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Fire in Honduras. (Photo by R. Butler)
Fires in the Rainforest
Rainforests are increasingly susceptible to forest fires today due to degradation from selective logging, fragmentation, and agricultural activities. Scientists are concerned that much of the Amazon is at risk of burning, and that in the future we could see fires similar to those that so damaged Indonesia in recent el Niño years.
Today most rainforest fires originate in nearby pasturelands and agricultural fields where fires are used for land clearing and crop maintenance. Every year, during the burning season, tens of thousands of fires are set by land speculators, ranchers, plantation owners, and poor farmers to clear bush and forest. Under dry conditions these agricultural forests can easily spread into neighboring rainforest.
Low-level fires in the rainforest are not unusual. Even in "virgin" forests, fires may burn across thousands of acres of forest during dry years. The distinction between these fires and the fires that we are increasingly experiencing today is the frequency of occurrence and level of intensity. Natural fires in the Amazon generally do little more than burn dry leaf litter and small seedlings. Typically these fires have flames that only reach a few inches in height and have virtually no impact on tall trees or the canopy itself. However, in passing, the fire sets the path for recurrent fires and subsequent forest loss. Once-burned forests are twice as likely to be deforested as unburned forests, largely because the initial fires—however small—thin out the canopy, allowing more desiccating sunlight to reach the forest floor. Previously burned forests, in addition to having more combustible material, are also often adjacent to fire-maintained pastures and therefore are frequently exposed to sources of ignition. Subsequent fires burn with increased velocity and intensity and cause higher tree mortality. Fires intervals of less than 20 years may eliminate all trees in the forest stand.
Under "normal" rainfall and humidity conditions most of these fires are extinguished by the arrival of the rainy season or monsoon. Usually virgin forests serve as a sort of humid barrier which prevents the spread of agricultural fires (Woods Hole Research Center 1998). However, under dry conditions—such as those of an el
Niño year—fires can spread from pastures and fields into primary forest. 90 percent of burning in the Brazilian Amazon occurs in El Niño years.
The unusually strong El Niño of 1997-98 contributed to massive forest fires. In the Amazon, humidity in the Basin was 45-55 Percent lower than usual and the Woods Hole Research Center estimated that 400,000 square kilometers of forest could go up in smoke during the burning season.
In early 1998, some of these fears materialized as 13,200 square miles (34,000 square km) of Roraima state in Northern Brazil burned. The fires, started by subsistence farmers, spread rapidly across the dry savanna and advanced into rainforest usually too humid to burn. As many as 3,800 square miles (10,000 sq km) of intact rainforest were damaged or destroyed by these fires. The government firefighting efforts had virtually no effect and it was only freak heavy showers that extinguished the flames.
Dry conditions again returned in 2005, when the Amazon experienced the worst drought in recorded history. As rivers went dry and communities were left stranded, tens of thousands of fires burned.
Besides destroying the rainforest ecosystem and killing wildlife, these fires create other environmental problems. The "burnings" release thousands of tons of carbon into the atmosphere and the smoke produced causes local airport closings and hospitalizations for smoke inhalation. These fires are significant sources of greenhouse gases. For example, in a four-month period (July-October) in 1987, about 19,300 square miles (50,000 sq. km) of the Brazilian Amazon were burned in the states of Para, Rondonia, Matto Grosso, and Acre. The burning produced carbon dioxide containing more than 500 million tons of carbon, 44 million tons of carbon monoxide, and millions of tons of other particles and nitrogen oxides.
The tropical forest fires that have made headlines of late will only worsen as more forest is degraded and the area of previously burned forest expands. A recent study by IMAZON (the Institute for Man and Nature in the Amazon) found that for every acre burned or cleared which shows up on satellite, at least one-acre burns undetected under the forest canopy. These leaf-litter fires can burn for months with warm temperatures and little rain, and subsequent fires in these previously burned areas are more intense and destructive.
Other studies have warned that climate change could significantly dry forests in the Amazon Basin and Africa, increasing their risk of burning. In light of this potential scenario and to better understand the impact of extended drought in the Amazon and the resilience of the forest to fire, the Woods Hole Research Center and NASA are conducting a series of large-scale experiments in the Brazilian rainforest. Preliminary findings from NASA suggest that heavy smoke from Amazon forest fires inhibits cloud formation and reduces rainfall. This conclusion, combined with other NASA studies suggesting that deforestation can affect regional climate, means that the Amazon rainforest may be on the verge of a significant environmental transformation—one that will increasingly leave the ecosystem vulnerable to fire.
Palm oil industry pledges wildlife corridors to save orangutans
(10/03/2009) In an unlikely—and perhaps tenuous—alliance, conservationists and the palm oil industry met this week to draw up plans to save Asia's last great ape, the orangutan. As if to underscore the colloquium's importance, delegates on arriving in the Malaysian State of Sabah found the capital covered in a thick and strange fog caused by the burning of rainforests and peat lands in neighboring Kalimantan. After two days of intensive meetings the colloquium adopted a resolution which included the acquisition of land for creating wildlife buffer zones of at least 100 meters along all major rivers, in addition to corridors for connecting forests. Researchers said such corridors were essential if orangutans were to have a future in Sabah.
Will tropical trees survive climate change?, an interview with Kenneth J. Feeley
(09/24/2009) One of the most pressing issues in the conservation today is how climate change will affect tropical ecosystems. The short answer is: we don't know. Because of this, more and more scientists are looking at the probable impacts of a warmer world on the Earth's most vibrant and biodiverse ecosystems. Kenneth J. Feeley, tropical ecologist and new professor at Florida International University and the Center for Tropical Plant Conservation at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, is conducting groundbreaking research in the tropical forests of Peru on the migration of tree species due to climate change.
Working to save the 'living dead' in the Atlantic Forest, an interview with Antonio Rossano Mendes Pontes
(09/23/2009) The Atlantic Forest may very well be the most imperiled tropical ecosystem in the world: it is estimated that seven percent (or less) of the original forest remains. Lining the coast of Brazil, what is left of the forest is largely patches and fragments that are hemmed in by metropolises and monocultures. Yet, some areas are worse than others, such as the Pernambuco Endemism Centre, a region in the northeast that has largely been ignored by scientists and conservation efforts. Here, 98 percent of the forest is gone, and 70 percent of what remains are patches measuring less than 10 hectares. Due to this fragmentation all large mammals have gone regionally extinct and the small mammals are described by Antonio Rossano Mendes Pontes, a professor and researcher at the Federal University of Pernambuco, as the 'living dead'.
Concerns over deforestation may drive new approach to cattle ranching in the Amazon
(09/08/2009) While you're browsing the mall for running shoes, the Amazon rainforest is probably the farthest thing from your mind. Perhaps it shouldn't be. The globalization of commodity supply chains has created links between consumer products and distant ecosystems like the Amazon. Shoes sold in downtown Manhattan may have been assembled in Vietnam using leather supplied from a Brazilian processor that subcontracted to a rancher in the Amazon. But while demand for these products is currently driving environmental degradation, this connection may also hold the key to slowing the destruction of Earth's largest rainforest.
