But the figures are potentially embarrassing because they suggest that a 2011 moratorium on granting new licenses for clearing or logging of primary forests and carbon-rich peatlands could have been a driver for deforestation.
For example, companies are clearing massive areas of primary forests in the Peruvian Amazon for new plantations.
Table 4 Contribution of deforestation and degradation of primary forests to total forest emissions 2000 2005 2005–2010 2010–2015 Def.
As forest is cleared, previously remote, and therefore safer, tracts of primary forest become accessible and, eventually, degraded.
Any plots that were reported as being newly acquired through clearing of forest were assumed to represent loss of primary forest.
Because previous estimates of forest loss have included the clearing of pulp plantations and oil palm estates the real loss of primary forest has until now been obscured.
Gaps in research exist for tropical forest areas that are now a general mix of primary forest and secondary vegetation interspersed with patches cleared for agriculture or other non-forest uses (Bruijnzeel, 2004, Giambelluca, 2002).
The proportion of primary forest species that was unique to primary forest, simultaneously removing occasional species from all land-uses.
In short, we almost doubled the estimate of the conservation value of primary forest by excluding species that were only recorded once outside primary forest, and by limiting the comparison to species known to occur in primary forest.
We use two different metrics to define the conservation value of primary forest in our samples: The proportion of the entire species pool that is unique to primary forest in our samples, and the proportion of primary forest species that are unique to primary forest (herafter, primary forest species are defined as those that were sampled at least once in any of the primary forest sites).
