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Large-scale clearing for agriculture in the Brazilian Amazon.
(Photo courtesy of Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC)
COMMERCIAL AGRICULTURE
Agricultural use of some rainforest land proves to be a failure because of the nutrient-deficient, acidic soils of these forests. Nevertheless, many commercial agricultural projects are still carried out on rainforest lands,
although many of these revert to cattle pasture after soils are depleted. Some floodplain regions, like
those of the lower Amazon (várzea), are more suitable for commercial agriculture because annual floods replenish
nutrient stores.
Generally forest clearers use slash-and-burn techniques to clear land, but on a much larger scale
than traditional practices. Instead of burning a mere 2-10 acres (1-4 ha), agriculturalists burn hundreds to thousands
of hectares. This slash-and-burn technique is generally wasteful since it is only occasionally that trees with timber value are removed before the forest is clear cut and left to dry. Following cutting, the area is burned to release nutrients locked up in vegetation and produce a layer of nutrient-rich material above the poor soils of the former tropical forest. The cleared area is quickly planted and supports vigorous growth for a few years, after which the
nutrient stock is depleted and copious amounts of fertilizer are required to keep the operation viable. Fertilizer may be washed into local streams, affecting fish and aquatic life. When the use of fertilizer is deemed no longer efficient, the land is abandoned and allowed to
revert to scrub. Drought-resistant grasses may move in or cattle ranchers may plant imported African grasses for
cattle grazing. The land is now only marginally productive and a limited number of cattle can subsist in the area.
When the land is suitable for agriculture, generally large single cash crops like rice, citrus fruits, oil palms, coffee,
coca, opium, tea, soybeans, cacao, rubber, and bananas are cultivated. Some of these crops are better adapted to
such conditions and last longer on cleared forest lands. However, there are several problems with this type of monoculture
(single crop plantations) in the tropics, besides the loss of forest. First, such planting of a single crop makes
the crop highly vulnerable to disease and pests, as periodic infestations have shown in Brazil, India, and other
places. In natural rainforest, widespread infestations are rare because individuals of a given species are widely
dispersed. Second, the planting of monocultures can be economically risky with the price fluctuations so common in international commodities markets.
Additionally, a single cold spell or drought
can devastate a tremendous part of the agricultural economy.
In the state of Acre in western Brazil, farms and pastures are surrounded by large, undisturbed areas of Amazon rainforest. Since January 2005, many areas in the state have been experiencing severe drought, and the forests have become tinder dry. Since August, agricultural fires—many of them ignited in violation of a state-declared ban—have been escaping control, racing through adjacent fields and spreading into the forests. The situation deteriorated through September, and record amounts of previously undamaged rainforest may burn before the episode is over. Several NASA-funded scientists have helped the Brazilians respond to the disaster by providing daily summaries of fire detections made by satellite, aircraft, and ground observations.
These images from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite show a pattern of forest and farmland east of the city of Rio Branco before (top) and after (bottom) the peak of the 2005 agricultural burning season. The images are made from visible, shortwave, and near-infrared light detected by MODIS. Bright green is unburned forest, bright red is recently burned areas, and tan is cleared, but unburned land. Next to some burned fields, the forest appears dark green, or "bruised," probably indicating places where fires escaped from fields and burned into the forest understory.
NASA images by Jesse Allen (NASA Earth Observatory) and Jeff Schmaltz (MODIS Rapid Response), text courtesy of NASA's Earth Observatory.
The cultivation of some of these crops in mountainous, watershed areas has adverse effects for the environment,
notably the alteration of water cycles and erosion. In Peru, the cultivation of coca plants (containing the basic
ingredient for cocaine) was so widespread in the Andean foothills during the 1980s and 1990s that Peruvian river flood cycles were altered
in some areas, making the high-water season unpredictable. The most serious environmental
concern (other than deforestation) stemming from the cultivation of coca is the dumping of chemicals (including
kerosene, sulfuric acid, acetone, and carbide) used to process coca leaves. However, stopping coca cultivation is
nearly impossible due to simple economics: no crop outperforms coca. The CIA claims that some 600,000 hectares of forest are cleared annually for coca and opium
poppy cultivation.
In some parts of the world, large-scale commercial agriculture takes up the majority of the productive floodplain and volcanic soils, while leaving smaller farmers little choice but to cut farmland from the rainforest. The ownership of these large commercial
farms is concentrated in the hands of a wealthy minority, who may benefit from tax incentives to leave some of their
land fallow and not fully employed at any given time. These large farm businesses generally do not employ large numbers of locals, though when they do, workers are
used seasonally for low wages. In recent years, grain production in Brazil and other Latin American countries has widely accelerated. However, most of the money ends up in the hands of a few large landowners who, in more marginal areas, have relied on subsidies to survive the harsh soil and climate conditions. Only through these handouts have these landowners been able to turn a profit.
Soy
Soybean cultivation in South America. Map showing soybean distribution area in South America as of the year 2000. Rainforest and savanna ("cerrado") ecosystems in the Amazon are giving way to soya fields. Images courtesy of the Global Land Use Database at the University of Wisconsin.
Soybeans have become one of the Brazil's most important crops in the Amazon, as well as in the nearby cerrado grassland ecosystem. Today soybeans are flourishing—since 1998, Brazil has added 30 million acres of soybeans, and American firms are aggressively expanding their presence in the Brazilian agricultural sector. Brazil will likely soon supplant the United States as the world's leading exporter of soybeans, at the expense of the forests and savannas of the Amazon basin.
Annual deforestation rates and annual soy expansion for states in the Brazilian Amazon 1990-2005. Note that the 1995-1996 and 1998-1999 years were negative and do not show up on the chart. Graphs based on Brazilian government data.
Total deforestation and area of soybean cultivation across states in the Brazilian Amazon. Overall soybean cultivation makes up only a small portion of deforestation, though its role is accelerating. Further, soybean expansion and the associated infrastructure development and farmer displacement is driving deforestation by other actors.
Note: some soybean farms are established on already degraded rainforest lands and neighboring cerrado ecosystems. Therefore it would be inappropriate to assume the area of soybean planting represents its actual role in deforestation.
More on soybeans in the Amazon
Prince Charles making progress in effort to save rainforests, says leading British environmentalist
(09/22/2009) Prince Charles of Great Britain has emerged as one of the world’s highest-profile promoters of a scheme that could finally put an end to destruction of tropical rainforests. The Prince’s Rainforest Project, launched in 2007, is promoting awareness of the role deforestation plays in climate change—it accounts for nearly a fifth of greenhouse gas emissions. The project also publicizes the multitude of benefits tropical forests provide, including maintenance of rainfall, biodiversity, and sustainable livelihoods for millions of people. But the initiative goes beyond merely raising awareness. Prince Charles is using his considerable influence to bring political and business leaders together to devise and support a plan to provide emergency funding to save rainforests. Tony Juniper, one of Britain’s best-known environmentalists and Special Adviser to the project, spoke about Prince Charles' efforts in an interview with mongabay.com.
Social causes of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest
(09/14/2009) Understanding the web of social groups involved in deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is key to containing forest loss, argues a leading Amazon researcher writing in the journal Ecology and Society. Philip Fearnside of the National Institute for Research in the Amazon (INPA) reviews nine actors that have had significant roles in deforestation and reports differences in why they deforest, where they are active, and how they interact with each other.
Brazil to step up efforts to save the cerrado grassland
(09/11/2009) Brazil will try to reduce deforestation of the cerrado, a wooded grassland ecosystem in Brazil that is being destroyed twice as fast as the Amazon rainforest, according to the country's Environment Minister Carlos Minc.
Concerns over deforestation may drive new approach to cattle ranching in the Amazon
(09/08/2009) While you're browsing the mall for running shoes, the Amazon rainforest is probably the farthest thing from your mind. Perhaps it shouldn't be. The globalization of commodity supply chains has created links between consumer products and distant ecosystems like the Amazon. Shoes sold in downtown Manhattan may have been assembled in Vietnam using leather supplied from a Brazilian processor that subcontracted to a rancher in the Amazon. But while demand for these products is currently driving environmental degradation, this connection may also hold the key to slowing the destruction of Earth's largest rainforest.
The palm oil industry is an increasingly important driver of forest conversion in southeast Asia, especially Indonesia and Malaysia. Cultivation of oil palm, the world's most productive oil seed, has expanded in Indonesia from 600,000 hectares in 1985 to more than 6 million hectares by early 2007, and is expected to reach 10 million hectares by 2010. In Sabah and Sarawak (Malaysian Borneo), the area of plantations has increased from 186,744 hectares in Sabah and Sarawak in 1984 to 1,673,721 hectares at the close of 2003. Scientists say the use of palm oil biodiesel from plantations established on peat soils releases 8 to 21 times the emissions as conventional diesel fuel.
More on palm oil
Chart showing annual palm oil production by Malaysia and Indonesia from 1964-2006. Click to enlarge.
Forest cover versus palm oil production in Indonesia.
World's first video of the elusive and endangered bay cat
(11/05/2009) Rare, elusive, and endangered by habitat loss, the bay cat is one of the world's least studied wild cats. Several specimens of the cat were collected in the 19th and 20th Century, but a living cat wasn't even photographed until 1998. Now, researchers in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, have managed to capture the first film of the bay cat (Catopuma badia). Lasting seven seconds, the video shows the distinctly reddish-brown cat in its habitat.
Photos: Palm oil threatens Borneo's rarest cats
(11/04/2009) Oil palm expansion is threatening Borneo's rarest wild cats, reports a new study based on three years of fieldwork and more than 17,000 camera trap nights. Studying cats in five locations—each with different environments—in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, researchers found that four of five cat species are threatened by habitat loss due to palm oil plantations. "No other place has a higher percentage of threatened wild cats!" Jim Sanderson, an expert on the world's small cats, told Mongabay.com. Pointing out that 80 percent of Borneo's cats face extinction, Sanderson said that "not one of these wild cats poses a direct threat to humans."
EU is 2nd largest source of peat emissions after Indonesia, finds global peat survey
(11/04/2009) The EU is the world's second largest source of carbon dioxide emissions from peatlands drainage, after Indonesia, reports the first country-by-country assessment of peat stocks. The study, conducted by Wetlands International and Greifswald University, found that drainage of wetlands for agriculture, forestry and peat extraction causes 1.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year. Emissions from fires and peat mining (for horticulture and fuel) amount to another 700,000 million tons per year.
Non-Malaysian and Indonesian palm oil producers pledge not to develop peatlands for plantations
(11/04/2009) Palm oil producers outside of Malaysia and Indonesia pledged to stop developing new plantations on peatlands, circumventing an impasse that developed between palm oil producers and environmental groups meeting this week at the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil in Kuala Lumpur. The factions deadlocked over plans to account for emissions from plantation development, delaying the criteria for a year.
Impasse over palm oil emissions at RSPO meeting
(11/04/2009) Environmentalists and palm oil producers meeting at the annual Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) were locked in an impasse over how to account for emissions from converting forests and peatlands to oil palm plantations, report conference attendees.
European companies not supporting 'greener' palm oil
(10/29/2009) Most European consumers of palm oil are failing to buy eco-certified palm oil, undermining efforts to encourage producers to reduce their impact on the environment, reports WWF.
"Money is not a problem," palm oil CEO tells conservationists during speech defending the industry
(10/26/2009) Earlier this month at a colloquium to implement wildlife corridors for orangutans in the Malaysian state of Sabah, Dr. Yusof Basiron, the CEO of Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC), told conservationists and primate experts that the palm oil industry was ready to fund reforestation efforts in the corridors. "We can raise the money to replant [the corridors] and keep contributing as a subsidy in the replanting process of this corridor for connecting forests," Basiron said in response to a question on how the palm oil industry will contribute. "Money is not a problem. The commitment is already there, the pressure is already very strong for this to be done, so it's just trying to get the thing into motion."
Emotional call for palm oil industry to address environmental problems
(10/21/2009) During what was at times an emotional speech, Sabah's Minister of Tourism, Culture, and Environment, Datuk Masidi Manjun, called on the palm oil industry to stop polluting rivers and work with NGOs to save orangutans and other wildlife. He delivered the speech on the first day of an Orangutan Conservation Colloquium held in early October in the Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo.
