Recent deforestation drove the spike in Amazonian fires

Adrian Cardil, Sergio de-Miguel, Carlos A. Silva, Peter B. Reich, David Calkin, Pedro H. S. Brancalion, Alexander C. Vibrans, Javier G. P. Gamarra, M. Zhou, Bryan C. Pijanowski, Cang Hui, Thomas W. Crowther, Bruno Herault, Daniel Piotto, Christian Salas-Eljatib, Eben North Broadbent, Angelica M. Almeyda Zambrano, Nicolas Picard, Luiz E. O. C. Aragao, Jean-Francois BastinDevin Routh, Johan van den Hoogen, Pablo L. Peri, Jingjing Liang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

58 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Introduction: Tropical forests are of global importance even though they only cover around 10% of the Earth's land surface. They store large amounts of carbon and host between one-half and two-thirds of the world's species (Lewis 2006). Small changes in the tropical moist forest—the most biodiverse biome within the tropical forests—may lead to global impacts on climate dynamics and warming, water cycles, and the loss of biodiversity. If the current rates of deforestation and clearing patterns continue, many tropical moist forests could face an imminent regime shift towards an alternative tropical scrubland ecosystem state (Lovejoy and Nobre 2018).
Original languageEnglish
Article number121003
Number of pages5
JournalEnvironmental Research Letters
Volume15
Issue number12
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2020

Open Access - Access Right Statement

Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.

Keywords

  • Amazon River Region
  • deforestation
  • fires
  • forest policy
  • land use
  • rain forests

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