原生熱帯林「６秒ごとにサッカー場１面分」消失　１９年調査

【パリＡＦＰ＝時事】3つの大陸に存在していた広大な原生熱帯雨林が2019年に大きく消失したとの調査結果が2日、発表された。牛の飼育や商品作物を栽培するための土地確保を目的に、伐採されたり燃やされたりした原生熱帯雨林の面積は、スイスの国土にほぼ匹敵するという。（写真は資料写真）
　米メリーランド大学の研究施設グローバル・フォレスト・ウオッチが発表した衛星データに基づく年次報告書によると、この消失面積の３分の１以上を占めたのがブラジルで、次いでコンゴ、インドネシアの順となった。しかし、ブラジルでの焼失が突出していた。
　２０１９年に破壊された原生林の面積は３万８０００平方キロに及び、２０年前に科学者らが原生林減少の追跡調査を始めてから３番目に広い面積となった。これはサッカー場ほどの広さの原生樹林が６秒ごとに破壊されるペースに相当する。しかし、森林伐採後に再生した二次林や植林地を対象に含めると、世界中で実際に焼失および破壊された熱帯雨林の総面積はその３倍に達するという。
　２０１９年、世界では気候危機に対する注目が高まり、その流れの中でブラジルを襲った森林火災がトップニュースとして報じられた。しかし、今回のデータによって、火災がブラジルの原生林消失の主要因ではなかったことが明らかになった。
　衛星画像で分かったのは、森林破壊の新たな「ホットスポット（多発地域）」が多数存在していることで、その一つが、ブラジル北部パラ州での森林消失区域だった。ここでの消失については、州内の先住民保護区内で報告された違法な土地収奪との合致を示していたのだ。
　その後、ブラジルではさらに、ジャイル・ボルソナロ大統領政権が、先住民保護区内での商業的採鉱、石油や天然ガスの採掘、大規模農業などに対する規制の緩和につながり得る法案を提出している。これらの経済活動はすべて、既に名ばかりとなってしまっている保護区への侵入をさらに多発させる恐れがある。
　また、新型コロナウイルス感染症（ＣＯＶＩＤ-１９）の感染拡大が事態をさらに悪化させることも考えられる。これは、ＣＯＶＩＤ-１９で特に大きな打撃を受けているブラジルに限ったことではない。ただでさえ脆弱（ぜいじゃく）な法執行能力がパンデミックによってさらに弱体化している熱帯雨林諸国ではどこでも、状況がさらに悪化する恐れがあるのだ。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2020/06/03-13:35）

Vast tracts of pristine rainforest on three continents went up in smoke last year, with an area roughly the size of Switzerland cut down or burned to make way for cattle and commercial crops, researchers said Tuesday.
Brazil accounted for more than a third of the loss, with the Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia a distant second and third, Global Forest Watch said in its annual report, based on satellite data.
The 38,000 square kilometres (14,500 square miles) destroyed in 2019 -- equivalent to a football pitch of old-growth trees every six seconds -- made it the third most devastating year for primary forests since the scientists began tracking their decline two decades ago.
We are concerned that the rate of loss is so high despite all the efforts of different countries and companies to reduce deforestation, lead researcher Mikaela Weisse, Global Forest Watch project manager at the World Resources Institute (WRI), told AFP.
The total area of tropical forest levelled by fire and bulldozers worldwide last year was in fact three times higher -- but virgin rainforests, as they were once known, are especially precious.
Undisturbed by modern development, they harbour the richest diversity of wildlife on Earth, and keep huge stores of carbon locked in their woody mass.
When set ablaze, that carbon escapes into the atmosphere as planet-warming CO2.
It will take decades or even centuries for these forests to get back to their original state -- assuming, of course, that the land they once covered is left undisturbed, Weisse said.
The forest fires that engulfed parts of Brazil last year made front-page news as the climate crisis loomed large in the public eye.
But they were not the main cause of Brazil's loss of primary forest, the data showed.
Satellite images revealed many new hot spots of forest destruction. In the state of Para, for example, these fire-ravaged zones corresponded to reports of illegal land-grabs inside the Trincheira/Bacaja indigenous reserve.
- Rare bright spot -
And that was before President Jair Bolsonaro's government proposed legislation that would relax restrictions within these nominally protected regions on commercial mining, oil and gas extraction, and large-scale agriculture -- all of which could make such incursions even more common.
Frances Seymour, a senior fellow at WRI, said this is not only unjust for the people who have lived in Brazil's rainforests for uncounted generations, but also bad management.
We know that deforestation is lower in indigenous territories, she said.
A mounting body of evidence suggests that legal recognition of indigenous land rights provides greater forest protection.
The pandemic could also make things worse, not just in Brazil -- which has been hit especially hard by COVID-19 -- but anywhere it saps the already anaemic enforcement capacities of tropical forest nations.
Anecdotal reports of increased levels of illegal logging, mining, poaching and other forest crimes are streaming in from all over the world, Seymour noted.
Neighbouring Bolivia saw unprecedented tree-cover loss in 2019 -- 80 percent higher than any year on record -- due to fires, both within primary forests and surrounding woodlands.
Soy production and cattle ranching were the two main drivers.
Indonesia, meanwhile, showed a five percent drop in the area of forest -- 3,240 sq km -- destroyed in 2019, the third consecutive year of decline, and nearly three times less than in the peak year 2016.
Indonesia has been one of the few bright spots in the global data on tropical deforestation over the last few years, Seymour and two colleagues wrote in a recent blog post.
Tropical ecosystems are vulnerable to both climate change and extractive exploitation.
A study in March calculated that the Amazon rainforest is nearing a threshold of deforestation which, once crossed, would see it morph into arid savannah within half a century.
The other countries with the most severe losses of primary forests in 2019 were Peru (1,620 sq km), Malaysia (1,200 sq km), and Colombia (1,150 sq km), followed by Laos, Mexico and Cambodia, all with less than 800 sq km.