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http://rainforests.mongabay.com/amazon/amazon_destruction.html

In many tropical countries, the majority of deforestation results from the actions of poor subsistence cultivators. However, in Brazil only about one-third of recent deforestation can be linked to “shifted” cultivators. A large portion of deforestation in Brazil can be attributed to land clearing for pastureland by commercial and speculative interests, misguided government policies, inappropriate World Bank projects, and commercial exploitation of forest resources. For effective action it is imperative that these issues be addressed. Focusing solely on the promotion of sustainable use by local people would neglect the most important forces behind deforestation in Brazil.

Plane view of deforestation in the Amazon
Location: Southeastern Peru; from Cuzco to Boca Manu

Aerial| Rainforest| Deforestation

Image code: aerial-rainforest-Aerial_1026_3227

Brazilian deforestation is strongly correlated to the economic health of the country: the decline in deforestation from 1988-1991 nicely matched the economic slowdown during the same period, while the rocketing rate of deforestation from 1993-1998 paralleled Brazil’s period of rapid economic growth. During lean times, ranchers and developers do not have the cash to rapidly expand their pasturelands and operations, while the government lacks funds to sponsor highways and colonization programs and grant tax breaks and subsidies to forest exploiters.

A relatively small percentage of large landowners clear vast sections of the Amazon for cattle pastureland. Large tracts of forest are cleared and sometimes planted with African savanna grasses for cattle feeding. In many cases, especially during periods of high inflation, land is simply cleared for investment purposes. When pastureland prices exceed forest land prices (a condition made possible by tax incentives that favor pastureland over natural forest), forest clearing is a good hedge against inflation.

Such favorable taxation policies, combined with government subsidized agriculture and colonization programs, encourage the destruction of the Amazon. The practice of low taxes on income derived from agriculture and tax rates that favor pasture over forest overvalues agriculture and pastureland and makes it profitable to convert natural forest for these purposes when it normally would not be so.

A Closer Look at Brazilian Deforestation

Today deforestation in the Amazon is the result of several activities, the foremost of which include:

1. Clearing for cattle pasture
2. Colonization and subsequent subsistence agriculture
3. Infrastructure improvements
4. Commercial agriculture
5. Logging

http://rainforests.mongabay.com/amazon/amazon_destruction.html

http://www.mongabay.org/images/external/2006/satellite/sat_braz_101.jpg

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tens of thousands of fires burning across the Amazon. Typically understory shrubbery is cleared and then forest trees are cut. The area is left to dry for a few months and then burned. The land is planted with crops like bananas, palms, manioc, maize, or rice. After a year or two, the productivity of the soil declines, and the transient farmers press a little deeper and clear new forest for more short-term agricultural land. The old, now infertile fields are used for small-scale cattle grazing or left for waste.

Paving of roads brings change in the Amazon rainforestand the Chinese economy drives road-building and deforestation in the Amazon

leading exporter of soybeans. High soybean prices have also served as an impetus to expanding soybean cultivation.
Philip Fearnside, co-author of a report in Science [21-May-04] and member of Brazil’s National Institute for Amazonian Research in Manaus, explains, “Soybean farms cause some forest clearing directly. But they have a much greater impact on deforestation by consuming cleared land, savanna, and transitional forests, thereby pushing ranchers and slash-and-burn farmers ever deeper into the forest frontier. Soybean farming also provides a key economic and political impetus for new highways and infrastructure projects, which accelerate deforestation by other actors.”
Satellite data from 2004 shows a marked increase in deforestation along the BR-163 road, a highway the government has been paving in an effort to help soy farmers from Mato Grosso get their crops to export markets. Typically, roads encourage settlement by rural poor who look to the rainforest as free land for subsistence agriculture.

selectively loggedare eight times more likely to be settled and cleared by shifting cultivators than untouched rainforests because of access granted by logging roads. Logging roads give colonists access to rainforest, which they exploit for fuelwood, game, building material, and temporary agricultural lands.

balbina dam

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Other causes of forest loss in Brazil

Historically, hydroelectric projects have flooded vast areas of Amazon rainforest. The Balbina dam flooded some 2,400 square kilometers (920 square miles) of rainforest when it was completed. Phillip Fearnside, a leading expert on the Amazon, calculated that in the first three years of its existence, the Balbina Reservoir emitted 23,750,000 tons of carbon dioxide and 140,000 tons of methane, both potent greenhouse gases which contribute to global climate change.

Mining has impacted some parts of the Amazon Basin. During the 1980s, over 100,000 prospectors invaded the state of Para when a large gold deposit was discovered, while wildcat miners are still active in the state of Roraima near the Venezuelan border. Typically, miners clear forest for building material, fuelwood collection, and subsistence agriculture.

http://travel.mongabay.com/pix/peru/aerial-rainforest-Flight_1022_1528.html

Aerial view of open pit mine in the Amazon rainforest
Location: Southeastern Peru; from Cuzco to Boca Manu

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Slavery and Violence in the Amazon

The Amazon has been a place of violence since at least the arrival of European explorers, and the present is no exception. Violent conflicts between large landowners, poor colonists, and indigenous groups over land are not unusual in the Amazon and may be worsening.

The Pastoral Land Commission, a nongovernmental group working in the region, found that land battles in Brazil’s countryside reached the highest level in at least 20 years in 2004. According to the annual report by the organization, documented conflicts over land among peasants, farmers, and land speculators rose to 1,801 in 2004 from 1,690 conflicts in 2003 and 925 recorded in 2002. Tensions reached their peak earlier this year with the high-profile slaying of Dorothy Stang, an American nun who worked with rural poor, by gunmen associated with plantation owners. In response to the murder, the Brazilian government sent in the army to quell violence in the region and promised to step up environmental monitoring efforts.

The government has also stepped up efforts to end slavery in the Amazon. While Brazil officially abolished slavery in 1888, the government acknowledges that at least 25,000 Brazilians work under “conditions analogous to slavery,” clearing land and working for cattle ranches, soy farms, and other labor-intensive industries. Some groups say the true figure could be ten times that amount. In 2005, 4,133 slaves were freed after Brazilian Swat-style teams raided 183 farms.

Important Updates:

• Future threats to the Amazon rainforest
• Global Commodities Boom Fuels New Assault on Amazon

Deforestation in the Amazon

Figures for specific causes of deforestation in the Amazon are spotty at best. Below are some rough estimated ranges, based on published data, informal surveys, and other sources.

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Agencia Ciencia y Tecnología Argentina
Agencia CyTA

Con el apoyo inicial de la Fundación Rene Baron y de la entonces Secretaría de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación Productiva, la Agencia de Noticias de Ciencia y Tecnología Argentina (Agencia CyTA-Instituto Leloir) comenzó a funcionar formalmente a principios de 2006.
El eje prioritario de trabajo de la Agencia CyTA es la difusión de noticias científicas, entrevistas y material de divulgación destinado a los medios de comunicación gráficos, audiovisuales y digitales. La popularización de investigaciones desarrolladas por especialistas argentinos o instituciones dedicadas a la ciencia y la tecnología en el país constituye, en ese contexto, una prioridad.
La información producida por CyTA es enviada periódicamente, de manera gratuita,  a través del correo electrónico a sus subscriptores, quienes suelen ser periodistas e integrantes de diferentes medios de comunicación. También consultan el material producido por CyTA docentes y funcionarios, y público en general.
Las novedades son a su vez incorporadas al portal www.agenciacyta.org.ar. Desde allí, medios nacionales y un número considerable de portales de España, Brasil, Chile, Bolivia, Uruguay, Perú, Colombia, Venezuela, México, Cuba y República Dominicana, entre otros países, suelen tomar la información para hacerla llegar a su público.
Se requiere la mención completa de la fuente (Agencia CyTA-Instituto Leloir) para poder disponer del material.
Informes: agenciacyta@leloir.org.ar

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