CO$TING NATURE

Illegal logging, urban sprawl, agricultural frontier expansion and impacts of infrastructure engineering works. The villains of deforestation in the Amazon are known but what is their real extension? Projections made by a mapping tool indicate that, at the current rates of degradation, the largest rainforest on the planet lasts just over two centuries.

FOREST COVER THROUGH TIME

The pessimistic scenario developed by Co$ting Nature removes the pixels corresponding to forest cover over time from the average annual deforestation in the region based on the Global Forest Change data set (2000-2012). The new deforestation areas are assigned according to the distribution of agricultural suitability as well as existing and planned road networks. Another forest loss of 0.3% per annum is added as a projection for a plausible increase in the rate of deforestation in the future. The setting restricts the occurrence of deforestation within protected areas by 10% representing an ineffective protected areas system. The resulting map is a forecast for the year of 2260, when much of the Amazon rainforest will be lost forever. The projections were made by professor Mark Mulligan of King’s College London, at the request of InfoAmazonia.

The end of the Amazon Forest has a date: 2260

At the current rate of degradation, the largest rainforest on the planet may only be around for another two centuries

by Thiago Medaglia

When applying a model for deforestation based on historic rates and ineffective protected areas, a British researcher came to a terrifying conclusion: the largest rainforest in world may only exist for little more than two more centuries. After this period (245 years, to be exact if the current protected area system is not effectively protected), the classic image of the green carpet formed by the treetops as well as its immeasurable biodiversity will be just a memory recorded in videos and photos. The forest, which was formed over millions of years, will disappear.

As if that is not enough, there is another disturbing finding: well before it’s demise, the Amazon Forest could stop providing the ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration and storage to mitigate climate change, the supply of clean water, erosion control and others that are essential for life in the region and beyond. But how did the geographer Mark Mulligan, Reader in Geography at King’s College London, in England, reach these conclusions?

Mark, who has worked in Latin America since the early 1990s, is one of the creators of an information system and ecosystem services mapping tool named Co$ting Nature, which has an inbuilt land use change model, QUICKLUC 2.0 [methods explained here. The web tool brings extensive spatial data on biophysical and socioeconomic context, biodiversity, ecosystem services, current pressure and future threat. It performs a kind of natural capital accounting and calculates the conservation priority of each 1km pixel on a global or regional scale, Mark explains. Through science and technology, ecosystem services are analyzed, their beneficiaries are identified and impacts of their continued provision is assessed.

The tool, which is a valuable technical resource used by researchers in more than 1000 organisations across 141 countries, and has already been applied at the local and national scale in many countries. The program can aggregate and interpret large volumes of data generated by different scientists in recent years around the world using so-called “big-data” analytical techniques of spatial modelling and geographical information systems.

DEFORESTATION IN BRAZILIAN AMAZON

Co$ting Nature does not solely focus on deforestation but on a range of pressures and threats, including:

Pressures: population, wildfire frequency, grazing intensity, agricultural intensity, dam density, infrastructure (dams,mines,oil and gas, urban) density

Threats: proximity to recent deforestation, projected change in population and GDP, projected climate change, current distribution of nighttime lights

These allow Co$ting Nature to look beyond the impacts of “clearcut” to much more sophisticated pressures affecting ecosystem health and other factors determining the ability to provide ecosystem services.

One of the key ecosystem services of tropical rainforests is carbon storage and sequestration, both of which mitigate against the impacts of climate change by taking CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it. Carbon is stored in the trunks, branches and roots of trees and in the soil. The large carbon stocksof tropical forests mean that areas like Amazonia are considered strategically important for mitigating the effects of anthropogenic global warming. When cleared or degraded, forests take up less carbon and indeed begin to release the carbon stored over Millennia in trees and soil.

The map below, generated by Co$ting Nature (based on a range of input data sets, see methods), combines these two functions (the sequestration and storage ) to indicate areas where carbon environmental services are highest. Where soil and above ground storage are high, combined with high sequestration (parts of Peru and Bolivia), the services provided is greatest.

Humanity has released something close to 10 billion tons of carbon, of which, 85% comes from the burning of fossil fuels and 5% from the cement industry – the rest is the result of deforestation. However, less than half of this whole remain in the atmosphere and contributes to global warming. The rest is consumed by the great carbon sinks – the oceans, forests and fields – which together re-absorb half of the CO2 emitted by humankind.

It turns out that the ancient cycle through which plants absorb carbon, produce oxygen and allow the proliferation of the various forms of life, is threatened. Brazil is one of the major emitters in the world and most of its contribution originates from fires and illegal deforestation occurring in the North.

Today there are already researchers paying a lot of attention on the so-called forest gradient, that encompasses the many scenarios of this type of biome: the untouched primary forest; the degraded areas (shallow fire or logging); the secondary forests (or in regeneration); then the agriculture areas. “We want to understand which is the conservation value of each of the parts of the mosaic,” said Joice Ferreira, Embrapa Amazônia researcher specialized in climate change.

CARBON STOCKS IN THE AMAZON

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Analyses of this type are highlighted by another factor: the degradation of forests is difficult to be monitored. While deforestation can be viewed by satellite images, degraded areas can be camouflaged by the forest – but that doesn’t mean they won’t lose their ability to provide ecosystem services. Shallow fires, for example, “have negative impacts on the carbon trapping” Joyce Ferreira details. To make matters worse, a huge amount of carbon emission results from degradation (40% of the total deforestation) and this is not included in the official figures published by the Brazilian government.

In general sense, an intact primary forest stores more carbon dioxide than a degraded area. But not all forests are good for biodiversity: “A monoculture farming (eucalyptus or palm oil, for example) may have high levels of carbon but not a good conservation value”, said Joyce Ferreira.

The way out: protected areas

Carajás National Forest, Pará, Brazil. Photo: Flavio Forner

“Protected areas are the most longstanding and successful conservation tool that we have in our toolkit”, says Mark Mulligan. Globally more than 16% of terrestrial areas are now – at least nominally – protected and we are well on the way to our 2020 target of 17%.

According to the Brazilian federal government currently 52 million hectares of the total area of the Amazon are protected in the form of 95 protected areas of different categories. The official target is to reach 60 million hectares in the coming years, which would represent 15% of the entire biome in its Brazilian portion. This is particularly important because “It turns out that much of the forest still standing in the region is no longer intact,” said Joice Ferreira, Embrapa.

There is also However, even protected areas are under pressure from factors such as extensive cattle ranching, agricultural monocultures, illegal logging and urbanization. According to a survey published by Greenpeace, between the years 2007 and 2013, 30% of the areas affected by forest degradation were located within indigenous lands and other protected areas. An analysis of deforestation in protected areas over the last 13 years shows that at current rates of deforestation within protected areas shows that many of the smaller ones close to agricultural frontiers will be devoid of forest within a few decades.

“If we want to maintain a stable climate, access to reliable and clean water, mitigation against hazards and other services that nature provides we need to find the right balance in landscapes that provides enough nutritious, high quality food whilst also protecting nature. Considering the extent to which we depend upon ecosystem services provided by nature, it is likely that we’ll need 50% of land area under effective protection to secure these needs,” says Mark. This idea is promulgated by an international movement called Nature needs half (Nature needs half), supported by scientists and ordinary citizens around the world. Where should we create national parks? Where can we build new buildings? What criteria can ensure a more sustainable future? Co$ting Nature can help us find such technical solutions but business and political engagement will be critical to implementing them.

In the Colombian Amazon, the reconstruction of a city devastated by a landslide appears to be the ideal laboratory to show how Co$ting Nature and other similar tools can be decisive in building a new world (click here to find out about the history of Gramalote, Colombia).