WWF: Global warming to destroy 60% of Amazon by 2030

USA Today � 2008-01-03

BALI, Indonesia (AP) � The impacts of climate change plus deforestation could wipe out or severely damage nearly 60% of the Amazon forest by 2030 � making it impossible to keep global temperatures from reaching catastrophic levels, an environmental group said Thursday.

"The importance of the Amazon forest for the globe's climate can not be underplayed," said Daniel Nepstad, author of a new report by the WWF.

"It's not only essential for cooling the world's temperature, but also such a large source of fresh water that it may be enough to influence some of the great ocean currents, and on top of that, it's a massive store of carbon."

Sprawling over 1.6 million square miles, the Amazon covers nearly 60% of Brazil. Largely unexplored, it contains one-fifth of the world's fresh water and about 30% of the world's plant and animal species � many still undiscovered.

The WWF said logging, livestock expansion and worsening drought are projected to rise in the coming years and could result in the clearing of 55% of the rainforest. If rainfall declines by 10% in the Amazon, as predicted, another 4% could be wiped out.

Scientists say if global temperatures rise more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above preindustrial levels, the risks to the environment and to people will be enormous. It is essentially the 'tipping point' for catastrophic floods and droughts, rising sea levels and heatwave deaths and diseases.

"It will be very difficult to keep the temperatures at 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit if we don't conserve the Amazon," said Nepstad, who is also a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts.

According to the WWF, deforestation in the Amazon could release 55.5 tons to 96.9 billion tons of carbon dioxide by 2030, representing as much as two years of global carbon emissions.

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