But in a study this year, Indonesia's largest environmental group, Walhi, found that a surge of flash floods early in the year coincided exactly with areas that have suffered the highest levels of deforestation.
We hypothesise that this arises because the additional protection afforded to threatened relative to non-threatened forests is insufficient to counter the continuing higher level of deforestation pressure on threatened forests.
One Arara community has been completely dysfunctional for the past 4 years: their land has been invaded, with increasingly high levels of deforestation and illegal logging associated with the pressure of building the mega-dam.
"We expected to see some kind of compensation or off put, but it was a surprise to us that high levels of deforestation could be a no-win scenario – the loss of environmental services provided by the deforestation may not be offset by an increase in agriculture production," noted the lead author of the study, Leydimere Oliveira, in a statement.
High levels of deforestation have reduced standing carbon stocks in many lowland areas, as evidenced by the sharp decline in LiDAR-derived canopy height in zones of human activity (Figure 3).
Presently, the majority of Sumatran tigers occur within large tracts of primary forest, but these extend outside of the island's protected area borders, and these unprotected forests are especially at risk from the high levels of deforestation in Sumatra.
In regions with high levels of deforestation, the slope of the rainforest-savanna gradient should be less steep.
Consistent with the high levels of deforestation in West Africa, rainforest populations from West and Central Africa are morphologically more divergent today than they were historically (Figure 4).
High levels of deforestation have reduced standing carbon stocks in many lowland areas, as evidenced by the sharp decline in LiDAR-derived canopy height in zones of human activity.
Level 10: the highest level of rhythmic.
