Secondary forests offset less than 10% of deforestation‐mediated carbon emissions in the Brazilian Amazon

Smith, Charlotte Caroline; Espírito-Santo, Fernando Del Bon; Healey, John R.; Young, Paul; Lennox, Gareth D.; Ferreira, Joice; Barlow, Jos

doi:10.1111/gcb.15352

Cited by 53 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 72 publications

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“…Studying Amazon forests, Bullock et al (2020) also identified deforestation as an important cause of environment degradation (which is also supported by other researches, Grdic et al, 2019;Smith et al, 2020). However, based on the findings of Wang (2012), the study explained that the relationship between the variables is nonlinear in nature, and any application of linear relations can possibly fail to provide a true picture.…”

Section: Literature Reviewsupporting

confidence: 52%

“…Furthermore, the literature indicates that early stages of economic development lead to greater pollution levels where a reversal of trends is observed at higher stages of development (Lapinskienė et al, 2014). In the current environmental era, owing to the significance of natural resources for climate change, the role of forestry is considered crucial, especially with regards to its link with CO 2 emissions (Smith et al, 2020).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Does Forest Disturbance Matter to Climate Degradation? Evidence From Top Asian Economies

Haseeb

Staniewski²,

Mihardjo

et al. 2021

Technological and Economic Development of Economy

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The main purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between forestry and climate degradation in the modern era. Specifically, the study aimed to examine how forest areas are influencing environmental degradation. Given the inevitable link between forests and carbon dioxide (CO2), the current study focused on examining the impact of changes in forestry on the levels of CO2 emissions in top Asian economies, including China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. To this end, the current study was quantitative in nature and utilized advanced methodology such as econometrics of quantile-on-quantile (Q-Q) regression to investigate the forests-environmental degradation link. In particular, we examined the effect of quantiles of forest areas on the quantile of climate change in top Asian economies using the time series data from 1990 to 2018. The findings confirmed that forest areas have a negative and significant impact on climate degradation in the majority of the groups of quantiles for all countries. Therefore, this study highlights the importance of forests in controlling environmental degradation in Asian economies. Lastly, the study recommends the respective government bodies to intervene and provide assistance in environmental initiatives to improve forestry levels.

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Section: Literature Reviewsupporting

confidence: 52%

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Forest Disturbance Matter to Climate Degradation? Evidence From Top Asian Economies

Haseeb

Staniewski²,

Mihardjo

et al. 2021

Technological and Economic Development of Economy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Our understanding has previously focused on Brazil (e.g. Smith et al 2020), which only makes up 60% of the Amazon biome. The contribution of the other seven countries (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, Venezuela) and the French overseas territory (French Guiana; henceforth included in the collective 'countries') is much less well understood.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Old-growth forest loss and secondary forest recovery across Amazonian countries

Smith¹,

Healey²,

Berenguer³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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There is growing recognition of the potential of large-scale restoration in the Amazon as a “nature-based solution” to climate change. However, our knowledge of forest loss and recovery beyond Brazil is limited, and carbon emissions and accumulation have not been estimated for the whole biome. Combining a 33-year land cover dataset with estimates of above-ground biomass and carbon sequestration rates, we evaluate forest loss and recovery across nine Amazonian countries and at a local scale. We also estimate the role of secondary forests in offsetting old-growth deforestation emissions and explore the temporal trends in forest loss and recovery. We find secondary forests across the biome to have offset just 9.7% of carbon emissions from old-growth deforestation, despite occupying 27.6% of deforested land. However, these numbers varied between countries ranging from 9.0% in Brazil to 23.8% in Guyana for carbon offsetting, and 24.8% in Brazil to 56.9% in Ecuador for forest area recovery. We reveal a strong, negative spatial relationship between old-growth forest loss and recovery by secondary forests, showing that regions with the greatest potential for large-scale restoration are also those that currently have the lowest recovery (e.g. Brazil dominates deforestation and emissions but has the lowest recovery). Our findings identify three important challenges for policy makers: (1) incentivising large-scale restoration in highly deforested regions, (2) protecting secondary forests without disadvantaging landowners who depend on farm-fallow systems, and (3) preventing further deforestation. Combatting all of these successfully is essential to ensuring that the Amazon biome achieves its potential in mitigating anthropogenic climate change.

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“…The results were not corrected for a possible offset from forest regrowth. According to Smith et al [72], the yearly increase in secondary forest extent in the Brazilian Amazon was about 8.61% ± 10.96%, offsetting GHG emissions from newly slash-and-burned areas by 10.29% ± 6.8%. Taking this scenario into consideration, the net emissions from fires, for the year 2019, was 295 Mton of CO 2 for the Brazilian Amazon, which is 16.4% of the whole emissions from Brazil [73], that consumes about 50% of the recently slashed biomass.…”

Section: Gas and Particulate Emissionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fire Occurrences and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

et al. 2021

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This work presents the dynamics of fire occurrences, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, forest clearing, and degradation in the Brazilian Amazon during the period 2006–2019, which includes the approval of the new Brazilian Forest Code in 2012. The study was carried out in the Brazilian Amazon, Pará State, and the municipality of Novo Progresso (Pará State). The analysis was based on deforestation and fire hotspot datasets issued by the Brazilian Institute for Space Research (INPE), which is produced based on optical and thermal sensors onboard different satellites. Deforestation data was also used to assess GHG emissions from the slash-and-burn practices. The work showed a good correlation between the occurrence of fires in the newly deforested area in the municipality of Novo Progresso and the slash-and-burn practices. The same trend was observed in the Pará State, suggesting a common practice along the deforestation arch. The study indicated positive coefficients of determination of 0.72 and 0.66 between deforestation and fire occurrences for the municipality of Novo Progresso and Pará State, respectively. The increased number of fire occurrences in the primary forest suggests possible ecosystem degradation. Deforestation reported for 2019 surpassed 10,000 km2, which is 48% higher than the previous ten years, with an average of 6760 km2. The steady increase of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon after 2012 has been a worldwide concern because of the forest loss itself as well as the massive GHG emitted in the Brazilian Amazon. We estimated 295 million tons of net CO2, which is equivalent to 16.4% of the combined emissions of CO2 and CH4 emitted by Brazil in 2019. The correlation of deforestation and fire occurrences reported from satellite images confirmed the slash-and-burn practice and the secondary effect of deforestation, i.e., degradation of primary forest surrounding the deforested areas. Hotspots’ location was deemed to be an important tool to verify forest degradation. The incidence of hotspots in forest area is from 5% to 20% of newly slashed-and-burned areas, which confirms the strong impact of deforestation on ecosystem degradation due to fire occurrences over the Brazilian Amazon.

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Secondary forests offset less than 10% of deforestation‐mediated carbon emissions in the Brazilian Amazon

Abstract: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Cited by 53 publications

References 72 publications

Does Forest Disturbance Matter to Climate Degradation? Evidence From Top Asian Economies

Does Forest Disturbance Matter to Climate Degradation? Evidence From Top Asian Economies

Old-growth forest loss and secondary forest recovery across Amazonian countries

Fire Occurrences and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

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