spearman秩相关方法建立了土壤水分含量拟合方程,找出了影响水分含量的主要因子。     

云南省马关县金城林场人工杉木材积对根径的回归方程分析

通过对人工杉木林的调查分析,试图找出杉木材积对根径的回归方程,以指导盗伐、滥伐林木伐区鉴定工作,为盗伐、滥伐林木案件的定性及量刑提供准确、可靠的鉴定结果。     

Tropical deforestation and habitat fragmentation in the Amazon: satellite data from 1978 to 1988

Landsat satellite imagery covering the entire forested portion of the Brazilian Amazon Basin was used to measure, for 1978 and 1988, deforestation, fragmented forest, defined as areas less than 100 square kilometers surrounded by deforestation, and edge effects of 1 kilometer into forest from adjacent areas of deforestation. Tropical deforestation increased from 78,000 square kilometers in 1978 to 230,000 square kilometers in 1988 while tropical forest habitat, severely affected with respect to biological diversity, increased from 208,000 to 588,000 square kilometers. Although this rate of deforestation is lower than previous estimates, the effect on biological diversity is greater.     

盗伐、滥伐林木案件伐区鉴定方法在实践中的对比应用研究

针目前非法破坏林地,盗伐、滥伐林木现象日益突出,伐区鉴定方法适用不规范的情况,通过实践中的对比应用,试图找出在各种情况下伐区的优选鉴定方法,为盗伐、滥伐林木案件的定性及量刑提供准确的鉴定结果。     

东北林区森林资源的新优势

东北森林区地域辽阔、地形复杂、气候多样,是我国最为集中的原始森林区之一,屏障着西北利亚的寒冷气流与风沙流,涵养着东北地区的水资源,影响着大气环境向降雨多的方向循环,是祖国北方的生态防线,具有森林生态服务、森林物种多样、林产工业品丰富的优势。保护好现有森林资源、恢复退化森林生态系统、建造新的森林,扩大东北森林区的区域面积,持续提高东北森林区的生产能力,用森林资源的多功能满足社会对森林的多需求,实行多目标综合经营模式,走循环经济发展之路,促使东北森林区充分发挥其生态效益、经济效益和社会效益。     

Managing forests for climate change mitigation

Forests currently absorb billions of tons of CO2 globally every year, an economic subsidy worth hundreds of billions of dollars if an equivalent sink had to be created in other ways. Concerns about the permanency of forest carbon stocks, difficulties in quantifying stock changes, and the threat of environmental and socioeconomic impacts of large-scale reforestation programs have limited the uptake of forestry activities in climate policies. With political will and the involvement of tropical regions, forests can contribute to climate change protection through carbon sequestration as well as offering economic, environmental, and sociocultural benefits. A key opportunity in tropical regions is the reduction of carbon emissions from deforestation and degradation.     

Why are there so many species of herbivorous insects in tropical rainforests?

Despite recent progress in understanding mechanisms of tree species coexistence in tropical forests, a simple explanation for the even more extensive diversity of insects feeding on these plants has been missing. We compared folivorous insects from temperate and tropical trees to test the hypothesis that herbivore species coexistence in more diverse communities could reflect narrow host specificity relative to less diverse communities. Temperate and tropical tree species of comparable phylogenetic distribution supported similar numbers of folivorous insect species, 29.0 +/- 2.2 and 23.5 +/- 1.8 per 100 square meters of foliage, respectively. Host specificity did not differ significantly between community samples, indicating that food resources are not more finely partitioned among folivorous insects in tropical than in temperate forests. These findings suggest that the latitudinal gradient in insect species richness could be a direct function of plant diversity, which increased sevenfold from our temperate to tropical study sites.     

Carbon pools and flux of global forest ecosystems

Forest systems cover more than 4.1 x 10(9) hectares of the Earth's land area. Globally, forest vegetation and soils contain about 1146 petagrams of carbon, with approximately 37 percent of this carbon in low-latitude forests, 14 percent in mid-latitudes, and 49 percent at high latitudes. Over two-thirds of the carbon in forest ecosystems is contained in soils and associated peat deposits. In 1990, deforestation in the low latitudes emitted 1.6 +/- 0.4 petagrams of carbon per year, whereas forest area expansion and growth in mid- and high-latitude forest sequestered 0.7 +/- 0.2 petagrams of carbon per year, for a net flux to the atmosphere of 0.9 +/- 0.4 petagrams of carbon per year. Slowing deforestation, combined with an increase in forestation and other management measures to improve forest ecosystem productivity, could conserve or sequester significant quantities of carbon. Future forest carbon cycling trends attributable to losses and regrowth associated with global climate and land-use change are uncertain. Model projections and some results suggest that forests could be carbon sinks or sources in the future.     

近自然经营理论在生态风景林的应用——以深圳市为例

森林的生态功能和社会功能在科学与社会不断发展的今天已逐渐得到了重视。研究以深圳为例,通过对生态风景林和近自然经营概念与原则的表述,结合深圳生态风景林构建的实际情况,具体阐述了深圳生态风景林构建中的立地划分、树种选择、采伐作业、群落构建、抚育管理、效益监测等各方面的要求、原则以及实施办法,对近自然经营理论在生态风景林建设中的应用进行了论述。强调在建设过程中应该利用自然,尊重自然,将人工林改造为结构丰富稳定和生态防护功能更高的近自然状态风景林。以期为生态风景林建设提供理论依据,促使生态风景林在深圳城市建设中发挥更加积极的作用。     

Conserving copalillo: The creation of sustainable Oaxacan wood carvings

Most accounts of the effect of the global marketplace on deforestation in Africa, Asia, and Latin America emphasize the demand for timber used in industrial processes and the conversion of tropical forests to pastures for beef cattle. In recent years, numerous scholars and policymakers have suggested that developing a market for non-timber forest products (NTFPs) might slow the pace of habitat destruction. Although increased demand for NTFPs rarely results in massive deforestation, the depletion of the raw materials needed to make particular products is common. Many rural households in the Mexican state of Oaxaca have prospered over the past three decades through the sale of brightly-painted, whimsical wood carvings (alebrijes) to international tourists and the owners of ethnic arts shops in the United States, Canada, and Europe. This paper examines a promising project aimed at providing Oaxacan alebrije-makers with a reliable, legal, and sustainable supply of wood. The ecologists, artisans, merchants, and forest owners involved in the project face formidable obstacles. Gaining permission to harvest wood from land belonging to Oaxacan communities requires the negotiation of a complex social, legal, economic, and political landscape. Artisans’ decisions about where to obtain wood rest largely on price, quality, and reliability of the supplier; they are willing to pay a premium for ecologically sustainable wood only if the additional cost can be passed on to consumers. Nonetheless, a group of carvers has begun to buy sustainably harvested wood. This arrangement has economic advantages for both the alebrije-makers and the owners of the forests where the wood is produced. Michael Chibnik is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Iowa. He has conducted fieldwork in Belize, Peru, Mexico, and in various parts of the United States. His research interests include economic anthropology, artisans, work organization, agricultural decision-making, and political ecology. He is the author of Crafting Tradition: The Making and Marketing of Oaxacan Wood Carvings (University of Texas Press, 2003) and Risky Rivers: The Economics and Politics of Floodplain Farming in Amazonia (University of Arizona Press, 1994), and editor of Farm Work and Fieldwork: American Agriculture in Anthropological Perspective (Cornell University Press, 1987). Dr. Silvia E. Purata is a Mexican ethnoecologist based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She is a member of People and Plants International, an organization that works to integrate conservation and the use of natural resources. Purata has conducted research on the methods indigenous peoples use to extract non-timber forest products (NTFPs) in tropical forests and the fate of such systems in varying socioeconomic circumstances. She has also been working on the promotion of forest certification in the Selva Maya.     

水源涵养林研究综述

水源涵养林是具有特殊意义的防护林种 ,它不但有森林普遍具有的生态效益、经济效益和社会效益 ,而且最主要的是它具有涵养保护水源、调洪削峰、防止土壤侵蚀和净化水质的功能 .因此 ,2 0世纪 80年代起对水源涵养林的研究日渐兴盛 ,主要是以森林水文学方法为主 .该文从它的研究方法、效益评价方法、水源涵养机理、规划布局及理想林种的配置等方面 ,对国内外的研究现状做了系统概述     

采伐强度对水源涵养林林分结构特征的影响

水源涵养林一般要求具有复层、冠长率高、冠幅完满、树种混交、灌草丰富的森林结构。中村林场位于山西省晋城市沁水县中村镇,其经营范围位于黄河中游一、二级支流的上游山区地带,90%以上为水源涵养林,油松为主要优势树种。为增强林分水源涵养能力,林场开始采取近自然经营理念与技术优化林分结构,增强生态功能,但由于生态公益林采伐限额的限制,林场在小面积范围内进行了不同采伐强度的经营试验。本研究定量分析了3种经营强度下形成的3种林分类型（包括不经营的高密度油松纯林T₀、总间伐强度47%的油松相对纯林T₁、总间伐强度62%的油松混交林T₂）的空间结构与非空间结构,包括空间混交度、大小比、多样性指数、林层结构、径阶分布、林冠层指标（冠长率、冠幅面积与冠幅）、灌草盖度等,并初步提出未来近自然经营措施。结果表明:T₂林分各林层树种丰富度、冠长率与冠幅面积最高,其次是T₁,T₀最差;在林分水平结构与林分多样性以及树种竞争力方面,亦是同样结果;由此可知,人工生态公益林其森林结构与生态功能只有通过经营才能得到提高。对于初始密度高的人工水源涵养林,只有通过不断间伐,调整林分密度与林木分布,才能促进天然更新,增加树种多样性与提高林分稳定性。本研究为全场调整林分结构和制定针对性经营措施提供数据支持与基本林分特征参数,同时,为被划分为生态公益林的高密度人工林经营提供案例参考。     

Global deforestation: contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide

A study of effects of terrestrial biota on the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere suggests that the global net release of carbon due to forest clearing between 1860 and 1980 was between 135 x 10(15) and 228 x 10(15) grams. Between 1.8 x 10(15) and 4.7 x 10(15) grams of carbon were released in 1980, of which nearly 80 percent was due to deforestation, principally in the tropics. The annual release of carbon from the biota and soils exceeded the release from fossil fuels until about 1960. Because the biotic release has been and remains much larger than is commonly assumed, the airborne fraction, usually considered to be about 50 percent of the release from fossil fuels, was probably between 22 and 43 percent of the total carbon released in 1980. The increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is thought by some to be increasing the storage of carbon in the earth's remaining forests sufficiently to offset the release from deforestation. The interpretation of the evidence presented here suggests no such effect; deforestation appears to be the dominant biotic effect on atmospheric carbon dioxide. If deforestation increases in proportion to population, the biotic release of carbon will reach 9 x 10(15) grams per year before forests are exhausted early in the next century. The possibilities for limiting the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through reduction in use of fossil fuels and through management of forests may be greater than is commonly assumed.