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Rainforest on the island of Borneo
Section 1:
TROPICAL RAINFORESTS OF THE WORLD
Tropical rainforests are a world
like none other; and their importance to the global ecosystem and human
existence is paramount. Unparalleled in terms of their biological diversity,
tropical rainforests are a natural reservoir of genetic diversity which
offers a rich source of medicinal plants, high-yield foods,
and a myriad of other useful forest products. They are an important
habitat for migratory animals and sustain as much as 50 percent of the species on Earth, as well as a number of
diverse and unique indigenous cultures. Tropical rainforests play an
elemental role in regulating global weather in addition to maintaining
regular rainfall, while buffering against floods, droughts, and erosion.
They store vast quantities of carbon, while producing a significant
amount of the world's oxygen.
Despite their monumental role, tropical forests are restricted to the
small land area between the latitudes 22.5° North and 22.5° South
of the equator, or in other words between the Tropic of Capricorn
and the Tropic of Cancer. Since the majority of Earth's land is located
north of the tropics, rainforests are naturally limited to a relatively
small area.
Tropical rainforests, like so many other natural places, are a scarce
resource in the 21st century. The vast swaths of
forest, swamp, desert, and savanna that carpeted Earth's land surface
a mere five generations ago have been reduced to scattered fragments;
today, more than two-thirds of the world's tropical rainforests exist
as fragmented remnants. Just a few thousand years ago, tropical rainforests
covered as much as 12 percent of the Earth's land surface, or about 6 million square miles (15.5 million square km),
but today less than 5 percent of Earth's land is covered with
these forests (about 2.41 million square miles or 625 million hectares).
The largest unbroken stretch of rainforest is found in the Amazon river
basin of South America. Over half of this forest lies in Brazil, which
holds about one-third of the world's remaining tropical rainforests.
Another 20 percent of the world's remaining rainforest exists
in Indonesia and Congo Basin, while the balance of the world's rainforests
are scattered around the globe in tropical regions.
The global distribution of tropical rainforests can be broken up into
four biogeographical realms based roughly on four forested continental
regions: the Ethiopian or Afrotropical, the Australiasian or Australian,
the Oriental or Indomalayan/Asian, and the Neotropical.
Amazon rainforest will bear cost of biofuel policies in Brazil
(02/08/2010) Business-as-usual agricultural expansion to meet biofuel production targets for 2020 will take a heavy toll on Brazil's Amazon rainforest in coming years, undermining the potential emissions savings of transitioning from fossil fuels to biofuels, warns a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The research suggests that intensification of cattle ranching, combined with efforts to promote high-yielding oil crops like oil palm could lessen forecast greenhouse gas emissions from indirect land use in the region.
Asia's biggest logging company accused of bribery, violence in Papua New Guinea
(02/08/2010) A local organization in Papua New Guinea, known as Asples Madang, is fighting against one of the region's biggest industrial loggers, Rimbunan Hijau (RH) chaired by billionare Tiong Hiew King. Aspeles Madang has accused Malaysian company, RH, of acquiring land illegally and of using brute force and bribery in its dealing with locals.
Google Earth boosts deforestation monitoring capabilities
(02/07/2010) Google has taken a step towards ramping up the deforestation monitoring capabilities the Google Earth Engine by contracting Massachusetts-based Clark Labs to develop an online version of its Land Change Modeler application.
Commodity trade and urbanization, rather than rural poverty, drive deforestation
(02/07/2010) Deforestation is increasingly correlated to urban population growth and trade rather than rural poverty, suggesting that measures proposed to reduce deforestation will be ineffective if they fail to address demand for commodities produced on forest lands, argues a new paper published in Nature GeoScience.
