Woods Hole Scientists Co-Author Ecology and Biogeography Paper

WOODS HOLE – In a recent paper published in the journal Global Ecology and Biogeography, scientists at the University of Maryland and Woods Hole Research Center located minimally disturbed “hinterland” forests across South America, Africa and Southeast Asia.

Not surprisingly, the authors show that most of these forests are located in the Amazon and Congo basins, particularly in Brazil and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but they also show large tracts of minimally disturbed forest in Peru, Columbia, Venezuela and a number of other tropical nations.

Some countries to the north of Brazil still retain most of their forests in a natural state, including Suriname, Guyana and French Guiana.

In some countries such as Indonesia, only a third of their remaining forests is in a minimally disturbed state, and those forests are found mostly in a chain of mountains along the west coast of Sumatra and in the central highlands of Borneo and New Guinea.

Most of the lowland forests in Southeast Asia have been converted to agriculture to support large populations and palm oil plantations for both domestic consumption and export markets.

According to Woods Hole Senior Scientist Scott Goetz, the maps provide a starting point for focusing longer-term forest and biodiversity conservation efforts, while also showing where climate change mitigation is still an option by avoiding atmospheric carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.