TERRA.WIRE
Brazilian Amazon may become savanna: scientist
BRASILIA (AFP) Jul 28, 2004
Brazil's lush Amazon rainforest could become a vast, grassy savanna within the century if fires and global warming continue, a Brazilian scientist said Tuesday.

"Nearly all scenarios point to a 'savannization' in 50 to 100 years," Brazil's National Space Studies Institute scientist Carlos Nobre said at the third conference on a Large-Scale Project for the Biosphere and Atmosphere of Amazonia.

"In the worst case, the forest loses some 60 percent of its area. In the best, everything continues as it is now. In the intermediate case, 20 percent of its area disappears," he said.

"Even without deforestation, global warming could cause a 'savannization' of 20 to 30 percent" of the Amazon rain forest.

According to official sources, from the 1970s through 2002, fires destroyed more than 630,000 square kilometers (243,244 square miles) of the Amazon's 3.68 million square kilometers (1.42 million square miles), or 70 percent of the rain forest.

Nobre said the combined forces of deforestation, soy bean cultivation and livestock have already had an impact on the climate, locally as well as internationally.

Eight hundred scientists will present their work before the conference closes on Thursday.

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