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Selective Logging In The Amazon Rainforest
Selective logging or partial forest removal is the practice of cutting down a few species of trees while leaving the rest intact and unharmed. Selective logging is often considered a better alternative to clear cutting. Selective logging in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest was recently shown in analyses of Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus data at high spatial resolution to be occurring at rates of about 12,000–20,000 km2 per year, thus indicating the central role of selective logging in tropical forest disturbance. Although selective logging has far less impact on forest processes than deforestation, selectively logged sites have higher rates of forest fires, tree fall, changes in microclimate, soil compaction and erosion, among other ecological impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Selective logging is a dominant form of land use in the Brazilian Amazon. Canopy gap fractions patterns are found to result from selective logging caused tree falls, roads, skid trai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Clear Cutting
Clearcutting, clearfelling or clearcut logging is a forestry/ logging practice in which most or all trees in an area are uniformly cut down. Along with shelterwood and seed tree harvests, it is used by foresters to create certain types of forest ecosystems and to promote select species that require an abundance of sunlight or grow in large, even-age stands. Logging companies and forest-worker unions in some countries support the practice for scientific, safety and economic reasons, while detractors consider it a form of deforestation that destroys natural habitats and contributes to climate change. Clearcutting is the most common and economically profitable method of logging. However, it also may create detrimental side effects, such as the loss of topsoil, the costs of which are intensely debated by economic, environmental and other interests. In addition to the purpose of harvesting wood, clearcutting is used to create land for farming. Ultimately, the effects of clearcut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Biodiversity Loss
Biodiversity loss includes the worldwide extinction of different species, as well as the local reduction or loss of species in a certain habitat, resulting in a loss of biological diversity. The latter phenomenon can be temporary or permanent, depending on whether the environmental degradation that leads to the loss is reversible through ecological restoration/ecological resilience or effectively permanent (e.g. through land loss). The current global extinction (frequently called the sixth mass extinction or Anthropocene extinction), has resulted in a biodiversity crisis being driven by human activities which push beyond the planetary boundaries and so far has proven irreversible. Even though permanent global species loss is a more dramatic and tragic phenomenon than regional changes in species composition, even minor changes from a healthy stable state can have dramatic influence on the food web and the food chain insofar as reductions in only one species can adversely aff ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Forestry In Brazil
The agriculture of Brazil is historically one of the principal bases of Brazil's economy. While its initial focus was on sugarcane, Brazil eventually became the world's largest exporter of coffee, soybeans, beef, and crop-based ethanol. The success of agriculture during the Estado Novo (New State), with Getúlio Vargas, led to the expression, "Brazil, breadbasket of the world". As of 2009, Brazil had about of undeveloped fertile land – a territory larger than the combined area of France and Spain. According to a 2008 IBGE study, despite the Great Recession, world financial crisis, Brazil had record agricultural production, with growth of 9.1%, principally motivated by favorable weather. The production of grains in the year reached an unprecedented 145,400,000 tons. That record output employed an additional 4.8% in planted area, totalling 65,338,000 hectares and producing $148 billion Reals. The principal products were corn (13.1% growth) and soy (2.4% growth). The so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Amazon Rainforest
The Amazon rainforest, Amazon jungle or ; es, Selva amazónica, , or usually ; french: Forêt amazonienne; nl, Amazoneregenwoud. In English, the names are sometimes capitalized further, as Amazon Rainforest, Amazon Forest, or Amazon Jungle. or Amazonia is a moist broadleaf tropical rainforest in the Amazon biome The Amazon biome ( pt, Bioma Amazônia) contains the Amazon rainforest, an area of tropical rainforest, and other ecoregions that cover most of the Amazon basin and some adjacent areas to the north and east. The biome contains blackwater and white ... that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America. This basin encompasses , of which are covered by the rainforest. This region includes territory belonging to nine nations and 3,344 formally acknowledged Indigenous territory (Brazil), indigenous territories. The majority of the forest is contained Amazônia Legal, within Brazil, with 60% of the rainforest, followed by Peruvian Amazonia, Peru with 13%, Amazon n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Heli-logging
Heli-logging, or helicopter logging, is a method of logging that uses helicopters to remove cut trees from forests by lifting them on cables attached to a helicopter. Helicopter logging is often used in inaccessible areas of forests. Because the use of helicopters reduces the level of infrastructure required to log in a specific location, the method also helps to reduce the environmental impact of logging. It also can increase the productivity in these remote areas. History Process Heli-logging is also known as standing stem harvesting, which is based on individual tree selection (ITS).Cleaver, D. 2001Standing Stem Harvesting The International Mountain Logging and 11th Pacific Northwest Skyline Symposium 2001, 280-284. The selection process is done by engineers and Surveying, surveyors. The trees are selected based on demand for specific types and grades. Before the selection process is complete, the selected trees are bored to check their reliability. The selected trees are t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Deforestation In Brazil
Brazil once had the highest deforestation rate in the world and in 2005 still had the largest area of forest removed annually. Since 1970, over of the Amazon Rainforest, Amazon rainforest have been destroyed. In 2001, the Amazon was approximately , which is only 87% of the Amazon's original size. According to official data, about 729,000 km² have already been deforested in the Amazon biome, which corresponds to 17% of the total. 300,000 km2 have been deforested in the last 20 years. Rainforests have decreased in size primarily due to deforestation. Between May 2000 and August 2006, Brazil lost nearly of forest, an area larger than Greece. According to the Living Planet Report 2010, deforestation continues at an alarming rate. At the Convention on Biological Diversity's 9th Conference, 67 ministers signed up to help achieve zero net deforestation by 2020. Due to deforestation the Amazon was a net Greenhouse gas emissions, emitter of greenhouse gas in the 2010s. History The d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Reforestation
Reforestation (occasionally, reafforestation) is the natural or intentional restocking of existing forests and woodlands ( forestation) that have been depleted, usually through deforestation, but also after clearcutting. Management A debated issue in managed reforestation is whether or not the succeeding forest will have the same biodiversity as the original forest. If the forest is replaced with only one species of tree and all other vegetation is prevented from growing back, a monoculture forest similar to agricultural crops would be the result. However, most reforestation involves the planting of different selections of seedlings taken from the area, often of multiple species. Another important factor is the natural regeneration of a wide variety of plant and animal species that can occur on a clear cut. In some areas the suppression of forest fires for hundreds of years has resulted in large single aged and single species forest stands. The logging of small clear cuts ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Amazon Rainforest
The Amazon rainforest, Amazon jungle or ; es, Selva amazónica, , or usually ; french: Forêt amazonienne; nl, Amazoneregenwoud. In English, the names are sometimes capitalized further, as Amazon Rainforest, Amazon Forest, or Amazon Jungle. or Amazonia is a moist broadleaf tropical rainforest in the Amazon biome The Amazon biome ( pt, Bioma Amazônia) contains the Amazon rainforest, an area of tropical rainforest, and other ecoregions that cover most of the Amazon basin and some adjacent areas to the north and east. The biome contains blackwater and white ... that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America. This basin encompasses , of which are covered by the rainforest. This region includes territory belonging to nine nations and 3,344 formally acknowledged Indigenous territory (Brazil), indigenous territories. The majority of the forest is contained Amazônia Legal, within Brazil, with 60% of the rainforest, followed by Peruvian Amazonia, Peru with 13%, Amazon n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Biogeochemical
Biogeochemistry is the scientific discipline that involves the study of the chemical, physical, geological, and biological processes and reactions that govern the composition of the natural environment (including the biosphere, the cryosphere, the hydrosphere, the pedosphere, the atmosphere, and the lithosphere). In particular, biogeochemistry is the study of biogeochemical cycles, the cycles of chemical elements such as carbon and nitrogen, and their interactions with and incorporation into living things transported through earth scale biological systems in space and time. The field focuses on chemical cycles which are either driven by or influence biological activity. Particular emphasis is placed on the study of carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, iron, and phosphorus cycles. Biogeochemistry is a systems science closely related to systems ecology. History Early History Early Greeks established some of the core ideas of biogeochemistry, such as nature consisting of cycles. 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Carbon Cycle
The carbon cycle is the biogeochemical cycle by which carbon is exchanged among the biosphere, pedosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere of the Earth. Carbon is the main component of biological compounds as well as a major component of many minerals such as limestone. Along with the nitrogen cycle and the water cycle, the carbon cycle comprises a sequence of events that are key to make Earth capable of sustaining life. It describes the movement of carbon as it is recycled and reused throughout the biosphere, as well as long-term processes of carbon sequestration to and release from carbon sinks. Carbon sinks in the land and the ocean each currently take up about one-quarter of anthropogenic carbon emissions each year. Humans have disturbed the biological carbon cycle for many centuries by modifying land use, and moreover with the recent industrial-scale mining of fossil carbon (coal, petroleum and gas extraction, and cement manufacture) from the geosphere. Carbon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Illegal Logging
Illegal logging is the harvest, transportation, purchase or sale of timber in violation of laws. The harvesting procedure itself may be illegal, including using corrupt means to gain access to forests; extraction without permission, or from a protected area; the cutting down of protected species; or the extraction of timber in excess of agreed limits. Illegal logging is a driving force for a number of environmental issues such as deforestation, soil erosion and biodiversity loss which can drive larger scale environmental crisis such as climate change and other forms of environmental degradation. Illegality may also occur during transport, such as illegal processing and export (through fraudulent declaration to customs); the avoidance of taxes and other charges, and fraudulent certification. These acts are often referred to as "wood laundering". Illegal logging is driven by a number of economic forces, such as demand for raw materials, land grabbing and demand for pastur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Stanford University News Online
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considered among the most prestigious universities in the world. Stanford was founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford in memory of their only child, Leland Stanford Jr., who had died of typhoid fever at age 15 the previous year. Leland Stanford was a U.S. senator and former governor of California who made his fortune as a railroad tycoon. The school admitted its first students on October 1, 1891, as a coeducational and non-denominational institution. Stanford University struggled financially after the death of Leland Stanford in 1893 and again after much of the campus was damaged by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Following World War II, provost of Stanford Frederick Terman inspired and supported faculty and graduates' entrepreneurialism t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |