EÖTVÖS LORÁND TUDOMÁNYEGYETEM

FACULTY OF SCIENCES
DEPARTMENT OF PLANT SYSTEMATICS, ECOLOGY AND
THEORETICAL BIOLOGY
NATURE CONSERVATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL
PROTECTION

DEFORESTATION IN THE AMAZON RAINFOREST

PRISCILLA GOMES DA SILVA – BKZFXP

Budapest, 2018
 1. INTRODUCTION

Deforestation and forest degradation have become an increasing focus of

international concern, escalating demands for legal reforms to arrest forest loss. This
concern has been heightened by the recent linkage of forests and climate change,
including estimates that forest loss accounts for 17% of the global carbon emissions
(IPCC, 2007).

The Amazon is the world’s largest rainforest and the largest river basin on the
planet. More species are found there than anywhere else. The region is believed to be
home to 10% – 1 in 10 – known species on Earth. Of plant species found in this region,
75% are unique to the Amazon, and there are 3,000 species of fish, the largest number
of freshwater fish species in the world.

It is also a massive carbon sink, meaning it absorbs more carbon dioxide than it
emits, one of the reasons why, in the past, it used to be called the world’s "lungs". But
nowadays, the forest may only be soaking up half as much carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere as it did twenty years ago, and one of the main reasons for that is
deforestation. (WWF, )

The Amazon is now facing a multitude of threats as a result of unsustainable

economic development; 20% of the Amazon biome has already been lost and the trend
will continue to get worse if it does not start to slow down. Amazon is the biggest
deforestation front in the world and interventions are urgently needed to prevent a large-
scale, irreversible ecological disaster.

2. CAUSES OF DEFORESTATION

Brazil lies near the centre of international attention as the country having the world’s
largest continuous tropical rainforest (Borner et al., 2010), covering an area of
approximately 5 million km2 or about 61% of Brazil’s territory (Sparovek et al., 2010). Due
to the rapid loss of these forests, Brazil has been considered until recently one of the
largest contributors to carbon emissions from lost biomass (Kintisch, 2007).
 Most of the literature points that cattle ranching, farming and infrastructure projects
are the leading direct drivers of deforestation, that is, the conversion of forested areas to
other land uses. The two other sources of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon are
mining and timber activities.

Cattle ranching is a major deforestation concern as more than 60 percent of cleared

land becomes cattle pasture. There are roughly eighty million head of cattle in the
Amazon, up from twenty-six million in 1990. Brazil is one of the world’s top exporters of
beef, which accounts for about 8 percent of the country’s exports.

Mining activities do not seem to have had a major impact on the total area of forest
cleared, although they are largely responsible for the exponential rise of malaria in the
Basin (Moran, 1993).

The importance of timber exploitation in deforestation begins to be notable only in

the 1980s. The most recent statistics indicate that four of the six states in the region
depend on wood products for more than 25% of their industrial output (Browder, 1986).
This is one kind of land use which will have to be monitored from space, despite the
inherent difficulties that presents. As Uhl and Vieira (1989) have suggested through field
studies, selective logging has a devastating impact on the surrounding forest, leading to
as much as 40% mortality.

Dams are also a big concern, given the fact that Brazil produces more than 70
percent of its energy from hydropower, mostly coming from the Amazon. But the
rainforest’s major dams often flood large swaths of land, displacing nearby communities
and triggering plant decomposition.
 1. Table: Extracted from "Deforestation and Land Use in the Brazilian Amazon" (Moran, 1993)

Even though some advances in environmental protection have been achieved,

economic incentives to clear land remain. Most deforested land in the Amazon is used for
infrastructure projects, pasture and farmland. Some policymakers argue that restrictions
on development in the Amazon could hamper economic growth, others say that enough
land has already been razed to sustain the country’s resource needs.

Deforestation rates in the Amazon have declined over the last decade, but continue
at an alarming rate. Brazil is responsible for half of the deforestation in the Amazon, but
deforestation in the Andean Amazon countries – namely Bolivia and Peru – is increasing.
Deforestation is mainly concentrated in 25 “sub-fronts” that span across multiple countries
(WWF).

The areas showing the greatest deforestation rates are those that have more roads.
The strong correlation between the location of deforestation fronts and the presence of
existing roads or projections of new roads suggests that in the near future there will be
isolated deforestation fronts becoming connected along major infrastructure development
routes.
 3. EFFORTS TO SLOW DOWN DEFORESTATION

Amazon deforestation is no longer an issue for individual countries to tackle in

isolation. It is essential to have integrated policies and concerted action across the region
and beyond, as many of the pressures – oil and gas exploration, mining etc. – are global.
The main points where action should be taken are improving law enforcement, boosting
economic incentives and expanding international efforts.

Brazil has already set aside nearly half of its Amazonian land in reserves, including
indigenous territories and extractive reserves, where residents may cultivate non-timber
products, helping to stem deforestation.

Detailed analyses of publicly available satellite photos show that Brazil has reduced
deforestation in the Amazon enough over the past five years to lower heat-trapping
emissions more than any other country on Earth. This success demonstrates the
enormous potential of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation as
well as conserving and re-growing tropical forests (the international effort known as
REDD+).

Between 2005 and 2010, Brazil nearly met its goal—a full decade ahead of
schedule. Data from 2009–2010 showed that Brazil’s area of deforestation, which
averaged 19,508 square kilometers (km2) per year during the baseline decade of 1996–
2005, had dropped 67 percent, to just 6,451 km 2. UCS analysis of this change, using a
formula for converting deforested area to CO2 emissions based on the work of the
research institute IMAZON, estimated a reduction in Brazil’s global warming pollution of
nearly 1 billion tons.

Brazil’s reductions in deforestation are impressive, but further progress is by no

means guaranteed. Researchers suggest that it is possible for Brazil to keep its
deforestation reduction goals while maintaining legal productive activity on much of the
land that has already been cleared. Government authorities can work with local officials
to improve law enforcement and reduce illegal deforestation even in the most remote
corners of the forest. Policymakers can boost economic incentives to conserve and
reforest, and international partners and consumers can offer financial support for
conservation and sustainable practices.

Norway plays a vital role in creating an economic incentive for Brazil’s actions.
Norway’s funding of REDD+ for the first five-year period reflects a financial investment
that goes far beyond that made by any other country, amounting to about $100 per year
from each Norwegian citizen.12 Both Brazil and Norway—the former tropical and
developing, the latter boreal and developed—have provided examples to the rest of the
world that are worth emulating. They have shown how we can act to deal with global
warming if we have the political will to do it.

4. THE AMAZON’S FUTURE

In all its immensity and complexity, the Amazon is essentially a single ecological
unit. The biome can not be conserved through activities only in the national scope, due to
the multinational nature and at multiple scales of the pressures suffered by the region.
The different interdependent parts of the biome need to be addressed to ensure the
viability of the entire ecological system and the range of environmental goods and services
it provides to local populations, countries in the region and the world.

Based on a vision of the Amazon on the biome scale, the WWF Network's
Amazônia Viva 2016 report presents a series of recommendations for specific issues (e.g,
conservation and climate units, aquatic connectivity, sustainable financial flows, reduction
of deforestation), combining development and environmental conservation, so that this
integrated approach prevails in national and regional planning. WWF is developing tools
and approaches to land and water use planning, based on the biome perspective. These
tools and approaches provide opportunities to plan and implement land use plans
differently and ensure a more sustainable path for Amazonian development.

The key principles for a sustainable future in the Amazon require a biomedical
perspective and a landscape approach. The "national parts" of the Amazon depend on
the integrity of the biome as a whole for long-term ecological sustainability, maintaining
the hydrological cycle and resilience to climate change. Cross-border initiatives are
important as rivers, ecosystem services and species in the region ignore borders between
countries.

The biome perspective requires the adoption of an integrated conservation model

that, when approaching the landscape, combines protection with sustainable
management and, where necessary, environmental restoration. This requires a bold way
of thinking and receptivity to new types of cross-sector partnership, recognizing and
negotiating trade-offs between environmental health and economic development, and
striking a balance between multiple needs. The focus of the landscape approach is the
integration of land use with environmental priorities, resulting in negotiated decisions that
address the interests of the various segments of society.

The perspective of the biome and the proposed landscape approach must
permeate the development plans of the region, in line with the precepts defined in the
scope of the international commitments assumed by the countries of the region and the
world, which serve to guide actions for the fulfillment of the needs and respect for the
rights of the populations of the Amazon, as well as the sustainable management of their
natural resources.

Examples include the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (ODS),
the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) the United Nations Program on Reducing
Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), the UN Convention on
Watercourses (which has not yet been implemented in the Amazon), the Minamata
Convention on Mercury, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples, and the Amazon Cooperation Treaty. Strategic regional partners include the
Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO), REDPARQUES (Latin American
network of conservation unit systems), among other actors.

5. REFERENCES

NOBRE, Antonio. O futuro da Amazônia. PISEAGRAMA, Belo Horizonte, número

08, página 102 - 113, 2015.
 INPE. 2010. Amazon deforestation has decreased 14% INPE estimates 6,451 km2
for 2009/2010 periods. December 1. Online at http://www.inpe.br/ingles/news/
news_dest154.php.

Greenpeace. 2009. Slaughtering the Amazon. Amsterdam. Online at

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/publications/reports/slaughtering-the-
amazon. And: Amigos da Terra–Amazônia Brasileira. 2009. Time to pay the bill. Sao
Paulo: Friends of the Earth-Brazilian Amazon. Online at http://www.amazonia.org.br/guia/
detalhes.cfm?id=313449&tipo=6&cat_id=85&subcat_id=413.

Moran, E.F., 1993. Deforestation and land use in the Brazilian Amazon. Human
Ecology 21, 1–21.

Schmidt C and McDermott C (2015) Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon: Local

explanations for forestry law compliance. Social and Legal Studies 24: 3–24.

Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), available at:

https://www.cfr.org/interactives/amazon-deforestation/#/en/section7.

World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF), vailable at:

http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/deforestation/deforestation_fronts/deforestatio
n_in_the_amazon/.