What drives deforestation in the Amazon Basin?

  
There is a general agreement in the literature that cattle ranching and agricultural expansion for crop production are the biggest drivers of deforestation in the Amazon Basin. In a 2007 article for the Ecologist, Diego Martino (Senior Analyst at the Latin American Centre for Social Ecology) empathizes the importance of cattle ranching in the Brazilian Amazon where, Martino points out, there is six hectares of pasture for each hectare of agriculture. In Peru the ratio is two to one. These numbers are driven by the high economic return for cattle ranching in the region. Regarding agricultural expansion for crop production, Martino notes that between 1970 and 2002 more than 1,300 settlements were created in the Amazon region, occupying 230,000 square kilometers of land. Deforestation around these settlements is four times higher than in other parts of the Amazon. Martino states that contrary to some reports soy producing monocultures are not significant direct drivers of deforestation, as they are found mostly south of the Amazon, however play an important indirect role by pushing small landholders and cattle ranchers northwards into the rainforest. In July 2009 Brazil (the world’s largest soy exporter) agreed not to trade soy from deforested land, although, as the Treehugger reports this policy “doesn't prevent farmers from planting soy and selling it illegally on the spot market”. Nonetheless, the policy still prevents the spread of soy farms into large areas of deforested land. The main driver behind the expansion of soy monocultures is demand from China and European feedlots, and more recently demand for soy and other cash crops for biofuel production. In the Peruvian Amazon, as well as in Bolivia and Columbia, coca crops occupy large areas of deforested land. Coca crops are thought to be responsible for up to 24% of deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon.

In addition to cattle ranching and agricultural expansion Martino names road development as an important direct as well as indirect driver of deforestation in the Amazon Basin by constituting the opening act in the deforestation process and making previously inaccessible rainforest areas open for logging. According to a report by Kirby et al (2007), 80% of deforestation in the Amazon is taking place less than 30 km away from an official road.

For further details on the development of cattle ranching in the Brazilian Amazon I recommend the article ‘Ranching and the new global range: Amazônia in the 21st century’ from Walker et al (2008), which gives a great overview of the policy environment in which Brazil – a country previously thought unsuitable for agricultural development – has become a dynamic cattle economy. 

Photo: Leonardo F. Freitas via flickr (from Treehugger)