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Destruction of Potential Renewable Resources
1994 figures for exports of primary forest products are included in the State of the World's Forests 1997 (SOFO) published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
The revenue decline in tropical hardwood exports is estimated in N. Myers "Nature's Greatest Heritage Under Threat." Rainforests-The Illustrated Library of the Earth, N. Myers, ed., Rodale Press: Emmaus, Pennsylvania, 1993.
The fall in Malaysian and Philippine log exports is documented in the State of the World's Forests 1997 (SOFO) published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
C.B. MacCerron (Business in the Rainforests: Corporations, Deforestation, and Sustainability, Investor Responsibility Research Center, Washington D.C. 1993) predicts that by 2000 only 10 of the 33 tropical countries that export timber will still be able to do so.
Myers ("The world's forests: problems and potentials" Environmental Conservation 23 (2) 1996) and D. Pimentel et al. (Pimentel, D., McNair, M., Buck, I., Pimentel, M., and Kamil, J., "The value of forests to world food security," Human Ecology 1996) estimate the value of non-wood forest products at US$90 billion for 1996.
Climactic Role
Norman Myers explains the albedo connection in "The world's forests and their ecosystem services," In Nature's Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems ed G.C. Daily, Island Press, Washington D.C. 1997.
Atmospheric Role
The burning of forests releases almost one billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year according to T.E. Lovejoy in "Biodiversity: What is it?" in Biodiversity II, Reaka-Kudla, Wilson, Wilson, eds.., Washington D.C.: Joseph Henry Press, 1997. The role of deforestation in global warming is further discussed in Peters, R.L. and Lovejoy, T.E., eds. Global Warming and Biological Diversity, New Haven: Yale University Press 1992 and Shukla, J., Nobre, C., Sellers, P., "Amazon Deforestation and Climate Change," Science; 247: 1322-25, 1990.
In their paper, "Carbon Dioxide Fluxes in Moist and Dry Arctic Tundra during the Snow-free Season: Responses to Increases in Summer Temperature and Winter Snow Accumulation" (Arctic and Alpine Research Vol. 30, No. 4 (373-380), November 1998), Jones, M. H., J. T. Fahnestock, D. A. Walker, M. D. Walker, and J. M. Welker warn that higher temperatures resulting from global warming could result in higher levels of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere from arctic tundra.
E.J. Barron in "Climate Models: How Reliable are their Predictions?" Consequences Vol. 1 No. 3, 1995 describes the phenomenon of the cooling of the stratosphere during warming events.
Global carbon reserviors are given in Kasting, J.F., "The carbon cycle, climate, and the long-term effects of fossil fuel burning," Consequences Vol. 4, No. 1, 1998.
W.F. Laurance discusses die-off in forest fragments and the possibly effect on global climate in "Forest Fragmentation May Worsen Global Warming," Science 298: 1117-1118 1/5/98.
In "Tropical forestry practices for carbon sequestration: a review and case study from southeast Asia," Ambio Vol. 25 No. 4, June 1996, P.M. Costa notes that forest fragments store less carbon per unit of area than contiguous forest because fragments are often comprised of fast-growing tree species which store less carbon per volume than longer-lived trees.
M. McKloskey ("Note on the Fragmentation of Primary Rainforest," Ambio 22 (4), June: 250-51, 1993) provides the two-thirds figure for global fragmented rainforest.
In 1995 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its report on climate change (Watson, R. T. et al., eds., Climate Change 1995: Impacts, Adaptations, and Mitigation of Climate Change: Scientific-Technical Analyses: Contribution of Panel on Climate Change) concluding "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence of global climate."
Mann, M.E., Bradley, R.S. and Hughes, M.K. ("Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties, and Limitations." Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 26 (759-760), 1999) reported the NOAA's findings that 1998 was the warmest year on record. The same paper (picked up by the national press in "Report: 1990s warmest decade of millennium" Reuters 3/3/99) also reported that the 1990s have been the warmest decade of the millennium. J. Warrick in "Scientists See Weather Trend as Powerful Proof of Global Warming," The Washington Post 1/9/98 reported that the past decade has witnessed nine of the eleven hottest years this century.
The National Research Council of the National Academies (J.M. Wallace et al. Reconciling Observations of Global Temperature Change, National Research Council 2000) examined the apparent conflict between surface temperature and atmospheric temperature, which has led to the controversy over whether global warming is actually occurring and concluded that strong evidence exists to show that surface temperatures in the past two decades have risen at a rate substantially greater than average for the past 100 years. Angell, J.K. further discusses the discrepancies in "Comparison of surface and tropospheric temperature trends estimated from a 63-station radiosonde network, 1958-1998," Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 26, No. 17 (2761-2764), Sep. 1, 1999.
L.D. Hatfield provided an excellent overview of the worldwide effects of el Niño in "An Ill Wind Blows in Again," San Francisco Examiner, 9/4/1997.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 1997-2000 reports on the history, frequency, and duration of past el Niño (ENSO) events.
D.T. Rodbell looks at the history of ancient ENSO events in "An ~15,000-Year Record of El-Nino Driven Alluviation in Southwestern Ecuador," Science, Vol. 283 (516-519), 22-Jan-99.
Leighton, M. and Wirawan, N found a direct correlation between ENSO events and drought in Eastern Borneo in "Catastrophic Drought and Fire in Borneo Rain Forests Associated with the 1982-83 El Niño Southern Oscillation Event," in G.T. Prance, ed., Tropical Rain Forests and the World Atmosphere., Westview: Boulder, Colorado, 1986.
The Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA) - sponsored by INPE (the Brazilian Institute for Space Research) 1997 - provided data for the global carbon emissions breakdown.
D. Holt-Biddle in "The Heat is On," Africa-Environment and Wildlife May/June Vol. 2 No. 3. 1994 notes the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels over the past 150 years.
Martin and Lefebvre discuss the spread to tropical diseases into cooler climes in "Malaria and climate: sensitivity of malaria potential transmission to climate," Ambio Vol. 24 No. 4, June 1995.
Based a studies of ice cores from Greenland, Steig et al. ("Synchronous Climate Changes in Antarctica and the North Atlantic." Science October 2; 282: 92-95. 1998.) proposed that a chaotic temperature change in Greenland occurred at the end of the last Ice Ages. J. P. Severinghaus and E. J. Brook followed up with similar findings in "Abrupt Climate Change at the End of the Last Glacial Period Inferred from Trapped Air in Polar Ice," Science 1999 October 29; 286: 930-934.
K.Y. Vinnikov et al. ("Global Warming and Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Extent," Science 1999 December 3; 286: 1934-1937) found ice in the Artic is shrinking by an average of 14,000 square miles per year and shrinkage is strongly correlated to greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions.
Mitigating carbon emissions by reforestation is reviewed in E.O. Wilson's The Diversity of Life (Belknap Press, Cambridge, Mass 1992.), Biotic Feedbacks in the Global Climatic System: Will the Warming Feed the Warming? ( New York: Oxford University Press 1995) by G.M. Woodwell and R.A. Mackenzie, eds., and Phillips, O.L. at al. "Changes in the carbon balances of tropical forests: Evidence from long-term plots." Science Vol. 282. October 1998. However this proposition has come under criticism of late by several important agencies including the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) (B. Scholes, "Will the terrestrial carbon sink saturate soon?" Global Change NewsLetter No. 37:2-3, March 1999) and the Intergovernmental Pannel on Climate Change (R. Watson et al. IPCC Special Report on Land Use, Land Use Changes, and Forestry, 1999).
Parry, M. et al. ("Adapting to the Inevitable," Nature Vol. 395 22-Oct-1998 "(741)) conclude the cuts under the Kyoto Protocol would only shave off 0.1°F by 2050.
In "Bogging Down in the Sinks" (Worldwatch Nov/Dec 1998) A.T. Mattoon discusses some of the problems with forestry sinks under the Kyoto protocol.
Agricultural changes brought on by climate change are considered by R.C. Rockwell in "From a carbon economy to a mixed economy: a global opportunity," Consequences Vol. 4 No. 1, 1998 and at the Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems Focus 3 Confrence (1999). Several studies presented at this confrence suggest that grain grown under carbon dioxide enriched conditions maybe less nutritious than than grain grown under current conditions. This conference was arranged under the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP).
R. Monastersky in "Acclimating to a Warmer World," (Science News, Vol. 156. 28-Aug-99) reviews some of the pitfalls and windfalls from a warmer climate including an increase in number of "hot" days, sewage and transit problems, and lower heating bills.
A.E. Waibel et al. ("Arctic Ozone Loss Due to Denitrification," Science Vol. 283 No. 5410 (2064-2069), March 26, 1999) showed that global warming could slow the recovery of the ozone layer.
Houghton (Houghton, R.A. "Tropical deforestation and atmospheric carbon dioxide," in: Tropical Forests and Climate, ed. N. Myers., Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992 and Houghton, R.A., "Role of forests in global warming," in: World Forests for the Future: Their Use and Conservation, ed K. Ramakrishna and G.M. Woodwell, New Haven: Yale Univseristy Press, 1993) and Myers (Myers, N., "The world's forests: problems and potentials," Environmental Conservation. 23 (2), 1996) estimate carbon sequestration by the reforestation of 3.9 million square miles (10 million square km).
"Rainforest" is used interchangeably with "rain forest" on this site. "Jungle" is generally not used.
Recent news
Beef consumption fuels rainforest destruction (02/16/2009)
Nearly 80 percent of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon results from cattle ranching, according to a new report by Greenpeace. The finding confirms what Amazon researchers have long known – that Brazil's rise to become the world's largest exporter of beef has come at the expense of Earth's biggest rainforest.
How to save the Amazon rainforest (01/04/2009)
Environmentalists have long voiced concern over the vanishing Amazon rainforest, but they haven't been particularly effective at slowing forest loss. In fact, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars in donor funds that have flowed into the region since 2000 and the establishment of more than 100 million hectares of protected areas since 2002, average annual deforestation rates have increased since the 1990s, peaking at 73,785 square kilometers (28,488 square miles) of forest loss between 2002 and 2004. With land prices fast appreciating, cattle ranching and industrial soy farms expanding, and billions of dollars' worth of new infrastructure projects in the works, development pressure on the Amazon is expected to accelerate. Given these trends, it is apparent that conservation efforts alone will not determine the fate of the Amazon or other rainforests. Some argue that market measures, which value forests for the ecosystem services they provide as well as reward developers for environmental performance, will be the key to saving the Amazon from large-scale destruction. In the end it may be the very markets currently driving deforestation that save forests.
Amazon rainforest damage surges 67% in 2008 (12/20/2008)
The area of rainforest in the process of being deforested — razed but not yet cleared — surged in the Brazilian Amazon during 2008, according to new figures released by Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE). The announcement comes shortly after the Brazilian government reported a 4 percent increase in forest clearing for the year. Using an advanced satellite system that tracks changes in vegetation cover INPE found that 24,932 square kilometers of Amazon forest was damaged between August 2007 and July 2008, an increase of 10,017 square kilometers -- 67 percent -- over the prior year.
Cutting deforestation can fight climate change, reduce poverty and conflict (09/24/2008)
Forest conservation can play a critical role in efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and alleviate poverty, said a prominent group of politicians, development experts, and environmental NGOs meeting in New York City to discuss U.S. climate policy.
Future threats to the Amazon rainforest (07/31/2008)
Between June 2000 and June 2008, more than 150,000 square kilometers of rainforest were cleared in the Brazilian Amazon. While deforestation rates have slowed since 2004, forest loss is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. This is a look at past, current and potential future drivers of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
