![]() According to Nepstad, the first accidental burn that steals into the forest is the beginning of a long, downward spiral that compromises forest health over an area equal to or greater than the amount that is deforested outright each year. Recently, Nepstad has been a part of the Large-scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia. That is the troubling picture emerging from research by ecologist Daniel Nepstad of the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts and his colleagues in Brazil and the United States, who have been working to identify both the causes and the effects of Amazon fires. (Photograph copyright Woods Hole Research Center) Once rarely touched by fire, the portions of the Amazon near areas of human development are becoming increasingly susceptible to damaging fires. ![]() The El Niño-driven droughts that typically arrive a couple of times per decade become devastating.Ī fire sweeps through a portion of the Amazon Rainforest, reducing the vegetation to ash. In this damaged, fragmented landscape, the onset of the natural dry season becomes ominous. Smoke hangs over the forest and suppresses rainfall. ![]() The intense tropical sun, previously deflected by the green canopy, heats the forest floor, pushing fire danger even higher. The dead and dying trees collapse, spilling firewood and kindling to the ground and ripping a great tear in the tent of the forest overhead. Intentional fires get out of control and burn through the understory of nearby forests, killing, but not completely burning small trees, vines and shrubs. Slash-and-burn agriculture converts forest to farm land, but that obvious destruction is only the beginning.
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