We must act now to ask the Governor to protect the last major refuge of pristine ancient forests. New Research on the Impact of Deforestation 1. A substantial loss of biomass in Amazonian rainforest fragments. When forests are reduced to fragments, those fragments are subject to stresses no felt by intact forests. As a result, forest fragments suffer a loss of biomass.
Less biomass means more carbon is released into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming.
Die-back of trees near forest edges is believed to be a major reason for the loss of biomass in forest fragments. Changing the vegetation on a landscape can dry out formerly lush areas. A new census of mountain gorillas has given scientists more of an idea of their numbers, but with an ongoing war in Uganda, the gorillas still face an uncertain future. Roads are to be built into the Samarga River watershed wilderness near the Russian Far East city of Khabarovsk, and open a large area of ancient taiga temperate forests for exploitation. The emphasis is upon raw log export.