No Hiding Places for Those who Destroy Forests
11/19/98
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Title: No Hiding Places for Those who Destroy Forests
Source: BBC News
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 11/19/98
Byline: Alex Kirby
Almost a fifth of the world's tropical rain forests at highrisk, according
to a group of international scientists who are monitoring the Earth's
vegetation from space. scientists, members of the Global Rain Forest
Mapping Project (GRFM), say the problem appears to be worst in parts of
southern Asia. GRFM, launched in 1995, involves teams from Japan, the USA,
the European Union and Brazil. Twice-yearly sweeps It uses high resolution
satellite imaging to look at vegetation patterns and to detect any
changes. The scientists aim to map all the world's rainforests twice a
year, checking on natural events like floods and fires, and also on the
planting of new forests.
Satellites mean far more accurate monitoring Climate Change requires
policies for tackling global warming to be based on scientifically
reliable information and measurements. One of the European scientists
working on the GRFM, Alan Belward, says: "What we're particularly
interested in is developing patterns of tropical forest distribution.
"We're interested in how biodiversity is being affected, we're interested
because the forests themselves have a influence on global climate".
Besides future trends, the GRFM team has already made a disturbing
discovery. It has found places where the forest disappearing at up to 15%
every year.
Alan Belward describes that as "very alarming". He says: "We' found that
these hot spots account for about 18% of the total area of the global
tropical forest".
Nowhere is immune
"So it is a very significant problem. Every part of the world's forests is
affected. "But perhaps the highest risk area is continental south east
Asia, and the least affected area central Africa".
Cloud-piercing satellites can see all the detail GRFM's technique is that
it is accurate, fast and effective. There have been earlier maps of global
vegetation. But Alan Belward says they could not match what the GRFM is
doing. "They've come from all sorts of different sources", he says, "with
different accuracy levels, and they've been collected over many years".
"With our satellite observations from space, we can get the corrected in
hole situation in just a few weeks from a single standard data source".
And a further advance is the ability of some of GRFM's satellites to see
what is on the ground even when there is thick cloud overhead.