Amazonian deforestation rates are used to determine human effects on the global carbon cycle and to measure Brazil's progress in curbing forest impoverishment. But this widely used measure of tropical land use tells only part of the story. Here we present field surveys of wood mills and forest burning across Brazilian Amazonia which show that logging crews severely damage 10,000 to 15,000 km2 yr−1 of forest that are not included in deforestation mapping programmes.

Muitas florestas na Amazônia são capazes de resistir às queimadas durante a estação seca comum em aproximadamente metade da bacia. Entretanto, as florestas tolerantes à seca perdem sua resistência ao fogo quando submetidas às operações de exploração madeireira....

To assess the impacts of land-use changes on plant-available water (PAW) and evapotranspiration (ET), volumetric water content (VWC) was measured to 8 m beneath three, adjacent ecosystems for four years (1991–1994). Estimates of PAW, ET, and deep drainage were...

  The total area and annual rate of native vegetation clearing is greatest in the Cerrado region followed by the Brazilian states of Pará, Mato Grosso, Maranhào and Rondônia. Amazonian forest clearing proceeds most quickly where abundant natural resources...

This paper provides an overview of agricultural and forestry development in the Amazon basin, and presents and discusses the main land use systems in evidence today in that region. These are logging, shifting-cultivation and ranching. The issue of sustainability is...

In Amazonia, millions of hectares of forest have been converted to cattle pasture then abandoned. On sites with histories of heavy use, forest recovery is slow. We compared the process of tree establishment in an abandoned pasture with a history of heavy use and in...