Graph of the Day: Deforestation in Paraguay, 1990-2000
Paraguay lost nearly 40 percent of its Atlantic Forest between 1990 and 2000 
By Rebecca Lindsey. Sandwiched between Argentina to the southwest and Brazil to the northeast, landlocked Paraguay possesses remarkable ecological richness for its relatively small (about the size of California) area. The northwestern part of the country is occupied by the dry woodlands known as the Chaco. In the center of the country, in the lowlands around the Río Paraguay, is the alternately wooded and swampy Humid Chaco. To the east are scattered remnants of the Atlantic Forest, a tropical forest ecologically distinct from the Amazon Rainforest. This map provides a high-resolution look at forest change in Paraguay between 1990 and 2000. Based on data from NASA’s Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 satellites, the image shows how much of the country’s two dominant forest types existed in 2000 and how much was lost due to human activities in the preceding decade. The lower image is a close-up of the area around Mbaracayú Nature Reserve, in central Paraguay on the border with Brazil. Geometric shapes—rectangular fields, narrow roads—testify to the human origin of the forest changes. Based on this forest change analysis, scientists from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the University of Maryland, and other organizations found that Paraguay lost 13 percent of its forests to agriculture and other human activity between 1990 and 2000. The greatest percent losses were in the already heavily exploited Atlantic Forest east of the river. The team estimated that Paraguay lost nearly 40 percent of its Atlantic Forest between 1990 and 2000. …
