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Science 21 October 2005:
Vol. 310. no. 5747, pp. 480 - 482
DOI: 10.1126/science.1118051
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Reports

Selective Logging in the Brazilian Amazon

Gregory P. Asner,1* David E. Knapp,1 Eben N. Broadbent,1 Paulo J. C. Oliveira,1 Michael Keller,2,3 Jose N. Silva4

Amazon deforestation has been measured by remote sensing for three decades. In comparison, selective logging has been mostly invisible to satellites. We developed a large-scale, high-resolution, automated remote-sensing analysis of selective logging in the top five timber-producing states of the Brazilian Amazon. Logged areas ranged from 12,075 to 19,823 square kilometers per year (±14%) between 1999 and 2002, equivalent to 60 to 123% of previously reported deforestation area. Up to 1200 square kilometers per year of logging were observed on conservation lands. Each year, 27 million to 50 million cubic meters of wood were extracted, and a gross flux of ~0.1 billion metric tons of carbon was destined for release to the atmosphere by logging.

1 Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
2 U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, International Institute of Tropical Forestry, Rio Piedras, PR 100745, USA.
3 Complex Systems Research Center, Morse Hall, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824, USA.
4 Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária-Amazonia Oriental, Trav. Dr Eneas Pinheiro SN, Belem CEP 66095–100, Pará, Brazil.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: gasner{at}globalecology.stanford.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)