The benefits of the LBA Program for Brazilian science and sustainable development in Amazonia
Never has so much new information about Amazonia been presented at one time as will occur starting on the 27th of July, in Brasília, DF, Brazil at the III Scientific Conference of LBA (Large scale Biosphere Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia). More than 700 research studies, presented by about 800 scientists - the best world specialists in Amazonian research- promise to transform much of which was thought up to now about the greatest of tropical forests.
A Project of strategic value
The opportunity is historic and strategic for Brazil. In fact, the importance of Amazonia goes well beyond the cliché of homage to the greatest remaining tropical forest on the planet or to the greatest font of biodiversity. One thing not generally cited is the fact that the Amazon region is an important continental source of water vapor to the atmosphere, with an essential role in formation of cloud and determination of regional and even global climate. The forest turns out to provide a large part of the water vapor that turns into the rains of Central and Southeast Brazil.
But the broad view is even more important. Since the Industrial Revolution human activities have become the principal factor in alterations of the composition of the atmosphere. The gas carbon dioxide (CO2) is the leading example: primarily responsible for the greenhouse effect (global warming of the planet),its proportion in the atmosphere was about 280 parts per million (ppm) up to 1850. Today CO2 has reached 370 ppm, and one fears it may approach 1,000 ppm by the year 2100.
Facts like these can turn themselves into great climate changes and even greater socio-economic-environmental changes. Hence the value in measuring (from a financial and non-financial point of view) the "environmental services" performed by the forest. LBA research brings to the debate, for example, if Amazonia is a significant source of carbon, due to deforestation, or perhaps a sink of the gas ("cleaning" up to about 600 million tons of carbon from the atmosphere per year). This "atmospheric cleaning service", so to speak, can have great value in a world that is concerned (think of the Kyoto Protocol) with how to mitigate climate change.
New discoveries
All this makes LBA a priority project, with a scientific approach that seeks to interrelate biological, physical, chemical and socioeconomic aspects. LBA is part of the global scientific effort to understand how a critical region like the Amazon contributes to climate changes and how it responds to these changes. LBA models already have demonstrated the key role of aerosols in the absorption and reflection of solar radiation, as well as in the nucleation (formation) of clouds and rainfall.
In Amazonia it's now possible, thanks to LBA, to talk about various important questions: the balance of carbon, the formation of clouds and rain, the nutrient cycle of plants, and the consequences of changes in land use. The confirmation that deforestation and burning do not only accelerate the greenhouse effect, they also are directly related to drastic changes in the formation of clouds, which can decrease rainfall indices not only in vast areas of Amazonia, but also in other parts of Brazil (Central West, South, and Southeast), especially during the end of the rainy season in Amazonia (during the burning season: August to October).
The discovery that in burned areas plants usually regrow limited by nitrogen and not by phosphorus, as was thought previously, because the nitrogen literally "goes away" with the smoke (in the Brazilian Amazon between 20 to 25 thousand square kilometers of forest have been deforested per year in recent years), which brings up a possible form of recovery for these areas through the use of high nitrogen fertilizers.
The revelation that due to a great release of nitrogen into the air by fires, the rain over deforested areas and over forest preserves are chemically different: the first bring back great quantities of nitrogen in the form of ammonia, while the second carry lesser quantities of nitrogen in the form of nitrate, a form utilizable by plants. The ammonia in some degraded forest areas reaches levels almost as high as in cities such as Campinas or Piracicaba. Ammonia acidifies the soil and is directly responsible for acid rain, which causes perceptible damages after 2 or 3 decades.
Scientists have already observed that smoke from fires, with its extra emission of aerosols, causes up to a 60% reduction in solar radiation available for photosynthesis of plants in some areas of Amazonia. Moreover, burning increases the concentration of phytotoxic ozone (up to 100 ppb)which damages plants and the unburned forest.
The synthesis of various studies about the carbon cycle in protected forest areas does not exclude the real possibility that the Amazon forest could be a sink for excess carbon dioxide gas from the atmosphere.
Influences on Policy
These are some of the questions, which will be examined in depth during the III Conference. The data presented influence the discussion and adoption of public policies and new laws, which may help maintain the stability of hydrology, water quality, biodiversity, and many environmental services provided by ecosystems. It is not by chance that before the beginning of the Conference, the scientists are giving a special session for politicians and decision makers, on 23 and 24 July, called "Scientific Knowledge and the Formulation of Public Policies for Amazonia: the Experience of the LBA Program".
One of the essential questions of LBA is how to reconcile the preservation of nature with the necessities of the populations who live in the region. After all, 24 million people live in Amazonia (in Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela), and every proposal for sustainable development in the region which permits social evolution without destroying the natural patrimony depends on the responses that the scientists could give based on their research.
- Pre-Conference Panel: "Scientific Knowledge and the Formulation of Public Policies for Amazonia: Experience from the LBA Program"
Date: July 23, 2004
Local: Auditório da FINATEC.
Ed. Finatec - L3 Norte
Campus Universitário Darcy Ribeiro
Universidade de Brasília, Brasilia-DF
- Conference: III Scientific Conference of LBA
Date: July 27-29, 2004
Venue: Academia de Tênis Resort, Setor de Clubes Esportivos Sul, Trecho 04, Conjunto 05, Lote 1B, Brasília, DF, Brasil.
