譯/陳韋廷 核稿/樂慧生
大疫之年 熱帶森林被砍更凶
Tropical forests around the world were destroyed at an increasing rate in 2020 compared with the year before, despite the global economic downturn caused by the pandemic, which reduced demand for some commodities that have spurred deforestation in the past.
2020年儘管疫情使得全球經濟轉冷，既往刺激森林砍伐的一些商品需求隨之減少，然而相較於前一年，世上熱帶森林受破壞的速度卻加快了。
Worldwide, loss of primary old-growth tropical forest, which plays a critical role in keeping carbon out of the atmosphere and in maintaining biodiversity, increased by 12% in 2020 from 2019, according to the World Resources Institute, a research group based in Washington that reports annually on the subject.
每年就此事發表報告的華府研究機構世界資源研究所指出，去年全球原始熱帶森林減少量較2019年高出12%。在防止碳進入大氣層與維持生物多樣性方面，原始熱帶林極其重要。
Overall, more than 10 million acres of primary tropical forest was lost in 2020, an area roughly the size of Switzerland. Loss of that much forest added more than 2 1/2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, or about twice as much as is spewed into the air by cars in the United States every year.
總體而言，2020年有1000多萬英畝原始熱帶林消失，面積與瑞士相當。消失森林如此之多，使大氣中二氧化碳增多了25億噸，約為美國每年汽車排放量的兩倍。
Brazil once again led the world in forest loss by a wide margin, as the pro-development policies of the country's president, Jair Bolsonaro, led to continued widespread clear-cutting. Surging forest losses were also reported in Cameroon in West Africa. And in Colombia, losses soared again last year after a promising drop in 2019.
巴西總統波索納洛推行開發政策，導致大面積森林持續遭到皆伐，巴西森林消失量再次遙遙領先他國。西非喀麥隆森林消失量也激增，而哥倫比亞森林消失量在2019年出現令人振奮的降幅後，去年卻再次飆升。
Indonesia and Malaysia were rare bright spots, with forest loss declining from 2019.
印尼和馬來西亞是罕見的亮點，森林消失量比2019年少。
As in previous years, most forest loss in the tropics was driven by agriculture, either the production of commodities like palm oil and cocoa or subsistence efforts by small farmers. In either case, forests are usually clear-cut and the resulting debris is burned to prepare the fields.
跟前幾年一樣，熱帶地區森林消失多由農業造成，不是為了生產棕櫚油和可可等大宗商品，就是因為小型農戶要維持生計。不管是哪種情況，森林通常都被砍伐一空，砍伐後殘留的部分則悉予焚燒，以便開墾土地。
Most of the forest loss in Brazil occurred in the Amazon rainforest, as it has for years. But this year the Pantanal, the enormous wetlands region in the southern part of the country, which also covers parts of Bolivia and Paraguay, contributed greatly to the losses. The region experienced a historic drought that led to a severe fire season, with 16 times more forest loss in 2020 than the year before.
巴西消失的森林大部分都在亞馬遜雨林，多年來一直如此，但今年位於該國南部、另也包括玻利維亞及巴拉圭部分地區的巨大濕地潘塔納爾，大大助長了森林的消失。該地區經歷了歷史性乾旱，使得林火季節災情極其嚴重，2020年損失的森林面積比前一年多出16倍。
Frances Seymour, a senior fellow at the institute, said that what happened in the Pantanal was just one example of global warming's increasing role in forest loss.
世界資源研究所的高級研究員法蘭西絲·西摩說，全球暖化在森林消失這件事上所占的分量越來越重，發生在潘塔納爾濕地的情況只是事例之一。
Seymour said that globally it was "astonishing that in a year that the global economy contracted somewhere between 3 and 4%, primary forest loss increased by 12%."
西摩表示，從全球來看，「令人震驚的是，在全球經濟萎縮了3到4％的一個年分裡，原始森林的消失量卻增加了12％」。
She said the world has yet to see the greatest impact on forests from the pandemic, "which will probably come into play as economies start to recover."
她說，世人尚未看到疫情對森林造成的最大影響，「這種影響恐怕會隨著經濟開始復甦而浮現」。
