A crisis in the making: responses of Amazonian forests to land use and climate change.
At least three global-change phenomena are having major impacts on Amazonian forests: (1) accelerating deforestation and logging; (2) rapidly changing patterns of forest loss; and (3) interactions between human land-use and climatic variability. Additional alterations caused by climatic change, rising concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide, mining, overhunting and other large-scale phenomena could also have important effects on the Amazon ecosystem. Consequently, decisions regarding Amazon forest use in the next decade are crucial to its future existence.
Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project, National Institute for Research in the Amazon (INPA), CP 478, Manaus, AM 69011-970, Brazil; Biodiversity Program, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560, USA.
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