Gold-rush in a forested El Dorado: deforestation leakages and the need for regional cooperation

Dezécache, Camille; Faure, Emmanuel; Gond, Valéry; Salles, Jean-Michel; Vieilledent, Ghislain; Hérault, Bruno

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aa6082

Cited by 58 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Rahm et al () estimated in 2014 that 53,669 ha within Surinam, 24,282 ha within French Guiana, and 2,125 ha within the Amapa region (Brazil) were impacted by small‐scale gold mining. This contrasting situation may be explained by the legalization in 2011 of all small‐scale mining activities in Surinam, also by repeated military expeditions launched to destroy illegal mining sites in French Guiana and stricter regulations imposed in the 1990s by Brazil to limit local expansion of gold mining (De Theije, ; Dezécache et al, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of land degradation from mining activities on the sediment fluxes in two large rivers of French Guiana

Gallay¹,

Martinez

Allo

et al. 2018

Land Degrad Dev

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We analyzed two contrasting catchments located among the world's largest unspoiled tropical rainforests impacted by mining in the northeastern coastlands of South America. We used the following: (a) mining, agricultural, and urbanized areas to compare the land use evolution with suspended sediments and sediment yields; (b) field monthly river suspended sediments in the two catchments (2004–2015: n = 154); (c) MODIS remote sensing water color technique in the Maroni basin to complete (n = 387) and extend field suspended sediment sampling from 2000 to 2015; (d) hydroclimatic statistical analysis conditions and sediment concentrations to identify the long‐term trends, the abrupt changes in time series and to analyze if the environmental and anthropogenic factors control sediment yield regional variations. No significant long‐term changes were observed in precipitation or water discharge with the Mann–Kendall test. However, the mean suspended sediment concentration has increased significantly (239%) in the Maroni River with a breakpoint in 2009 and decreased (33%) in the Oyapock River (breakpoint in 2008). These differences are explained by the larger percentage of deforestation because of mining activities in the Maroni (0.37%) than in the Oyapock (0.06%) catchment. In the Maroni River, the increasing sediment yield trend (2000–2015) coincide significantly (r2 = 0.97; p < 0.0001) with the increase of 400% of mining areas, whereas no significant relationship with the runoff was found. In the Oyapock River, the runoff explains the sediment yield decreasing trend (r2 = 0.82; p < 0.0001) and no relationship with the land use change was found.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of land degradation from mining activities on the sediment fluxes in two large rivers of French Guiana

Gallay¹,

Martinez

Allo

et al. 2018

Land Degrad Dev

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“…Others have also reported similar displacement effects within and among Chaco countries to have contributed to forest loss in the region (Fehlenberg et al 2017). Clearer evidence for crossborder leakage in the Guiana Shield was recently reported by Dezecache et al (2017), who show that military action to suppress illegal gold-mining and related deforestation in French Guiana led to comparatively large additional forest losses in Suriname.…”

Section: Glg Linkages: Responses and Feedbacks In Lucc Studiesmentioning

confidence: 75%

A review of global-local-global linkages in economic land-use/cover change models

Hertel

West

Börner

et al. 2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Global change drivers of land-use/cover change (LUCC) like population dynamics, economic development, and climate change are increasingly important to local sustainability studies, and can only be properly analyzed at fine-scales that capture local biophysical and socio-economic conditions. When sufficiently widespread, local feedback to stresses originating from global drivers can have regional, national, and even global impacts. A multiscale, global-to-local-to-global (GLG) framework is thus needed for comprehensive analyses of LUCC and leakage. The number of GLG-LUCC studies has grown substantially over the past years, but no reviews of this literature and their contributions have been completed so far. In fact, the largest body of literature pertains to global-to-local impacts exclusively, whereas research on local feedback to regional, national, and global spheres remain scarce, and are almost solely undertaken within large modeling institutes. As such, those are rarely readily accessible for modification and extension by outside contributors. This review of the recent GLG-LUCC studies calls for more open-source modeling and availability of data, arguing that the latter is the real constraint to more widespread analyses of GLG-LUCC impacts. Progress in this field will require contributions from hundreds of researchers around the world and from a wide variety of disciplines.

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“…The land-cover change scenario used in this study is based on expansion of the Rupununi-Rio Branco savannah (supplementary figure 1) and deforestation of existing or planned mining blocks (supplementary figure 2, see also Dezecache et al 2017) and assumes total forest removal and replacement by savannah.…”

Section: How Likely Is Deforestation In the Guiana Shield And Replacementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although deforestation rates in the Guiana Shield forests have previously been low due to their inaccessibility, rates are now increasing in contrast to a general slowing of deforestation rates in Brazil (Nepstad et al 2009, Lapola et al 2014. In fact, the tropical forests of the Guiana Shield are currently the most affected by gold-mining in South America, with gold-mining accounting for 41% of total forest loss in the region (Alvarez-Berrios and Mitchell Aide 2015, Dezecache et al 2017). Increasing deforestation in the Guiana Shield is not only due to growing pressures from open-cast mining for gold, diamonds, iron and bauxite (Hammond et al 2007, Clifford 2011, Dezecache et al 2017, but also to selective timber logging (Veríssimo et al 2008, Ahmed andEwers 2012), encroaching agricultural activities (Armenteras et al 2009), and new roads and infrastructure developments (Armenteras et al 2013).…”

Section: How Likely Is Deforestation In the Guiana Shield And Replacementioning

confidence: 99%

The Guiana Shield rainforests—overlooked guardians of South American climate

Bovolo

Wagner

Parkin

et al. 2018

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Tropical forests are global climate regulators through their interaction with hydrological and biogeochemical cycles. Despite extensive research on deforestation in South America and its global impact, the role of the largely intact Guiana Shield forests, north of the Amazon, has not yet been considered as part of this climate system. We use a regional climate model with a realistic deforestation scenario to test the impact of deforestation in the Guiana Shield on climate throughout South America. We show that replacing ∼28% of the current Guiana Shield rainforest with savannah leads to multi-scale impacts across South America, through vegetation-land-atmosphere interactions that disrupt the initial phase of two major 'atmospheric rivers': the Caribbean low-level Jet and the South American low-level jet (SALLJ). Our climate simulations suggest that following deforestation, locally, precipitation and runoff would more than double in lowland forests, whilst mean annual temperatures would increase by up to 2.2• C in savannahs. Regionally, significant wetting is simulated in northern South America (April−September) and the western Amazon (October-March), while temperatures increase up to 2• C in central and eastern Amazon, causing more dry months in up to 64% of the Amazon basin. Reduction of moisture transfer by the SALLJ of 2.2% of total annual flow causes noticeable and highly diverse spatial changes in simulated monthly rainfall in la plata basin (LPB). These results highlight the potential consequences of land cover change in a sensitive hot-spot with hydro-climatic impacts 1000 km west and 4000 km south. Such multi-scale perturbations can severely impact biodiversity and ecosystem services across South America, including agriculture in LPB. Recognition of the far field effects of localised deforestation in key areas is urgently needed to improve development plans for a sustainable future. Significance statementThe Guiana Shield, at the northern boundary of Amazonia, is located at the start of two atmospheric rivers which carry moisture across South America. We show that deforesting less than a third of the Guiana Shield, in areas currently under threat from mining, logging and agricultural activities, could result in significant changes in the water cycle across the continent. This includes large variations in temperature and precipitation affecting areas 4000 km away, impacting ecosystems and economies, with consequences for society. The study demonstrates how land-use change, even if small in spatial scale, but occurring in particularly sensitive hot-spots, can alter the flow of atmospheric rivers, with large consequences. This pan-continental cascade must be considered when designing trans-national management plans for a sustainable future.

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Gold-rush in a forested El Dorado: deforestation leakages and the need for regional cooperation

Cited by 58 publications

References 23 publications

Impact of land degradation from mining activities on the sediment fluxes in two large rivers of French Guiana

Impact of land degradation from mining activities on the sediment fluxes in two large rivers of French Guiana

A review of global-local-global linkages in economic land-use/cover change models

The Guiana Shield rainforests—overlooked guardians of South American climate

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