Rain Forest Myth Goes Up in Smoke Over the Amazon

June 08, 2005|Henry Chu | Times Staff Writer






Think again, scientists say.




Scientists such as Nepstad prefer to think of the world's largest tropical rain forest as Earth's air conditioner. The region's humidity, they say, is vital in climate regulation and cooling patterns in South America -- and perhaps as far away as Europe.


The dense and steamy habitat straddles eight countries and is home to up to 20% of the world's fresh water and 30% of its plant and animal species.

Brazil's portion accounts for more than half the entire ecosystem. Official figures show that, on average, 7,500 square miles of rain forest were chopped and burned down in Brazil every year between 1979 and 2004. Over the 25 years, it's as if a forest the size of California had disappeared from the face of the Earth.

Such encroachment on virgin land is theoretically illegal or subject to tough regulation, but the government here lacks the resources -- some say the will -- to enforce environmental protection laws.

Loggers are typically the first to punch through, hacking crude roads and harvesting all the precious hardwoods they can find. One gang of woodcutters, in cahoots with crooked environmental-protection officials, cut down nearly $371 million worth of timber from 1990 until it was busted in the biggest sting operation of its kind in Brazil, authorities said last week.

Close on the loggers' heels are big ranchers and farmers, who torch the remaining vegetation to clear the way for cattle and crops such as soy, Brazil's new star export, which is claiming ever larger quantities of land.

Prime burning period in the Amazon runs from July to January, the dry season. In 2004, government satellite images of the forest registered 165,440 "hot spots," fires whose flames can shoot as high as 100 feet and push temperatures beyond 2,500 degrees.

These tremendous blazes spew about 200 million tons of carbon emissions into the atmosphere each year, which translates into several times that amount in actual carbon dioxide. In contrast, Brazil's consumption of fossil fuels, the chief source of greenhouse gases worldwide, creates less than half what the fires send up.

During burning season, dark palls of smoke settle over parts of the jungle for days.

"It becomes hard to see, and your eyes have problems. The kids all get sick and have trouble breathing," said Joaquim Borges da Silva, 42, a rural worker who lives in a small encampment here in Remanso Talisma, on the forest's outskirts.

Smoke grew so thick at one point last year that two cars on the road into the camp barreled into each other head-on, killing two people, Borges da Silva said. The fires also kill the game that workers and small settlers rely on for food.

He pointed out a charred tract of land, littered with stumps and felled trees that looked like so many toothpicks, where tractors working 24 hours a day for a month cleared 1,000 acres last year. Trucks rumbled in and out, loaded down with mahogany and cedar.

Farmers subsequently burned the area. Two months later, at the first rain, a small plane swooped in and dropped seeds.

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