Legal logging having 'disastrous effects' on Amazon biodiversity

University of East Anglia researcher, Vanessa
Richardson was the lead author of the paper.

Legal logging in the second-largest state in the Brazilian Amazon is having disastrous effects on tree species biodiversity, according to new research.

A study published yesterday in the journal PLOS ONE set out to use data to show whether so-called selective logging in Pará -- the largest state in Brazil from which more than half of the country's timber is harvested -- is sustainable. Many of the valuable tropical hardwoods, once logged, are at risk of disappearing.

"The timber doesn't grow back," said Vanessa Richardson, a researcher at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom and lead author of the paper. "We think timber is renewable, and we've put all these legislations in place to protect the forest, but ultimately if you look at the data, the high-value timber isn't available where it used to be."

Richardson and co-author Carlos Peres, also of the University of East Anglia, examined data on 17.3 million cubic meters of legal logging extractions between 2006 and 2012 at 824 logging concessions.

Read the E&E story - “Legal logging is destroying Amazon biodiversity – study.”