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Last stand Our last ancient forests are under assault. Wayne Elwod explains what is driving this devastation and why we need to save the trees. l a m y /A B r a z i l P h o t o s . c o m From the air, the earth is shorn and desiccated. Waves of heat billow upward, mixed with plumes of smoke. A few lonely trees stand in relief against the flattened landscape, while knots of cattle clump together in dusty paddocks ringed by barbed wire. This is the Brazilian state of Rondônia, the heart of the Amazon, wedged between the vast state of Amazonas to the north and, due south, Bolivia. Fifty years ago, Rondônia was swathed in dense tropical rainforest. Today, it is one of the most deforested parts of the Brazilian Amazon. An astonishing 100,000 square kilometres of forest has vanished from the state since 1978. Poor people from the crowded coastal areas, attracted by land and opportunity, flocked here in the 1970s when roads began to penetrate the forest. First came loggers, who harvested the valuable tropical hardwoods; then settlers, who cleared the remaining trees to plant maize and soy; and finally large landowners, who consolidated the land to graze cattle. Twothirds of Brazil’s deforested land is used for cattle ranching.1 But let’s leave the Amazon for a moment and shift our focus more than 3,000 kilometres southeast to the sprawling megalopolis of São Paulo, home to more than 20 million people. São Paulo is Brazil’s economic powerhouse: chaotic, pulsing with life and a little intimidating. Severe drought But Paulistas, as the city’s citizens are known, have a problem – a big one. São Paulo is drying up. In fact, much of southeast Brazil is suffering, including the country’s second-biggest city, Rio de Janeiro. The region has had three consecutive years of drought. Despite recent El Niñoinfluenced downpours, São Paulo’s reservoirs are nearly empty. Last year, the Cantareira Reservoir, which supplies nine million people, was operating at just five-per-cent capacity.2 Weapons of mass destruction: loggers harvest precious tropical hardwoods in Brazil. The South American nation is losing more than halfa-million hectares of rainforest every year. 12 ● New I nter nat io nal iS T ● April 2016

Forests The Big Story About a quarter of the country’s 200 million people now live in areas where rainfall is below historic averages.3 But it’s not just the coast that’s drying up; it’s the Amazon itself. The region has had three severe droughts over the past decade. All signs point to climate change as the culprit. Forecasters say the area affected by severe drought may triple by the end of the century. In addition, unpredictable feedback loops could accelerate the cycle. Carbon dioxide (CO2) released from a dead and dying forest will further disrupt rainfall patterns and increase drought – which kills more trees, releasing more carbon in an endless cycle. It turns out that drought in the Amazon and drought in São Paulo is not just coincidence. Researchers have found a direct link between deforestation in the country’s heartland and water shortages in the densely populated southeast. Scientists use the term ‘aerial’ or ‘flying rivers’ to describe the forest’s role in continental rainfall patterns. Here’s how it works. As humid air rises from the Amazon, water vapour condenses, lowering the air pressure. Since air moves from high to low pressure, humid air from the Atlantic is continually sucked into the centre of the continent. Researchers call this phenomenon the ‘biotic pump’. When the moisture-rich air mass moves west, it eventually slams into the Andean Cordillera, then arcs south and eventually east, bringing rain to southeast Brazil and northern Argentina. If the biotic pump is turned off, or loses its energy, that spells trouble. And that’s essentially what’s happening as the rainforest disappears. As Alexandre Uezu, an ecologist with São Paulo’s Ecological Research Institute, explains: ‘Were it not for the flying rivers the whole area would be desert.’4 Although the pace of deforestation has slowed recently, the country is still losing more than 500,000 hectares of jungle every year. Many Brazilians accept this as the price of prosperity. They wonder why they shouldn’t be free to exploit their resources just as North Americans and Europeans did centuries ago. Biodiversity Since the dawn of the colonial era, our exploitation of the natural world has led to the obliteration of forests on a massive scale. The consequences have been dire – for plants and animals, and for communities that depend on forests for their livelihoods. In the broadest sense, forests are key to maintaining comfortable living conditions on Earth by providing what economists call ‘environmental services’ – storing carbon, filtering air and water, preventing floods and helping to regulate climate. Woodlands are home to 80 per cent of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity. Trees also provide food and shelter as well as healing medicines. It is estimated that a quarter of modern medicines originate from forest plants. As the human population grew, so did our economic activity. Initially, most of the loss was in temperate regions where agriculture first developed. Later, industrialization, with its ceaseless craving for energy and raw materials, added to the pressure. At the time of the Roman Empire, dense forests covered 80 per cent of Europe. By the medieval era that figure had dropped to 40 per cent. And in some places it began much earlier. Half of England had been cleared of forest by 500 BCE. Today, ancient forests in Europe have all but vanished. In Ireland, for example, native woodlands make up just one per cent of the land area. A similar pattern emerged in North America as settlers pushed west, razing forests rapidly during New I nter nat io nalist ● April 2016 ● 13

Page Text

Last stand Our last ancient forests are under assault. Wayne Elwod explains what is driving this devastation and why we need to save the trees.

l a m y

/A

B r a z i l P h o t o s . c o m

From the air, the earth is shorn and desiccated. Waves of heat billow upward, mixed with plumes of smoke. A few lonely trees stand in relief against the flattened landscape, while knots of cattle clump together in dusty paddocks ringed by barbed wire. This is the Brazilian state of Rondônia, the heart of the Amazon, wedged between the vast state of Amazonas to the north and, due south, Bolivia.

Fifty years ago, Rondônia was swathed in dense tropical rainforest. Today, it is one of the most deforested parts of the Brazilian Amazon. An astonishing 100,000 square kilometres of forest has vanished from the state since 1978. Poor people from the crowded coastal areas, attracted by land and opportunity, flocked here in the 1970s when roads began to penetrate the forest. First came loggers, who harvested the valuable tropical hardwoods; then settlers, who cleared the remaining trees to plant maize and soy; and finally large landowners, who consolidated the land to graze cattle. Twothirds of Brazil’s deforested land is used for cattle ranching.1

But let’s leave the Amazon for a moment and shift our focus more than 3,000 kilometres southeast to the sprawling megalopolis of São Paulo, home to more than 20 million people. São Paulo is Brazil’s economic powerhouse: chaotic, pulsing with life and a little intimidating. Severe drought But Paulistas, as the city’s citizens are known, have a problem – a big one. São Paulo is drying up. In fact, much of southeast Brazil is suffering, including the country’s second-biggest city, Rio de Janeiro. The region has had three consecutive years of drought. Despite recent El Niñoinfluenced downpours, São Paulo’s reservoirs are nearly empty. Last year, the Cantareira Reservoir, which supplies nine million people, was operating at just five-per-cent capacity.2

Weapons of mass destruction: loggers harvest precious tropical hardwoods in Brazil. The South American nation is losing more than halfa-million hectares of rainforest every year.

12 ● New I nter nat io nal iS T ● April 2016

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