Dry tropical forests are important ecosystems, yet these forests are increasingly threatened, a new study discovers. Aninnovative approach to characterize how deforestation took place since 2000 showed that more than 71 million hectares of tropical dry forests were lost, particularly in South America and Asia. Even more worrisome, one third of remaining forests are under threat as they are located in so-called frontier areas where deforestation is progressing rapidly. African tropical dry forests are still comparatively less disturbed, but in many of them deforestation has recently emerged. Forward-looking monitoring and land-use planning is urgently needed to safeguard the world’s tropical dry forests.
In a new study published in Nature Sustainability, researchers from the Geography Department of Humboldt-Universita?t zu Berlin and the Earth and Life Institute of University Catholique de Louvain provide the most comprehensive global assessment of deforestation processes in the world’s dry forests and woodlands to date. Using high-resolution satellite imagery time series of forest loss for the period of 2000 to 2020, the team analysed the spatial and temporal patterns of deforestation across more than 18 million square kilometers of tropical dry forests and woodlands. “The main innovation of our study is that we developed a methodology that goes beyond just flagging deforestation”, Tobias Kuemmerle, professor at the Geography Department of Humboldt-Universita?t explains. “In other words, we can now detect and map in detail where deforestation is speeding up and where it has slowed down, and whether it results in fragmented landscapes or whether forests are lost entirely.”