Planet in Flames: Global Burning of Forests
12/31/97
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Headline: Planet in Flames: Global Burning of Forests
Source: The Environment News Service
Date: 12/31/97
Copyright: 1997 ENS, Inc.
LONDON, England, December 31, 1997 (ENS) - In 1997, more tropical forest
burned around the world than at any other time in recorded history,
according to a report released this month by the World Wide Fund for Nature
(WWF). "The Year the World Caught Fire" by Nigel Dudley and Jean-Paul
Jeanrenaud says that at least 5 million hectares of forests and other land
burned in Indonesia and Brazil, along with vast areas of Papua New Guinea,
Colombia, Peru, Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Congo and other parts of Africa.
Elsewhere in the world, large scale fires burned in several Mediterranean
countries, Australia, Russia and China.
countries, Australia, Russia and China.
Fire devours Australian forest
"1997 will be remembered as the year the world caught fire," said
Jeanrenaud, Head of the Forest Programme at WWF International Secretariat
in London. "Although the fires in Indonesia grabbed the headlines,
large-scale fires have raged on every continent and new figures show just
in the Brazilian Amazon forest fires have increased by more than 50 per
cent over 1996. The wide spread of these fires is a clear indication that
forest fire management is in a state of crisis around the world."
Another report released in December by the Brazilian congressional
committee investigating Asian logging companies estimates that the Amazon
rainforest is being lost at a rate of 20,000 square miles a year, more than
three times the rate of 1994, the last year for which official figures are
available. Approximately 12 percent of the 2 million-square-mile wilderness
is gone.
"If nothing is done, the entire Amazon will be gone within 50 years," said
the report's author, Representative Gilney Vianna of the Worker's Party in
the Amazon state of Mato Grosso. Vianna is demanding a 10 year moratorium
on burning and logging in the Amazon.
Many of the world's fires did not start by accident. Most were set
deliberately, and often illegally, to clear land for planting, to cover up
illegal logging and sometimes to open up land for development.
The WWF report says the fires were worse this year partly because of the
century's most severe El Nino weather event, which has caused prolonged
droughts over much of the planet. El Nino events are growing more frequent
and severe, possibly as a result of pollution-induced climate change. The
forest fires are turning previously moist forests into drier habitats, that
burn more easily. Carbon dioxide and other gases released from fires add to
the greenhouse effect.
"We are creating a vicious circle of destruction, where increased fires are
both a result of changes in the weather and a contributory factor to these
changes," said Jeanrenaud.
In Australia, the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) claims that the
current devastating bushfires in New South Wales provide a lesson about the
potential future impacts of global warming in Australia. ACF spokesperson
Peter Kinrade says that the El Nino-related climatic conditions that have
led to these bushfires are the sort of conditions that are likely to become
more prevalent in eastern Australia in the next century.
This year's fires in Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia have set
peat deposits on fire and these will remain burning deep underground for
months or even years, some scientists say. These smouldering peat bogs
could release more carbon dioxide greenhouse gas into the atmosphere over
the next six months than all the power stations and cars in Western Europe
emit in a year, scientists from Britain, France and the U.S. have
predicted. At the 11th World Forest Congress in Turkey in October,
Indonesian officials said that Indonesia needs long-term assistance to
build up a capability to prevent forest and bush fires.
According to WWF report co-author Nigel Dudley, some forest fires do occur
naturally and if carefully controlled can be a useful management tool.
"However, the relationship between deliberate fires and natural forest
ecosystems is becoming more and more dangerously unbalanced," he said.
"Many forests that burnt this year should never have burnt at all. In
contrast, in some cases forests that should burn naturally are prevented
from burning, leading to both ecological problems and more intense fires in
the future."
For example, in the United States, where forest fires are routinely
suppressed, ecological processes are disrupted and the accumulation of
flammable materials in forests poses a serious risk of greater and more
destructive fires in the future. The report warns that "now the U.S.
government is trying to use the risk of fire as an excuse for felling
old-growth forests rich in wildlife to subsidise the logging industry."
"People are responsible for this vicious circle and people must find the
solutions," said Jeanrenaud. "Forests are an insurance policy. If we cash
in the policy, what will be left for our children and the future of life on
Earth? Governments must assume full responsibility for taking the threat of
fires seriously and insuring that adequate legislation and prevention
systems are in place to deal with this increasingly serious problem."
WWF is calling on the international community to establish an International
Court for the Environment that would arbitrate in cases where environmental
mismanagement at the national level results in major impacts around the
world.