Amazon forest fires 'on the rise'

The number of fire destroying the Amazon rainforests is increasing, studies have found.

A team of scientists in the region said the fire may release similar amounts of carbon as a deliberate deforestation.

Writing in Science, they said fire occurrence rate was increased to 59% of areas with reduced deforestation.

As a result, the rise in the fire could jeopardize the long-term success of schemes to reduce emissions from deforestation, they added.

The researchers - from the University of Exeter, UK, and Brazil's National Institute for Space Research - based their findings on satellite-derived data on deforestation and forest fires.

"The result was a surprise because we expected that the fire is reduced to decrease deforestation," said co-author Luiz Aragao from the University of Exeter.

"The implications for Redd is that we first need a system that can monitor the fire," he told Science journal.

"There is also a need to shift land use in the Amazon in a system where the fire is not used."
'Slash and burn'

Redd (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest degradation) schemes aim to create a financil value for carbon stored in the developing countries' tropical forests.
It gives countries incentives to protect forest areas from a variety of effects that release carbon into the atmosphere, including tree felling and logging, agricultural expansion, land degradation.

As deforestation accounts for about 20% of the emissions resulting from human activity, the Redd program is considered a key element in global efforts to curb climate change.

"Fire the following year drought is likely to release a similar amount of carbon emissions from deforestation as deliberate," the researchers wrote.

"The higher the probability of a drier Amazon in the 21st Century predicted by several global circulation models ... Amazonia could push an amplified fire-prone system."

They added that previous studies showed that fires in the region increased after large-scale droughts in 1998 and 2005.

"Forest landscapes in Amazonia is becoming more fragmented and, therefore, a growing proportion of forests are exposed to leakage of accidental fire from neighboring farms," they suggested.

The practice of "slash and burn" is widely used by farmers in the Amazon region to clear secondary forest and allow food and cash crops cultivated.
But Dr. Aragao said: "We need to change the way people use and manage their land so that they can do it without fire."

Says the paper's findings, Andrew Mitchell, director of the canopy Global Programme, said: "These results have important implications for Redd negotiations.

"If we were to control deforestation, you have got to look at what local people are doing out of the woods," he told BBC News.

"The whole regime Redd need to encourage a more efficient use of land without fire.

"But if they do not use fire, which is cheap, and then what they are going to use - strimmers? Chainsaws? Tractors?

"It means that money from Redd programs need to go to people who not only live within the forest, but also the farmers who live outside of it."

Dr. Aragao agreed, adding that the move to fire-free land management deforested areas lie adjacent to forests could be "drastically reduce the heat and carbon emissions."

"It would be expensive," he observed, "but it will protect the stability of carbon stocks and Amazonian diversity."

Pieter van Lierop, a forestry official for Food and Agriculture Organization (yet) - a member of the UN's program Redd, said the findings are relevant to policies aimed at reducing deforestation.

"The article clearly shows that within Redd, particular attention should go to the assessment of the role of fire and propose more responsible use of fire and / or alternatives for the fire," he told BBC News.

"However, we should also consider that the article is mainly discussing fire incidence and circumstances, construed as a fire and not the size of emissions."