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S
for seven observation years (OYs): 1992, 1996,
everal international initiatives—such as from degradation as the difference between 1999, 2003, 2006, 2010, and 2014. The six digi-
45,000
A
Rate of Degradation or Deforestation: Km2 yr-1
Isolated
DD
40,000 Edge
Logged & Burned
35,000 ID Burned
Logged
30,000
Sum Log + Burned B
INPE Deforestation
25,000 Forest disturbance Area (km) 2
Logged forest 98,542
20,000
Burned forest 33,476
15,000 L + B forest 1,672
Edges not L or B 129,163
10,000
Isolated not L or B or E 74,574
5,000 Degraded, 1992-2014 337,427
Deforested, 1992-2014 308,311
-
1992-1996 1996-1999 1999-2003 2003-2006 2006-2010 2010-2014
reduced new edges and isolated forest after is 337,427 km2, compared with 308,311 km2 of degradation close to older areas of defores-
2006 to 2010, but edges began to decline earlier deforested land. This estimate does not in- tation, but degradation is also emerging in
while deforestation remained high, most like- clude degradation that occurred before 1992. the western BA, particularly by new logging
ly as a result of consolidation and fill-in of Much of the degradation was from edges and (Fig. 3). The spatial organization of logging
spatially dense and continuous deforested isolated forest fragments, but the total area suggests that it is increasingly decoupled from
areas. Overall, the annual rate of all types of degraded by logging and burning alone over understory burning (figs. S5 and S6), where
degradation declined over the time series, this period was equivalent to almost half (43%) logging is relocating more distantly from the
from a peak of 44,075 to 14,625 km2 year−1. of the area deforested over this period. In most so-called arc of deforestation, whereas burned
Nonetheless, forest degradation rates ex- locations across the BA, there is more degraded areas remain more restricted closer to the older
ceeded deforestation by almost threefold forest than deforested land when considering areas of deforestation (figs. S7 and S8). Further-
in 2014. only what occurred during the time frame of more, we found very little overlap of burned
Whereas rates of fragmentation decreased, analysis (fig. S4). During this long-term period areas on logged areas, especially in the short
rates of selective logging and understory burn- of observation, 40% of all degraded forest can term (4 to 8 years).
ing, two types of heavy-impact forest degrada- be attributed to intensive logging and under- The dominant local driver of degradation
tion, slightly increased or remained stable over story fires and 60% is due to edges and iso- was mapped for each 200-km2 grid cell (Fig. 4).
time. The amount of new selective logging lated fragments of forest, which represents a Degradation related to deforestation, such as
created between 1992 and 1996 increased from notable increase in the logged and burned frac- edges and isolated fragments, is important
8,498 to 22,952 km2 between 2010 and 2014, tion later in the record. in the BA-wide landscape, not only in the older
an increase of 270% (table S3). When combined BA-wide estimates from the analysis were areas but also along the new frontiers. Logged
with new burned forest, the area increases constructed at the original 30-m resolution areas are dominant in some specific areas
from 14,866 km2 in 1992 to 1996 to 26,327 km2 and then aggregated in 200-km2 grid cells for where degradation is uniformly very high, and
in 2010 to 2014, an increase of 177%. By 2006 mapping and graphical display (Fig. 2). These they are expanding to the west along a new
to 2010, the average annual rates of forest maps show the cumulative impact of all degra- frontier (Fig. 4 and figs. S7 to S9), whereas
degradation by logging and burning were dation types. The map shows the status of for- nodes of burned dominance are very spatially
approximately equal to deforestation rates, est ecosystems in the BA, including the density localized. Edge and isolated forest fragments
and by 2014 degradation exceeded deforesta- and extent of degradation. The mapping is are spatially and geographically extensive.
tion (Fig. 1A). presented for the entire period of analysis Edges tend to be the prevalent and extensive
To compare the amount of degraded forest and separately for the period before the down- type in the earliest years and then in the new
in the BA today with the deforested area, all turn in deforestation rates and the period frontier of western BA (Fig. 4, B and C), whereas
newly created degradation pixels were tracked after. Generally, degradation is more spatially isolated forest dominates some old areas of
and accumulated through time. There was no dispersed across the landscape than defores- deforestation and degradation during the
double counting of more than one type of tation, which is concentrated in the often-cited later years (Fig. 4C). In most places, all types
degradation occurring at the same place, and “arc of deforestation” along the eastern and of degradation are occurring in the landscape,
pixels that were deforested by 2014 were southern forest interface with the Cerrado although we found little evidence of significant
removed (Fig. 1B). The total degraded forest Biome in Brazil, which comprises a region spatial overlap and co-occurrence, even when
created during the period of our analysis and with vegetation types similar to African savan- considering degradation co-occurrences widely
that remain present in the current landscape nah. There are concentrated zones of high separated in time.
5 - 10
11 - 20
21 - 30
31 - 40
41 - 50
51 - 60
1992 - 2014 Deforested 2003 - 2014 Deforested 61 - 70 1992 - 2003 Deforested
71 - 80
81 - 90
91 - 100
Percent Area
200 km 2 cell
0
E
C D
Fig. 3. Detected areas of forest degradation by logging and understory burning at each OY. Areas are mapped as a fraction of a 200-km2 grid cell for the
entire BA. The geography of logging is shown to have expanded from the older deforestation zone, often cited as the arc of deforestation, particularly after 2003. (A) Arrows
show the general direction of the expanding logging frontier. (B) New distant forest degradation in Roraima. (C and D) New forest degradation from logging in
the western Amazon. (E) The prominent forest degradation front in western Pará.
Results from an analysis of regional trends ship ranged from ~50% in the early period to of all degraded forest that were not defor-
were surprising (figs. S7 to S9). New logging ~80% later, but also increased as deforestation ested through 2014. The results were some-
areas are demonstrably expanding beyond the rates declined. Although deforestation policy what unexpected, in that spatial co-occurrence
older arc of deforestation into a new western did not influence logging or lead to a decline in of different degradation factors is very low.
frontier (Fig. 3 and fig. S7), but spatiotemporal burned area degradation, it did relieve conver- Throughout the BA, it is common to have
trends for other types are less clear. Under- sion pressures so that these logged and burned all four types of degradation occur, but there
story burned areas remain predominant in areas now persist longer. Reduced conversion is no evidence that they overlap in any signif-
the specific areas of concentrated deforest- pressure has extended the persistence of edges icant way, a finding that has implications for
ation, with temporal trends somewhat inter- and isolated forest, which exacerbates tree mor- degradation intensity and our understanding
mediary or stable, having increased in the tality and other ecological effects (fig. S10). of the interaction between drivers. Of all de-
early period of record and now declining with A large spatial overlay analysis to under- graded forest in the current landscape, 90%
deforestation rates. Interestingly, creation of stand the co-occurrence of the different types has been degraded by only one factor (table S9).
new edges and new isolated forest fragments of degradation follows naturally from the This analysis considered the density, domi-
has generally declined over the entire record, persistence analysis. We examined overlays nance, direction, and duration of five types
particularly as deforestation rates have de-
clined, although their coverage area remains
high in overall magnitude. In fact, areas with
highest overall coverage and density are also
experiencing declining rates, regardless of
type. The new frontiers with high and increas- A
of forest degradation over almost three dec- events. Inclusion of these factors would only Desmatamento: Amazônia Legal (INPE, Coordenação Geral de
ades. Edge effects and isolated forest frag- increase the estimate of how much degrada- Observação da Terra, 2019); http://terrabrasilis.dpi.inpe.br/
downloads/.
ments have been substantial contributors to tion exists in the landscape today. 24. E. Matricardi, D. L. Skole, M. A. Pedlowski, W. Chomentowski,
the current degraded state of forest over the The overall conclusion from this work is that Int. J. Remote Sens. 34, 1057–1086 (2013).
record, but the fragmentation contribution forest degradation is a significant form of land- 25. E. A. T. Matricardi, D. L. Skole, M. A. Cochrane, J. Qi,
is declining while overt degradation from scape and ecosystem disturbance. Degradation W. Chomentowski, Earth Interact. 9, 1–24 (2005).
26. E. A. T. Matricardi, D. L. Skole, M. Cochrane,
logging, and to a lesser degree fire, is becom- in the BA is a persistent form of disturbance, M. A. Pedlowski, W. Chomentowski, Int. J. Remote Sens. 28,
ing more prominent. We observed that there not simply one that is eventually replaced by 63–82 (2007).
has been a transition from a deforestation- deforestation. Focusing attention on deforest- 27. E. A. T. Matricardi, D. L. Skole, M. A. Pedlowski,
mediated fragmentation regime to one with ation alone ignores an additional area of forest W. Chomentowski, L. C. Fernandes, Remote Sens. Environ. 114,
1117–1129 (2010).
an elevated importance of new logging and degraded by selective logging, understory fire, 28. O. B. Costa, E. A. T. Matricardi, M. A. Pedlowski, E. P. Miguel,
fire, which is geographically shifting to a new edge effects, and isolation of fragments that is R. O. Gaspar, Floresta Ambient. 26, e20170634 (2019).
western “degradation frontier.” We can artic- equal in areal extent to cleared forest. 29. See supplementary materials.
ulate a simple framework for understanding Improved long-term spatial data on forest 30. D. L. Skole et al., in Land Change Science: Observing,
Monitoring, and Understanding Trajectories of Change on the
these dynamics by considering two broad cat- degradation are sought by most multilateral Earth’s Surface, G. Gutman et al., Eds. (Kluwer Academic,
egories of forest degradation types: (i) those environmental agreements. Our analysis pro- 2004), pp. 77–95.
that are dependent on, or coupled to, defor- vides a cogent example of monitoring data 31. G. P. Asner et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 103, 12947–12950
(2006).
estation, such as the fragmentation effects needed to estimate species loss from forest
32. W. F. Laurance et al., Biol. Conserv. 144, 56–67 (2011).
of edges and isolated fragments (DD); and fragmentation and degradation, which is a 33. S. L. Pimm, T. Brooks, Curr. Biol. 23, R1098–R1101
(ii) those that are more independent of, or key element of Target 5 of the United Nations
logging below 10 m3 ha−1, so it may omit 17. C. A. Nobre, P. J. Sellers, J. Shukla, J. Clim. 4, 957–988
(1991). SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS
some cases of reduced-impact logging. We also 18. C. A. Nobre et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 113, science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6509/1378/suppl/DC1
did not include highly selective individual 10759–10768 (2016). Materials and Methods
tree logging, which occurs in the process of 19. W. F. Laurance et al., Nature 489, 290–294 (2012). Supplementary Text
20. M. Pfeifer et al., Nature 551, 187–191 (2017). Figs. S1 to S11
deforestation or tree removals by individual Tables S1 to S9
21. M. C. Castro et al., PLOS Biol. 17, e3000526 (2019).
farmers on their homesteads, or indigenous 22. D. Nepstad et al., Science 326, 1350–1351 (2009).
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SUPPLEMENTARY http://science.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2020/09/09/369.6509.1378.DC1
MATERIALS
REFERENCES This article cites 42 articles, 12 of which you can access for free
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