Google’s new Earth Layer may depress you
No, that is not Earth having a bad hair day. If you are already on an anti-depressant, continue to the next article. If you want a really good idea how much of the earth’s forests have disappeared, get Google’s new Earth Layer KLM file by David Tryse and cringe. The best and worst areas have blocks of green and red jutting straight up from the country or geographical area.
The chart for each country begins with a row showing the amount of original forest (if any) that existed in that country. Then it breaks it down further into non-frontier forests and frontier forests.
The original forest is defined as the percentage of land that would have been covered by intact forests (no roads, no settlements, no waterways) about 8,000 years before humankind started to have a major impact on the land.
Frontier forests are forests that are intact ecosystems fully able to support their biodiversity. These forests have been minimally disturbed by humans.
Non-frontier forests are all other intact forests that don’t qualify as frontier forests.
A second chart shows the change in primary forests, natural forests and all forests both by kilo-hectare and percentage for 1990, 2000, and 2005.
The largest red blocks extend out from Brazil, Indonesia and the Philippines. Brazil has lost 33% of its original frontier forest leaving 42.2% of this forest in tact. Percentage wise, Brazil lost only 8.3 percent of its overall forest cover between 1990 and 2005, but the amount of actual forest destroyed is staggering. Between 1990 and 2005, Brazil lost 44,623 kha of the 460,513 kha of primary forest. Since Brazil has the largest remaining intact primary forest in the world, losing large chunks of it has world wide implications.
Indonesia and the Philippines tied for the highest percentage loss of 25.6% each. Indonesia lost 28,072 kha of forest out of 116,567 kha between 1990 and 2005. The Philippines lost 3,412 kha of forest out of 10,574 kha.
The most surprising finding was that China’s forests have actually grown by 19.6%. There has been no loss of primary forest in the 15 years covered and China has added 40,149 kha to the 157,141 kha of forest land that existed in 1990.
China’s increase in forest land does not offset Brazil’s loss. Since most of Brazil’s loss primary forest, incredible amounts of biodiversity and habitat for endangered species have been and continue to be destroyed. China has managed to maintain its primary forest but at 11,632 kha that doesn’t begin to compare with Brazil’s 460,513 kha of primary forest that is disappearing at an alarming rate.
Wandering from continent to continent using Earth Layer exposes both expected and unexpected results. For instance, much of Africa has lost forest land through wars, poor agricultural practices and droughts. This result is only to be expected knowing the political unrest, droughts and famines that have plagued various parts of Africa. China’s amazing growth, however, was totally unexpected.
Download and play with Google’s Earth Layers KLM file and explore the world’s forest coverage. If nothing else, it is always fascinating to see where your country falls in respect to the rest of the world.
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