Forest Conversion and Degradation in Papua New Guinea 1972-2002

Quantifying forest change in the tropics is important because of the role these forests play in the conservation of biodiversity and the global carbon cycle. One of the world's largest remaining areas of tropical forest is located in Papua New Guinea. Here we show that change in its extent and condition has occurred to a greater extent than previously recorded. We assessed deforestation and forest degradation in Papua New Guinea by comparing a land-cover map from 1972 with a land-cover map created from nationwide high-resolution satellite imagery recorded since 2002. In 2002 there were 28,251,967 ha of tropical rain forest. Between 1972 and 2002, a net 15 percent of Papua New Guinea's tropical forests were cleared and 8.8 percent were degraded through logging. The drivers of forest change have been concentrated within the accessible forest estate where a net 36 percent were degraded or deforested through both forestry and nonforestry processes. Since 1972, 13 percent of upper montane forests have also been lost. We estimate that over the period 1990–2002, overall rates of change generally increased and varied between 0.8 and 1.8 percent/yr, while rates in commercially accessible forest have been far higher—having varied between 1.1 and 3.4 percent/yr. These rates are far higher than those reported by the FAO over the same period. We conclude that rapid and substantial forest change has occurred in Papua New Guinea, with the major drivers being logging in the lowland forests and subsistence agriculture throughout the country with comparatively minor contributions from forest fires, plantation establishment, and mining

Extreme Differences in Forest Degradation in Borneo: Comparing Practices in Sarawak, Sabah, and Brunei

The Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak are global hotspots of forest loss and degradation due to timber and oil palm industries; however, the rates and patterns of change have remained poorly measured by conventional field or satellite approaches. Using 30 m resolution optical imagery acquired since 1990, forest cover and logging roads were mapped throughout Malaysian Borneo and Brunei using the Carnegie Landsat Analysis System. We uncovered ∼364,000 km of roads constructed through the forests of this region. We estimated that in 2009 there were at most 45,400 km(2) of intact forest ecosystems in Malaysian Borneo and Brunei. Critically, we found that nearly 80% of the land surface of Sabah and Sarawak was impacted by previously undocumented, high-impact logging or clearing operations from 1990 to 2009. This contrasted strongly with neighbouring Brunei, where 54% of the land area remained covered by unlogged forest. Overall, only 8% and 3% of land area in Sabah and Sarawak, respectively, was covered by intact forests under designated protected areas. Our assessment shows that very few forest ecosystems remain intact in Sabah or Sarawak, but that Brunei, by largely excluding industrial logging from its borders, has been comparatively successful in protecting its forests.CLASlite is made possible by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

Deforestation and degradation in Papua New Guinea: a response to Filer and colleagues, 2009

International audienc

River sediment monitoring for baseline and change characterisation: A new management tool for the Ramu River Communities in Papua New Guinea

The 18 719-km2 Ramu drainage basin has a water quality regime largely unaffected by mining operations. The Ramu River Communities believe that this may change over the coming months and years, and have initiated their own state-of-the-art monitoring of the main river. These observations have centred on high-frequency (10-minute) observations of turbidity and flow giving possibly the first such annual data at this sampling frequency on New Guinea Island. The first year of monitoring has demonstrated a marked seasonality in the delivery of suspended sediment from the 5866 km2 Upper Ramu basin, with considerably more natural variability in response within the 6-month wet season. Were new mining operations to release fine sediment (contaminated with heavy metals) into the watercourses of the Upper Ramu, then such shifts in the sediment signal may be more identifiable within the dry season. With evidence of an increase in fine sediment load, the Ramu Communities would have a more robust case to request increased monitoring of heavy metal levels within the Ramu, and if necessary to request improvements to the erosion and drainage management of mine areas

River sediment monitoring for baseline and change characterisation:a new management tool for the Ramu River Communities in Papua New Guinea

The 18719 km2 Ramu drainage basin has a water quality regime largely unaffected by mining operations. The Ramu River Communities believe that this may change over the coming months and years, and have initiated their own state-of-the-art monitoring of the main river. These observations have centred on high-frequency (10-minute) observations of turbidity and flow giving possibly the first such annual data at this sampling frequency on New Guinea Island. The first year of monitoring has demonstrated a marked seasonality in the delivery of suspended sediment from the 5866 km2 Upper Ramu basin, with considerably more natural variability in response within the 6-month wet season. Were new mining operations to release fine sediment (contaminated with heavy metals) into the watercourses of the Upper Ramu, then such shifts in the sediment signal may be, therefore, more identifiable within the dry season. With evidence of an increase in fine sediment load, the Ramu Communities would have a more robust case to request increased monitoring of heavy metal levels within the Ramu and if necessary to request improvements to the erosion and drainage management of mine area

Deforestation and degradation in Papua New Guinea: a response to Filer and colleagues, 2009

Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) forests are a vital natural resource for the human population that they sustain, the wide biological diversity they contain, the ecological services they provide and their global role in maintaining climatic processes (Hunt, 2006; Bryan et al., in press). The population of PNG is expanding by approximately 2–3% annually, requiring forest clearance for subsistence cultivation, and over recent decades the log export industry has expanded greatly. Though these and other drivers of forest change are well known, there has been considerable debate regarding the extent and rate at which forests are being degraded or converted to other forms of land use. This debate has been fuelled by an absence of recent accurate data, and coloured by the politics associated with industrial rainforest exploitation and more recently, carbon-related REDD projects1. To address this deficiency we undertook a 6-year research project that involved mapping the entire PNG forest estate at high resolution, and compared this with maps from the early 1970s. Our results provide detailed, accurate measurement of the area and condition of forest in PNG, how much forest has been cleared or degraded over the past three decades, and what caused these changes. Our research was initially published as a detailed report (Shearman et al., 2008) that has also been published, in abbreviated form, in the peerreviewed journal Biotropica (Shearman et al., 2009). Our most controversial finding was that overall rates of forest clearance and degradation were much higher than those estimated in the early 1990s (Hammermaster and Saunders, 1995; McAlpine and Quigley, 1998; McAlpine and Freyne, 2001). This is partly because the rates are accelerating but it is mostly due to technical differences in measuring forest cover and forest cover change

Extreme Differences in Forest Degradation in Borneo: Comparing Practices in Sarawak, Sabah, and Brunei

<div><p>The Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak are global hotspots of forest loss and degradation due to timber and oil palm industries; however, the rates and patterns of change have remained poorly measured by conventional field or satellite approaches. Using 30 m resolution optical imagery acquired since 1990, forest cover and logging roads were mapped throughout Malaysian Borneo and Brunei using the Carnegie Landsat Analysis System. We uncovered ∼364,000 km of roads constructed through the forests of this region. We estimated that in 2009 there were at most 45,400 km² of intact forest ecosystems in Malaysian Borneo and Brunei. Critically, we found that nearly 80% of the land surface of Sabah and Sarawak was impacted by previously undocumented, high-impact logging or clearing operations from 1990 to 2009. This contrasted strongly with neighbouring Brunei, where 54% of the land area remained covered by unlogged forest. Overall, only 8% and 3% of land area in Sabah and Sarawak, respectively, was covered by intact forests under designated protected areas. Our assessment shows that very few forest ecosystems remain intact in Sabah or Sarawak, but that Brunei, by largely excluding industrial logging from its borders, has been comparatively successful in protecting its forests.</p></div

Land cover in 2009 in Sabah, Sarawak and Brunei mapped using CLASlite.

1<p>Not roaded;</p>2<p>Roaded once;</p>3<p>Roaded 2–7 times.</p

Forest cover and condition in Malaysian Borneo and Brunei in 2009.

<p>Intact forest, degraded forest, mangroves, plantations and regrowth are shown.</p