The Landsat Program - Applications
Landsat Helps Rain Forest Protection Work in Peru
Contributor: Gregory
Asner
Posted:
Aug. 9, 2007
A new regional study shows that land-use policies in Peru have been key
to tempering rain forest degradation and destruction in that country. Scientists
at the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology led an
international effort to analyze seven years of high-resolution satellite
data covering most (79%) of the Peruvian Amazon for their findings. The
work is published in the August 9, 2007, on-line edition of Science Express.
The scientists found that the government’s program of designating
specific regions for legal logging, combined with protection of other
forests, and the establishment of territories for indigenous peoples
helped keep large-scale rain forest damage in check between the years
1999 and 2005. However, the research also showed an increase in forest
disturbance over the last couple of years of the study, primarily in
two areas of the jungle where the forests are accessible by roads.
“We found that only 1 to 2 % of this disturbance in Peru happened
in natural protected areas,” noted lead author Paulo Oliveira. “However,
there was substantial forest disturbance adjacent to areas set aside
for legal logging operations. This leakage of human activity outside
of logging concessions is a concern.”
These Carnegie Landsat Analysis System images show two regions of the Peruvian rain forest (green). Blue and red indicate areas of deforestation. (Image credit: Asner Lab, Dept. of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution)
Peru has about 255,000 square miles of tropical forests—an area a little larger than France. In 2001, the Peruvian government placed 31% of the managed forests into “permanent resource production.” By 2005, a region about the size of Honduras (about 40,000 sq. miles)—was put into long-term commercial timber production. In recent years, the rain forests have been experiencing increased human impacts, as they have in neighboring Amazon countries, but the extent of the damage over the region has not been thoroughly assessed using high spatial resolution satellite data until this study.
The scientists used the Carnegie Landsat Analysis System (CLAS) in their
work. It was formerly used in Brazil to detect logging activities there.
CLAS is a satellite-based forest-damage detection system, which can penetrate
the shielding upper layers of forest leaves to see consequences of logging
activities below. The CLAS system can uncover forest changes at a resolution
of less than 100 by 100 ft. The core process behind CLAS is an advanced
signal processing approach developed by study lead Greg Asner.
“Our approach has improved over the past eight years, but relies
on a core set of methods that have consistently worked,” Asner
said. “We spent years developing them in Brazil, then went to Peru
and completed this study in only a year. We are now operating over Borneo.
Our approach is proving a good way to monitor rain forest disturbance
and deforestation anywhere in the world.”
The researchers found that, between 1999 and 2005, disturbance and deforestation
rates averaged only 244 square miles and 249 square miles per year respectively.
About 86% of the damaged Peruvian areas were concentrated in two regions—in
the Madre de Dios, east of Cuzco, and in the central eastern part of
the country near Pucallpa. Most of the rain forest damage—75%—was
found within 12.5 miles (20 km) of the nearest roads. However, even within
those limits, forests set aside by the government were more than 4 times
better protected than areas not designated for conservation.
“This is another study from the Carnegie group showing the world
how tropical forests can be systematically monitored amazingly quickly
and at a reasonable cost.” said Michael Wright of The John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which helped support the research. “I
foresee that CLAS-like satellite analysis systems will become the standards
routinely used by local conservation agencies to track rain forest disturbances
and deforestation in the future.”
+ read Carnegie Institute press release (external link)
