Even if they escape the chainsaw, Indonesia’s embattled tropical forests face a serious threat from drought-induced fires. That’s the conclusion of researchers who have been monitoring fire-damaged plots in the south of Sumatra.
Margaret Kinnaird of the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York and her colleagues began studying the tropical rainforest of the Bukit Barisan Selatan national park in 1997. That year, a severe El Niño – a warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean – brought intense drought and fires to the region.
By studying the year-by-year recovery of these plots – some of which had also been burned in an…
