Amazon rainforest
• Rainforest Action Network - RAN (NGO).
• Global tropical rainforest distribution map. (source: mongabay.com)
The “football field” debate (pro & con)
• Pro: FAO report “Global forest resources assessment”. Annex 3 (“Global tables”) quotes the annual change rate in extent of forests for each nation in the world. The rate of change is slowing down from -8.8 million ha/year (years 1990-1999) to -7.3 million ha/year (years 2000-2005). 10 million ha, or 100,000 sq km, correspond to a number of football field roughly equivalent to the number of seconds in a year.
• Con: CFACT document trying to debunk “ecologist’s myths”, with a special focus on the “football field topic”. Many figures are quoted and documented. It has to be noticed that, even in the most conservative and favorable (to the forest) case, the deforestation rate is above 1 football field every ten seconds.
• The size of a football field (source: FIFA - Fédération Internationale de Football Association).
Patterns of deforestation
• Satellite maps of deforestation over the years have revealed that this deforestation often follows a herringbone pattern, in which a new road appears as a thin line of cleared terrain, followed by the appearance of parallel clearings on either side of the road…... Read more about this on NASA Earth Observatory
Satellite monitoring of forests
• Yearly rates of deforestation are derived by analysing time series of satellite images. High spatial resolution instruments support forest inventory activity and assessment of vegetation health status.
• Forest fires are among the most important causes of deforestation. Telespazio provides civil protection agencies with satellite derived information about fire hazard index (water stress), worldwide ongoing fires (with 15 minutes time update), damage assessment and re-growth monitoring.
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