Zooming in: on south-east Asian tropical rainforests - using GFW

The Global Forest Watch (GFW) - is an online platform that publishes data about the world's forests. As a keen physical geographer (lol) - I like anything that is based on interactive maps, remote-sensing scenes and is GIS centred (this site has the lot). I thought i'd have a play around with GFW's interactive map and data platform - 1. as an alternative way of looking into south-east Asian rainforests, and 2. so I can give a mini-review of the platform at the end of the post!

Indonesia:
According to GFW tree cover loss between 2015 and 2016 totalled 4,172,540ha. Some explanations for this worryingly high figure are provided by Sahide & Giessen (2015) - land use change for non-forestry purposes is a key driver. The correlation between the location of tree cover loss and land used for oil palm appears to support Sahide and Giessen's findings (surely these locations aren't coincidental)...

Screenshot from GFW - tree cover loss between 2015 and 2016 in Indonesia

Screenshot from GFW - land used for industrial-scale palm oil plantations in Indonesia

Philippines:
Tree cover loss between 2015 and 2016 in the Philippines was less than Indonesia - 195,005ha (area of forested land, size of country etc plays a part in that). What I actually found interesting with the Philippines was the amount of land that appears to have been designated some kind of protected area status, and the amount of tree cover loss taking place in these areas. On the island of Palawan - the majority of the island is designated a 'habitat and species management area' (presumably due to the high endemism of this island) - yet deforestation is taking place in these areas (see recent article from The Guardian). Apan et al., 2017 have researched deforestation in Filipino protected areas, they found:

'there was a significant number of PAs with phenomenal forest cover loss in terms of extent (48,483 ha over 12 years) and rate (up to 21%)' (P.32).

The GFW figures seem to corroborate their results, suggesting that these trends have continued all the way into 2016...

Screenshot from GFW - protected area designations and tree cover loss between 2015-2016 in the Philippines

Review time:
First of all, I have to commend the site on the wealth of information it has available to users, not only does it provide ecological data on forest change, different land-use types and protection zones - but data on the people using and effected by forest change is included. 'Resource rights' and 'land use rights' are interesting layers you can turn on, I found this added depth and another aspect to consider concerning the data when I was browsing. I did find it somewhat difficult to create a composite picture of the current situation in south-east Asia for this post due to the lack of a 'regions' category/layer. Although the product provides country level data - it's tricky to get an idea of regional trends when you have to specifically pick each country you want to display. Furthermore, it wasn't possible to categorise the kind of forest you wanted to view data on, in this case obviously that would have been tropical rainforests. However, I was using the site for quite a specific purpose and the criticisms mentioned are merely nitpicking, they certainly wouldn't stop me from returning to GFW!

Zooming in: on the Amazon

"A picture can tell a thousand words" 

...And the case below is no exception. I came across this photograph taken by photojournalist Rodrigo Baleia, the juxtaposition of the soya crop on deforested land next to Amazon rainforest is quite striking. It got me thinking about soya farming, I'd never really thought about its potential for destruction before. My automatic thought in response to soy is veganism. My good friend Ruth and author of mysearchforgreen.blogspot.co.uk would often seek out dairy replacements on her quest to decrease her carbon footprint, soy products often aiding her on this mission. 

The aim of this post is to delve a bit deeper into the Amazon rainforest, but rather than try and tackle it as a whole, I will focus on Brazil, and the case of the soya bean as it seems there's more to the story than just dairy replacement.

Soya Farming in Mato Grosso, Brazil

Although in my tiny world, soya products have only recently seen a rise in popularity, as i've mentioned meat and dairy-free diets are becoming trendy in my corner of London. It appears that the real rise of the soya bean started to take place in the 90's (Barona et al., 2010). Many NGOs, WWF for example, are really trying to raise awareness around soya. It appears to be, directly and indirectly, in so many everyday products. The big players are commercially produced meat products (soy meal is used in animal feed), soy oil can be used as a table oil but is also being used more and more for biodiesel and there exist many other non-food soya-based goods too. 

The growing world-wide demand for soya is one of the most damaging contributors to Amazon deforestation in Brazil. Land-use change is a huge problem with the conversion of rainforest to cropland destroying habitats and needless to say, having huge impacts on biodiversity. However, further to this, Fearnside (2001) raises the issue of destructive development known as the 'dragging effect'. The article details this effect in the context of Brazil:

"The impact of soybeans greatly exceeds the loss of natural areas directly converted to this land use because of the massive infrastructure development needed to provide transportation for harvest and entry of inputs" - P.24.

Local Brazilian populations and economies seem to 'take the hit' when it comes to the destruction associated with the soya industry. 

"Costs include biodiversity loss when natural ecosystems are converted to soybeans, severe impacts to some of the transportation systems, soil erosion, health and environmental effects of agricultural chemicals, expulsion of population that formerly inhabited the areas used for soybeans, lack of food production for local consumption..." P.24

...the list goes on. The global demand for soya is pushing the industry to grow and produce more. The levels of forest clearance for cropland has been monitored through satellite imagery, in 2006, Morton et al. published their findings on Brazilian deforestation. They reported that almost 1/5 of forest loss between 2001 and 2004 in the Brazilian region of Mato Grosso could be attributed to large-scale agriculture. Staggeringly, as world food demand grows, especially for mass-produced meat, the likelihood of a slowing down and decrease in the soya bean industry is extremely unlikely. Recently, the Mighty Earth organisation published a report detailing the devastation the soya industry is causing in many parts of South America.

When I started to write this post, I thought I was going to end up slamming a vegan diet - 'you think you're helping by cutting out dairy, but really you're just making things worse by consuming loads of soy!' would have been my opening line. But in reality, it appears that soy in moderation, sustainably sourced is okay - again it's the mass meat-eaters among us that seem to be perpetuating the problem. Hmm - MORE food for thought then.

Un-wrecking the rainforest, un-wrecking the climate.

Geo-engineering is the name of the game and reforestation is one of the big players.

I'm talking about carbon dioxide removal (CDR) here, a widely discussed and fairly self-explanatory method of geo-engineering (see: Caldeira et al., 2013; The Guardian).

Schematic of Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR)

Today's post is a short one, dipping into just one of a plethora of methods for CDR. There are many methods currently being researched and developed with the aim of trying to limit/reverse the effects of anthropogenic climate change. It's a highly controversial topic with pros, cons and unknowns attributed to every approach. When looking into CDR, it struck me that reforestation of tropical rainforests has the potential to have a dual effectiveness. Fairly obvious really, however, the focus of the majority of research is on carbon removal or solar geo-engineering, the indirect benefits are often missing from the conversation.With the reforestation CDR approach, surely one of its key qualities is the possibility that we could be killing two birds with one stone (if you'll pardon the pun) - or rather - could be helping to reduce the effects of global warming whilst simultaneously bettering and developing degraded rainforest habitats. Win-win?

The benefits of reforestation have been discussed by Zhang et al., 2015 - what becomes apparent through their appraisal of the approach is how reforestation has the potential to remove atmospheric carbon dioxide and act as a store whilst improving the quality of the regulating ecosystem services that forested areas provide. Their review of relevant papers highlights just how much land has the potential to be reforested, specifying too, how much of this land could be targeted at tropical rainforests:

"Globally more than 760 Million Hectare (Mha) of land, which includes 138 Mha for avoided tropical deforestation, 217 Mha for regeneration of tropical forests, and 345 Mha for plantations and agroforestry, is suitable for CDM projects" (P.900). 

Although this all seems peachy, of course there have been utterances of problems associated with mass reforestation. Specifically reforestation for meeting CDR targets, there are questions as to how effective the approach actually is, especially if it is relied upon without any attempts to curtail our carbon dioxide expenditure (Caldeira et al., 2013). However, what seems to be the over-arching conclusion, and one that I tend to agree with, is, when talking about climate change and the CDR approach, reforestation and afforestation is something that can be taking place all the time. With continued efforts in combination with other approaches, it has the potential to be an effective tool in climate change mitigation. On a wrecking-the-rainforest note, reforestation is a no-brainer - it's helping the climate, salvaging biodiversity AND boosting the effectiveness of ecosystem services. Let's get planting!