Parks Protect Amazon in Perul

Parks Protect Amazon in Perul

Scientists at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology studying satellite date have found that only 1 to 2 percent of forest disturbance in the Peruvian Amazon occured in protected areas, which means that land-use and conservation policies have been successful. Protected areas are 18 times more effective at reducing deforestatio than unprotected areas.

Lead author Paulo Oliveira said, “We found that only 1 to 2 % of this disturbance in Peru happened in natural protected areas. However, there was substantial forest disturbance adjacent to areas set aside for legal logging operations. This leakage of human activity outside of logging concessions is a concern.”

Peru's tropical forests are larger than France, which stretch 661,000 sq km and is second only to Brazil's forest area. The Peruvian government has been conscientiously putting aside large areas as parks and reserves while allocating around 40,000 sq miles of forest for long-term commercial timber production by 2005. With deforestation rates of less than 1%, Peru has comparatively lower rates when compared to its neighbors.

Scientists used the Carnegie Landsat Analysis System (CLAS), a "satellite-based forest-damage detection system" that penetrates the rainforest canopy to reveal the impact of logging. The CLAS system can uncover forest changes at a resolution of less than 100 by 100 ft.

GP Asner said, “Our approach has improved over the past eight years, but relies on a core set of methods that have consistently worked. We spent years developing them in Brazil, then went to Peru and completed this study in only a year. We are now operating over Borneo. Our approach is proving a good way to monitor rain forest disturbance and deforestation anywhere in the world.”

Researchers found that Peru's forest disturbance and deforestation rates between 1999 to 2005 were only 0.2% a year, with an average of 244 sq miles and 249 miles a year. More than 85% of the damaged forests were in Madre de Dios and near Pucallpa. 75% of the damage was found within 20km of roads. Even within those limits, forests set aside by the government were more than 4 times better protected than areas not designated for conservation.

The authors said, "Overall, only 2% of the forest disturbances and 1% the deforestation detected in the entire study area occurred within the boundaries of natural protected areas. Furthermore, territories occupied by indigenous communities contained 11% and 9% of the total forest disturbance and deforestation, respectively. These results clearly show that these two forms of land-use allocation can provide effective protection against forest damage."

"The establishment of protected natural areas, the titling of native territories, and the sanctioning of selective logging activities, have combined with the Peruvian Amazon’s traditional conservation allies—its remoteness and a complex hydrological network—to ensure a moderate level of success in the conservation of its forest ecosystems. Economic development of the forest sector, which employed 279,000 people nationally in 2001 (24), is essential for the well-being of human populations, but poorly monitored logging concessions, along with the challenges of uncontrolled road access, may hinder efforts to maintain ecological function and diversity in Peruvian rainforests in the future," the authors continued.

"Increased satellite monitoring of logging and other forest disturbances will thus be essential to conservation, management and resource policy development efforts in Peru and other rainforest nations," they concluded.

“This is another study from the Carnegie group showing the world how tropical forests can be systematically monitored amazingly quickly and at a reasonable cost.” said Michael Wright of The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which helped support the research. “I foresee that CLAS-like satellite analysis systems will become the standards routinely used by local conservation agencies to track rain forest disturbances and deforestation in the future.”

The study was published in the on-line edition of Science Express this month.