Here, and in other tropical countries around the world, small holdings like Ms. Ortega de Wing’s — and much larger swaths of farmland — are reverting to nature, as people abandon their land and move to the cities in search of better livings.
These new “secondary” forests are emerging in Latin America, Asia and other tropical regions at such a fast pace that the trend has set off a serious debate about whether saving primeval rain forest — an iconic environmental cause — may be less urgent than once thought. By one estimate, for every acre of rain forest cut down each year, more than 50 acres of new forest are growing in the tropics on land that was once farmed, logged or ravaged by natural disaster.
Biologists were ignoring these huge population trends and acting as if only original forest has conservation value, and that’s just wrong,” said Joe Wright, a senior scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute here, who set off a firestorm two years ago by suggesting that the new forests could substantially compensate for rain forest destruction.
Wasn't the counter-argument for this the fact that the regrown secondary forests will never achieve the kind of biodiversity that the original forest had?
Wasn't the counter-argument for this the fact that the regrown secondary forests will never achieve the kind of biodiversity that the original forest had?
Yeah, if Jennifer Aniston has taught me anything it's that the rainforest fucking sucks.
Wasn't the counter-argument for this the fact that the regrown secondary forests will never achieve the kind of biodiversity that the original forest had?
With the heat and rainfall in tropical Panama, new growth is remarkably fast. Within 15 years, abandoned land can contain trees more than 100 feet high. Within 20, a thick rain-forest canopy forms again. Here in the lush, misty hills, it is easy to see rain-forest destruction as part of a centuries-old cycle of human civilization and wilderness, in which each in turn is cleared and replaced by the other. The Mayans first cleared lands here that are now dense forest. The area around Gamboa, cleared when the Panama Canal was built, now looks to the untrained eye like the wildest of jungles.
Main Entry:(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/ToxicAdam/angryman.gif)
bio·di·ver·si·ty Listen to the pronunciation of biodiversity
Pronunciation:
\-də-ˈvər-sə-tē, -dī-\
Function:
noun
Date:
1985
: rilly big trees 'n shit
Prominent biologist Joseph Wright, who has come under fire for saying that warnings about habitat destruction in rainforests are exaggerated, passionately argued that climate change is the greatest threat to rainforests. [...]
Wright said that current “conservative” predictions showed that temperatures in the tropics would rise by 3 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. While this may not seem like much, especially compared to predictions for the Arctic, Wright stated that “tropical species are much more sensitive to small increases in temperature than temperate species”. In addition, he presented information that showed how tropical species would have to travel much greater distances than temperate species to find habitat within their normal range of temperatures. Wright called these two factors—greater sensitivity to temperature change and larger migrations for suitable habitat—a “double whammy” for tropical species. [...]
Extinctions are already occurring across the tropics due to climate change, Wright said, citing the loss of numerous frog species due to the infectious and lethal fungal disease, Chytridiomycosis. The disease has been linked by some scientists to climate change. Calling the extinction in the wild of 165 frog species due to this disease “a mass extinction of tropical montane frogs”, Wright emphasized that he believes global warming will affect the tropics more than any other ecosystem. [...]
Ironically Wright, who has been accused by some of naivety and dangerous optimism due to his views on rainforest loss, proved the most pessimistic of the panel when it came to the rainforest’s future. Predicting that climate change would forever alter the ecosystem of rainforests, Wright said that “we have no way to predict what it will look like” or how many species would be able to adapt to even a small rise in temperature in the region. Wright told the audience that they should think of today’s tropical forests like the lost ecosystems of America, such as the vast forests that Europeans found upon arrival in the 16th Century or the Great Plains once filled with bison, antelope, and top predators.
“Today it is still possible to see such [intact] ecosystems in the tropics”, Wright said, encouraging the audience to visit tropical forests before, like the temperate forests of North America and the Great Plains, they are changed inalterably and much is lost.
Evolve or die.
that is addressed in the very excerpt I quoted! i will bold the relevant sentence for you.
Wasn't the counter-argument for this the fact that the regrown secondary forests will never achieve the kind of biodiversity that the original forest had?
thank god. ave you seen the kind of spiders that live in rainforests? horrible creatures
nuke the site from orbit its the only way to be sure etc etc
Why, exactly, does ToxicAdam believe he is smarter than the most prominent and respected scientists of our age?
The jury is still out on science.
But rainforests make the best toilet paper, Nikki!