As much as 42 percent of the Amazon River basin of Brazil will be seriously damaged or lost altogether in the next two decades if that country's infrastructure development projects go forward as planned, according to a joint U.S.-Brazilian team of biologists reporting in the Jan. 19, 2001, issue of the journal Science.
The world's largest tropical rainforest already is disappearing at the rate of two million hectares (five million acres) per year. Land in the Amazon is cheaply acquired, and much of it is cleared by fire for use as cattle pastures, said the research group's leader, William F.
Laurance, a scientist with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama.
Laurance and his colleagues, working in Manaus, Brazil, conducted what they characterize as the first systematic assessment of the effects of development trends and projects on the region. They developed comprehensive computer models that integrate current data on deforestation, logging, fires, mining, roads, parks and reserves with information about a host of existing and planned infrastructure projects, including the construction of railroads, highways and hydroelectric dams; the installation of power lines and gas lines; and the channelization of rivers. Even under the more optimistic of the two scenarios modeled, "the Brazilian Amazon will be drastically altered by current development schemes and land-use trends over the next 20 years," according to the authors.
The study points out that, under the auspices of its "Avanca Brasil" (Advance Brazil) program, the Brazilian government is trying to boost the industrial agriculture, timber and mining sectors of the economy with a $40 billion investment in infrastructure projects over the years 2000 to 2007. The largest of the international and domestic initiatives to promote rainforest conservation and sustainable development, by constrast, is the program of the G-7 nations, including the United States and the European Community, funded at a level of $340 million.
The researchers also ran their computer models without the dozens of highways, waterways and other projects planned by Avanca Brasil. Both the predicted rates of deforestation and degradation decreased sharply absent these major projects, and forest fragmentation was greatly reduced.
"No one is suggesting that Brazil forego development in the Amazon, but there are far less destructive ways to exploit the region," said Laurance. "Rather than punching many new roads and highways into the remote frontier," he added, "we are pushing for slower deforestation and more efficient use of existing agricultural lands than cattle ranching." He noted that he and others are promoting more intensive land uses, to produce fruit trees, timber and other valuable commodities.
The report also advocates that Brazil capitalize upon the environmental services afforded by the Amazon rainforest's capacity to absorb and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, as well as to ameliorate floods, curtail erosion, maintain stable regional climates and conserve biological diversity.
"Under the Kyoto Protocol," Laurance stated, "countries like Brazil could be paid by other nations to save their forests, thereby locking up billions of tons of carbon that would otherwise end up in the atmosphere." He calculated the carbon-offset revenues available to Brazil at as much as $2 billion a year, without sacrifice of sovereign control over its Amazon forests.
Laurance and his collaborators on the Science article are associated with the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project (BDFFP), a cooperative research program between Brazil's National Institute for Amazonian Research and the Smithsonian that now resides within STRI's Center for Tropical Forest Science (CTFS). For more than 20 years, BDFFP has conducted long-term research on the affects of human encroachment on the Amazon rainforest, with an eye toward informing management strategies that conserve biodiversity and emphasis on areas of deforestation. The BDFFP also includes training programs to prepare master's and doctoral students for leadership roles in conservation in local, Amazon-region research institutes, non-governmental organizations and government agencies - an effort for which it received the 2000 Henry Ford Award for Environmental
Conservation.
William F. Laurance, Mark A. Cochrane, Scott Bergen, Philip M. Fearnside, Patricia Delam“nica, Christopher Barber, Sammya D'Angelo, Tito Fernandes - "The Future of the Brazilian Amazon" Sciencie, 2001
"Sensitive development could protect Amazonia instead of destroying it" - Georgia Carvalho, Ana C. Barros, Paulo Moutinho, Daniel Nepstad - Nature, Vol 409, Jan 2001