Brazilian Amazon – the race is on

Abstract

Brazilian Amazon-the race is on Brazil's Amazon forest was largely intact (98-99%) until the early 1970s, up to which time 'only' an area about the size of Portugal had been converted. Since then the Brazilian government has promoted infrastructure for transport (highways, waterways and railways) and energy (four hydroelectric dams to date). These investments have brought soaring deforestation through logging, cattle ranching, mining, and more recently agriculture, especially soybean, and has resulted in a massive arc of deforestation across the southern Amazon from Rondônia, through Mato Grosso, to southern Pará. Highways are now being paved, and the dramatic but typical effects of this can be seen, for example, along the 1,760 km Cuiabá-Santarém BR-163 highway. Each kilometre of asphalt is stimulus to a cycle of logging, clear-cutting and burning, a brief interlude of cattle ranching, and the rapid appearance of soybean plantations and proliferation of secondary roads and conversion of forest. Deforestation from August 2003 to August 2004 was 26,130 km 2 , the second highest on record (since 1988 the highest was 29,059 km 2 , in 1995). Figures for August 2004 to July 2005 indicate an encouraging drop to c. 16,000 km 2 attributed in part to Operation Curupira, which started in June 2005. This was an unprecedented crackdown on illegal logging, focusing on the state of Mato Grosso (responsible for 40% of the total deforestation in 2003-2004 and 60% in 2004-2005). However, these numbers raise the percentage loss for the Brazilian Amazon to c. 17%, or 690,000 km 2. An area the size of France (545,630 km 2) had been lost by 1998, and an entire Greece has been cut down or burnt since then. The immediate purveyors of destruction are settlers, loggers, miners, dam engineers, farmers and cattle ranchers, propelled by prevailing national and state political and economic climates and, increasingly, global demands for resources. An enormous investment in infrastructure is now making Brazil increasingly competitive in world markets for timber and beef, especially to Europe, and soybean to China. Beef exports are booming because of favourable currency exchange rates and the fact that, since 2003, the states of Mato Grosso, Tocantins and Rondônia in the southern Amazon have been declared free of foot-and-mouth disease. The flourishing economy is reflected in the urban population, which tripled from 4.7 million (45% of the region's