Researchers take a bird's eye view of East Timor forest

Dr Halina Kobryn has never seen the fields and mountains she has been studying for the past two years.

However, with Murdoch graduate George Bouma from the United Nations Environmental Protection Unit in East Timor, Dr Kobryn has been able to discover the rate of forest destruction in East Timor.

Dr Kobryn has been mapping vegetation distribution of East Timor to investigate the amount of change over a decade, using Landsat TM satellite data supplied free by the Australian Centre for Remote Sensing.

"Forest is an important natural fuel resource for the East Timorese," said Mr Bouma.

"Both forest and non-forest products are crucial for people's livelihoods, spiritual and cultural significance and a source of food and shelter for traditional hunters and gatherers that still exist in parts of East Timor.

"Forest destruction has also led to problems with soil erosion."

Dr Kobryn said the study was a follow up from a broad study conducted by a Norwegian team, comparing recent satellite images with those from 1972.

"We wanted to be more specific, looking at how the species distribution of plants changed in the forested regions over a decade," she said.

"Our results show a dramatic reduction of forest and change of land cover into degraded woodlands.

"For example, by 1999 a third of the study area was covered by degraded woodlands, an increase of 15 per cent from 1989."

Dr Kobryn and Mr Bouma worked pro bono for two years to detect document patterns of vegetation change in East Timor.

Mr Bouma verified the images and provided specific data on plant species and condition of the vegetation.

"Deforestation appears to be mostly driven by intensification of slash and burn agriculture, which has caused increased fragmentation," he said.

"During the study we found a dramatic reduction in forested areas, with an average deforestation of 1.5 per cent annually for the last ten years."

"For example, in the Dili province in 1999, there was only 0.05 hectares of forest per person, which is well below the United Nations threshold of 0.1 hectares per person."

Dr Kobryn said that forest species have been reducing even faster, averaging 5.3 per cent annually.

The study identified several opportunities for follow up research including a more in-depth focus on change and the usefulness of remote sensing for ongoing land cover monitoring.