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courtesy of NASA/JPL

Rondonia, Brazil

Rondonia is located in the south central Amazon basin. Once an underdeveloped frontier region with abundant, diverse tropical forest, the area has undergone massive land-use change and deforestation in the last two decades. As a result of colonization programs in 1968, development of a Trans-Amazon highway in 1984, and continuous development projects for economic growth in the region, a major portion of the tropical forest biome (ecological copvvv\uni1y) has been removed due to logging, burning, ranching, and mining activities. A focus on deforestation, however, overlooks the fact that burned and cut areas become conducive to rapid regrowth through sprouting, seed survivals, and seed deposition by faunal and mechanical means.

Field studies indicate that, in some areas, forest rebounds rapidly after cutting and burning because some species are tolerant of the low nutrient stocks of the soils of Amazonia. Lack of data over the region has hampered continuous analysis of the extent and rate of deforestation and regrowth, as well as landuse changes in the area and other parts of the tropics — which, in turn, have ecological, biological, climatic, and political ramifications. The brightest areas in the image are pristine rainforest; darkest areas are the most recent clear-cuts. Some variable tones are seen in clear-cut regrowth areas.

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