17. Selective Logging, Forest Fragmentation, and Fire Disturbance

Detecting anthropogenic disturbance in tropical forests

“…Total area affected by deforestation (green circles), selective logging (red squares) and surface fires (blue diamonds) throughout Brazilian Amazonia during the past century. These estimates are based on a range of sources, including the annual deforestation statistics made available by INPE [5]; a conservative estimate of basin-wide logging disturbance [5,8,16]; and a conservative estimate of the area affected by surface wildfires [7,17].…”

“…The extent to which logging and fire disturbance are underestimated by traditional land-cover mapping was recently shown for a southern Amazonian landscape of 4547 km 2 in the State of Mato Grosso [17]. A conventional forest threshold would indicate that only 27% of this area had been deforested by 1999.…”

Synergisms among Fire, Land Use, and Climate Change in the Amazon

“…1) (46). The relationship between forest burning and distance from forest edges is nonlinear but quite striking, explaining up to 92% of observed forest burning (47). Many forest fragments are also selectively logged (48), and this further increases their vulnerability to fire.…”

“…Logging operations produce large quantities of dead, flammable slash in the understory, while canopy damage allows light and wind to penetrate to the understory and increase desiccation. This results in intense fires (2) and high rates of fire spread (47). Across the Brazilian Amazon, at least 76% of logged forests had canopy damage severe enough to render the forest highly vulnerable to droughts and fires (55).…”

Mapping Forest Degradation due to Selective Logging by Means of Time Series Analysis: Case Studies in Central Africa

“…Selective logging has a strong impact on the whole forest ecosystem with damage to remaining trees, changes in plant and animal species diversity, impacts on the soil, and also on carbon storage [1][2][3][4]. With regard to carbon storage, in the frame of the Kyoto protocol, reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation in developing countries (REDD) was adopted as a mechanism for the post-Kyoto reporting.…”