Amazon Logging Twice as Heavy as Thought
Damage to the Amazon rain forest has been underestimated by half, according to new high-resolution satellite images, which have revealed long-hidden logging activities.
Scientists say a new satellite imaging system that can penetrate the rain forest canopy shows that "selective logging," the singling out and cutting of commercially prized trees, poses a far bigger threat to the Earth’s largest tropical forest than previously thought.
Writing in tomorrow’s issue of the journal Science, researchers warn that their study has far-reaching implications for rain forests worldwide.
Lead author Greg Asner, an ecologist at the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology in Palo Alto, California, says that for decades loggers have been targeting and extracting high-value trees one by one, with the rain forest canopy covering their tracks.
"We discovered that annually an area the size of Connecticut is disturbed this way," he said. "Timber harvests are much more widespread than previously thought." See this article from National Geographic for more info.