"Death by a thousand cuts": vast expanse of rainforest lost in 2018 | Environment

According to a satellite badysis, millions of acres of pristine tropical rainforests were destroyed in 2018, primarily beef, chocolate and palm oil.

Forests store huge amounts of carbon and are full of wildlife, making their protection essential to ending extreme climate change and a sixth mbad extinction. But deforestation is still on the rise, the researchers said. Although the 2018 losses were lower than those of 2016 and 2017, when the drought caused large fires, last year was the worst year since 2002, when such records were recorded.

The clearcutting of primary forest by loggers and cattle ranchers in Brazil has dominated the destruction, including invasions on indigenous lands where isolated tribes live. Losses were also high in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Indonesia. Indonesia is the only country where government protections seem to significantly reduce losses.

Ghana and Ivory Coast recorded the highest percentage of increased destruction of rainforest, driven by gold mining and cocoa cultivation.

"We are far from winning this battle," said Frances Seymour of the Global Forest Watch (GFW) World Resources Institute, who produced the badysis. "It's really tempting to celebrate a second year of decline since the loss of maximum forest cover in 2016, but if you look back over the last 18 years, it's clear that the overall trend is still on the rise."

"The world's forests are now in the emergency room. It's death per thousand, "she said. "The dressing responses are not enough. For each hectare lost, we are getting closer to the scary scenario of climate change. "Governments and businesses have made many efforts to fight deforestation, but they are not enough," Seymour said.

The badysis focused on all tree losses in the tropics, but focused on primary forests. These are intact and store the most carbon and have the largest population and the greatest variety of wildlife. Their destruction is considered largely irreversible, even for decades.

According to the data, more than 3.6 million hectares of unspoiled virgin forest were slaughtered. "Most of the losses of 2018 [1.3m hectares] the Amazon, "said Mikaela Weisse, director of GFW. "Shockingly, we are also witnessing invasions of indigenous lands immune to deforestation for years."

For example, in Ituna Itata Reserve in Brazil, there were more than 4,000 hectares of illegal land clearing in the first half of 2018, more than double the total loss since 2002. The reserve is home to some of the last isolated peoples left in the world, who have preserved the forest for centuries. Forest protection is weakened by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who took office in January, but these impacts will only be visible in the 2019 data.

In the DRC, primary forest loss was 38% higher in 2018 than the 2011-2017 average. The expansion of small-scale deforestation for agriculture and firewood would have accounted for nearly three-quarters of this loss.

The destruction of virgin forests of Indonesia was caused by oil palm plantations, but began to fall and is at its lowest level since 2003. Government policies seem to work, but 2019 will likely be a year drier than the last two and fires exacerbated by the drying up of land could again increase. "Indonesia is not out of the woods yet," said Weisse.

The destruction of forests has increased by 60% in Ghana and 26% in Côte d'Ivoire. "The good news is that the cocoa industry has taken steps to combat this trend," said Caroline Winchester, research badyst at GFW. "In 2017, the initiative on cocoa and forests launched to end deforestation." However, 70% of tree cuts in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire occurred in protected areas, she said.

Seymour also pointed to direct human tragedies. "Behind the bars on these cards are heartbreaking losses in real places," she said. "Too often, the loss of a forest area is also badociated with funerals because every year hundreds of people are murdered when they try to arrest miners, loggers and ranchers. The moral imperative to act on this story is indisputable and urgent. "