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Chapter 4
Ecuador Suffers the Highest Deforestation
Rate in South America
R. Mosandl, S. Günter, B. Stimm, and M. Weber
4.1 Introduction
“Deforestation ” in this chapter is used according to the FAO (2001) definition: it
is the conversion of forest to another land use or the long-term reduction of the tree
canopy cover below the minimum 10% threshold. This implies that areas where
trees have been removed as a result of harvesting or logging are not considered as
“deforestation”. Even if the structure or function of a forest is heavily disturbed by
harvesting operations, the stand remains a forest as long as it has a tree canopy
cover of more than 10% or is expected to regenerate naturally or artificially in the
long run. So “deforestation” in the sense of the FAO definition does not incorpo-
rate the degradation of forests included in some other definitions, e.g. Myers
(1994). Correspondingly the replacement of old-growth forests by plantations or
their temporary use by shifting cultivators is not considered as destruction or
deforestation. Only a complete change of land use or the destruction of forest
cover which prevents its recovery to more than 10% crown cover enters the FAO
statistics as “deforestation” or “forest loss”.
Despite this very narrow definition of the FAO, deforestation is the most
important process for a decrease in forest area (FAO 2006). Clearing the forests
for agriculture or infrastructure leads to a decrease of the land category “forests”
and to an increase of the land category “other land”. The same effect – but to a
much lesser extent – is also caused by natural disasters when the affected area is
incapable to regenerate naturally (FAO 2006). An increase of forests can happen
either through afforestation or by natural expansion of forests. The net change
rate of forests takes account of four processes: (a) decrease by deforestation, (b)
decrease by natural disasters, (c) increase by afforestation and (d) increase by
natural expansion.
The deforestation rate estimated by FAO in the latest Global Forest Resources
Assessment is the balance of these four processes (FAO 2006).
37
Ecological Studies 198.
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2008
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38 R. Mosandl et al.
4.2 Deforestation in South America
According to Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005 the global net change in
forest area during the period 2000–2005 is estimated at −7.3 million ha/year
(FAO 2006). The continent with the largest net loss of forest area in this period was
South America, which suffered a net loss of forests of about −4.3 million ha/year
(corresponding to a rate of −0.5% of the remaining forest area). Brazil’s forests
alone lost 3.1 million ha/year in this period but in relative numbers had lower defor-
estation rates than Ecuador, which suffers the highest rate (−1.7%) within South
America. Obviously large net changes in forest area are occurring in the tropical
and subtropical regions of South America (FAO 2006) with a very high biodiversity
which is very likely to be reduced by the high deforestation rate. According to a
prediction model of Koopowitz et al. (1994), habitat conversion caused by defor-
estation leads to species extinction rates that range up to 63 species/year. It is
remarkable that this high extinction rate is predicted for Ecuador.
4.3 Deforestation in Ecuador
The extent of forest in Ecuador in 2005 was 10.8 million ha, which represents 39%
of the land area (FAO 2006). This percentage is relatively low compared with other
countries in South America, taking into account that the average forest cover rate
of South America is 48% (FAO 2006). It is assumed that more than 90% of
Ecuador’s surface had been covered by forests originally (Wunder 2000). This
implies that before human impact occurred on a large scale, the area which today
we call Ecuador must have been covered by more than 25 million ha of forest.
These data are confirmed by Cabarle et al. (1989), who estimated the original forest
cover of Ecuador to be 26 million ha. Two major historical deforestation processes
have contributed to the reduction of the forest area: first a long-lasting deforestation
in the Sierra (areas with an elevation of at least 1200 m a.s.l.) in the pre-Columbian
era and second a rapid forest conversion in the Costa region during the past century
(Wunder 2000). The era in between these two deforestation phases, dominated by
the long Spanish colonial rule, was characterized by an expansion of forests, caused
by the dramatic decrease in population and also in population pressure on the for-
ests following the Spanish conquest. After the declaration of independence in 1822
until the early twentieth century Ecuador’s forest cover was largely preserved
(Wunder 2000). During the cocoa boom from 1900 to the end of the 1920s and
intensified during the banana boom after the Second World War (main period
1950–1965) the coastal lowland forests were cleared for agricultural crops. Cabarle
et al. (1989) estimated the forest cover in 1958 was 17.5 million ha. The corre-
sponding extent of forest must have been about 63% at that time. In 1987 the extent
of forest dropped to 45% (FAO 1994). The main cause for this decrease, besides the
clearing of coastal lowland forests for agricultural crops, was the opening up of the
Oriente, Ecuador’s Amazon region. With the oil boom of the 1970s roads were
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4 Ecuador Suffers the Highest Deforestation Rate in South America 39
build in the Amazonian forest, which attracted agricultural colonization and timber
extraction (Wunder 2000). Subsequently the reduction of forest cover continued
from 43% forest cover in 1990 down to 39% in 2005 (FAO 1993, 2006).
4.4 Reasons for Deforestation
The question arises: what are the causes for the relatively high actual deforestation
rate? The first idea, tracing this back to a high conversion rate of primary forests,
is not confirmed by the data, because the area of primary forests remained
unchanged in recent years (FAO 2006). This is certainly due to the fact that a lot of
primary forests were protected. Ecuador’s forest protection statistics present 21%
of all forests as protected in 2002 (UNEP 2002). So it can be concluded that the
main deforestation must take place in secondary forests. Granting a deforestation
rate of −1.7% means a loss of 198 000 ha/year of secondary forests (FAO 2006).
Not included in the statistics is an unknown area of illegally converted forests. The
most reasonable explanation for these high annual losses is the change in land use.
Mainly secondary forests must have been converted into agricultural land. In fact,
looking at the agropastoral land-use trends in Ecuador there is a dramatic increase
in pastures. From 1972 to 1985 the area of pastures increased from 2.2 million ha to
4.4 million ha and by 1989 pastures covered an area of about 6 million ha (Wunder
2000). This means an annual increase of agropastoral land of 244 000 ha during the
first period of that time and 182 000 ha in the second period. Assuming that
the conversion of forests into agropastoral land continued in the 1990s (on the same
scale as before) then the increase in agropastoral land today is still equal to
the decrease in forest cover. As cattle ranching is concentrated in the Sierra there
are strong hints that the main forest losses are occurring especially in this region.
Deforestation had devastating effects in parts of the coast, e.g. the elimination of
over 70% of the costal mangroves (Mecham 2001) but in general in the Costa,
where commercial crops are cultivated, the forest losses were lower. This is also
due to the fact that, in contrast to pastures which tripled their areas from 1972 to
1989, crop lands expanded only slightly during this period (Wunder 2000).
The driving forces for the conversion into pastures are very likely rooted in
socio-economic reasons. Slow growth of human capital and progressive degradation
of natural capital over time is at the heart of the frustrated development experience
for Ecuador and Latin America (Lopez 2003). Deforestation in Ecuador is also
related to tenure insecurity (Southgate et al. 1991) and the convergence of local
populations in an economic system which relies on the unsustainable exploitation
of natural resources (Sierra and Stallings 1998). Long-term effects, caused by
insufficient investment in education (Godoy et al. 1988), or the consequences of
concentrating on short-turn returns, are further driving forces of deforestation
(Wunder 2000).
Besides the high change in land use from forests to pastures there is another
cause for the high deforestation rate in Ecuador: while in other countries of South
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40 R. Mosandl et al.
America the conversion of forests is mitigated by high reforestation efforts, no
substantial areas were reforested in Ecuador during recent years. The plantation
area in Ecuador is growing very slowly (FAO 2006). In the period from 2000 to
2005 it increased only by 560 ha/year (for comparison: in Chile the increase was
61 000 ha/year in the same period).
4.5 Conclusions
Identifying the causes for the high deforestation rate in Ecuador shows how to
overcome this problem. There are two possible ways: first, the conversion of forests
into pastures could be made unattractive, e.g. by an ecologically and economically
sustainable forest management (see Chapter 26 in this volume), and second the
reforestation of degraded land could be increased (Lamb 1998; see Chapter 34 in
this volume). Both ways should be promoted by the government setting incentives
for sustainable forest management of plantations and natural forests .
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