Recent deforestation drove the spike in Amazonian fires

• Autores: Cardil, Adrián; de Miguel, Sergio; Silva, Carlos A.; Reich, Peter B.; Calkin, David; Brancalion, Pedro H. S.; Vibrans, Alexander C.; Gamarra, Javier G. P.; Zhou, M.; Pijanowski, Bryan C.; Hui, Cang; Crowther, Thomas W.; Hérault, Bruno; Piotto, Daniel; Salas-Eljatib, Christian; North Broadbent, Eben; Almeyda Zambrano, Angelica M.; Picard, Nicolas; Aragão, Luiz E.O. C.; Bastin, Jean-Francois; Routh, Devin; van den Hoogen, Johan; Peri, Pablo Luis; Liang, Jingjing
• Año de publicación: 2020
• Idioma: inglés
• Tipo de recurso: artículo
• Fuente: Environmental research letters 15 (12): 121003. (December 2020)
• Materia: Fire Cause; Desforestation; Environmental Degradation; Carbon; Biodiversity Conservation; Agricultural Practices; Land Use; Forest Land Use; Amazon; Forestry Policies; Tropical Rain Forests; Incendios; Deforestación; Degradación de Ambientes; Carbono; Conservación de la Biodiversidad; Agricultura; Bosques Tropicales Húmedos; Cambios en el Uso de las Tierras; Uso de las Tierras Forestales; Políticas Forestales
• Institución: Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria

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). Over the last several months of 2019, there was a surge of headline news by global media of widespread wildfires in the Amazon rainforest, the largest remaining expanse of tropical moist forest on Earth. Smoke from Amazon fires, visible from space, engulfed cities thousands of kilometers away, including São Paulo, the largest South American city, which plunged into darkness at 3 pm on 19 August 2019. The long-term socioeconomic and environmental impacts of such fires could potentially be severe, not only in regards to the amount of particulate matter released into the atmosphere, but also contributing toward massive carbon dioxide emissions from fires. These will threaten biodiversity in one of the most megadiverse regions of the world, causing negative impacts on human health, and immense economic damage (de Mendonça et al 2004, Aragão et al 2018, Smith 2019, Brancalion et al 2020). Given these social and ecological losses, the ultimate reason behind the widespread fires in the Amazonian rainforest has become a focus of public inquiries. In the vacuum created by a lack of scientific assessments, contrasting narratives and polarized opinions have proliferated. Considering the fact that the doubling of fire incidence in August―the peak fire month in 2019―relative to the average August fire incidence over the last decade was not influenced by severe droughts or other climatic anomalies (Barlow et al 2020, Kelley et al 2020), what caused the 2019 Amazon fires anomaly?
EEA SANTA CRUZ
Fil: Cardil, Adrián. AGROTECNIO Joint Research Unit CTFC, Solsona; España.
Fil: Cardil, Adrián. University de Lleida. Department of Crop and Forest Sciences, Lleida; España.
Fil: Cardil, Adrián. Technosylva Inc, La Jolla, CA; Estados Unidos
Fil: de Miguel, Sergio. AGROTECNIO Joint Research Unit CTFC, Solsona; España.
Fil: de-Miguel, Sergio. University de Lleida. Department of Crop and Forest Sciences, Lleida; España.
Fil: Silva, Carlos A. University of Florida. School of Forest Resources and Conservation, Gainesville, FL; Estados Unidos
Fil: Silva, Carlos A. University of Maryland. Department of Geographical Sciences. College Park, MD; Estados Unidos
Fil: Reich, Peter B. University of Minnesota. Department of Forest Resources. St. Paul, MN; Estados Unidos
Fil: Reich, Peter B. Western Sydney University. Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment. Penrith; Australia.
Fil: Calkin, David. USDA Forest Service. Rocky Mountain Research Station. Missoula, MT; Estados Unidos
Fil: Brancalion, Pedro H. S. University of S˜ao Paulo. Department of Forest Sciences, ‘Luiz de Queiroz’ College of Agriculture; Brasil.
Fil: Vibrans, Alexander C. Universidade Regional de Blumenau. Department of Forest Engineering. Santa Catarina; Brasil.
Fil: Gamarra Javier G P. International Forest Statistics Consultant, Rome; Italia
Fil: Zhou, M. Purdue University. Department of Forestry and Natural Resources. West Lafayette, IN; Estados Unidos
Fil: Pijanowski, Bryan C. Purdue University. Department of Forestry and Natural Resources. West Lafayette, IN; Estados Unidos.
Fil: Hui, Cang. Stellenbosch University. Centre for Invasion Biology, Department of Mathematical Sciences; Sudafrica.
Fil: Crowther, Thomas W. ETH Zürich. Department of Environmental Systems Science. Zürich; Suiza.
Fil: Hérault, Bruno. CIRAD. UPR Forets et Societes. Yamoussoukro; Ivory Coast.
Fil: Hérault, Bruno. Univ Montpellier. CIRAD Forets et Societes. Montpellier; Francia
Fil: Hérault, Bruno. Institut National Polytechnique Felix Houphouët-Boigny, INP-HB, Yamoussoukro; Ivory Coast.
Fil: Piotto, Daniel. Universidade Federal do Sul da Bahia. Centro de Formaçao em Ciencias Agroflorestais. Bahia; Brasil.
Fil: Salas-Eljatib, Christian. Universidad Mayor. Centro de Modelación y Monitoreo de Ecosistemas. Santiago; Chile.
Fil: Salas-Eljatib, Christian. Universidad de La Frontera. Vicerrectoría de Investigación y Postgrado. Temuco; Chile.
Fil: North Broadbent, Eben. University of Florida. Spatial Ecology and Conservation (SPEC). Lab, School of Forest Resources and Conservation. Gainesville; Estados Unidos
Fil: Almeyda Zambrano, Angelica M. University of Florida. Center for Latin American Studies. Gainesville; Estados Unidos.
Fil: Picard, Nicolas. ECOFOR. Center GIP. Paris; Francia
Fil: Aragão, Luiz E.O. C. National Institute for Space Research. Remote Sensing Division. Sao José dos Campos; Brasil.
Fil: Aragão, Luiz E.O. C. University of Exeter. College of Life and Environmental Sciences. Exeter; Reino Unido
Fil: Bastin, Jean-Francois. University of Liege TERRA. Teaching and Research Centre. Gembloux Agro Bio-Tech. Liege; Belgica.
Fil: Routh, Devin. Stellenbosch University. Centre for Invasion Biology, Department of Mathematical Sciences; Sudáfrica.
Fil: van den Hoogen, Johan. ETH Zürich. Department of Environmental Systems Science. Zürich; Suiza.
Fil: Peri, Pablo Luis. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Río Gallegos; Argentina.
Fil: Peri, Pablo Luis. Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia Austral (UNPA). Río Gallegos; Argentina.
Fil: Peri, Pablo Luis. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET); Argentina.
Fil: Liang, Jingjing. Purdue University. Department of Forestry and Natural Resources. West Lafayette. IN; Estados Unidos.