The main sources of deforestation

Deforestation

Deforestation is the removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is thereafter converted to a nonforest use. Examples of deforestation include conversion of forestland to farms, ranches, or urban use....

 in the Amazon Rainforest are human settlement and development of the land. Between 1991 and 2000, the total area of Amazon Rainforest

Amazon Rainforest

The Amazon Rainforest , also known in English as Amazonia or the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest that covers most of the Amazon Basin of South America...

 cleared for ranching and roads rose from 415,000 to 587,000 km²; a total area of more than six times that of Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

, 64 percent larger than Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, 55 percent larger than Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, 21 percent larger than Sichuan

Sichuan

' , known formerly in the West by its postal map spellings of Szechwan or Szechuan is a province in Southwest China with its capital in Chengdu...

 or equal to 84 percent the area of Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

. Most of this lost forest has been replaced with pasture for cattle. In February 2008, the Brazilian government announced that the rate at which the Amazon rainforest was being destroyed had been accelerating noticeably during the time of the year that it normally slows: In just the last five months of 2007, more than 3,200 sq. kilometers, an area equivalent to the state of Rhode Island

Rhode Island

The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...

, was deforested.

History

Prior to the 1970's, access to the forest's interior was highly restricted, and aside from partial clearing along rivers the forest remained basically intact. Deforestation accelerated greatly following the opening of highways deep into the forest, such as the Trans-Amazonian highway

Trans-Amazonian highway

The Trans-Amazonian Highway , was inaugurated on August 30, 1972. It is 5,300 km long, making it the third longest highway in Brazil...

 in 1972.

In many parts of Amazon, the poor soil had made plantation-based agriculture unprofitable. The key turning point in deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon was when colonists began to establish farms within the forest during the 1960s. Their farming system was based on crop cultivation and the slash and burn

Slash and burn

Slash-and-burn is an agricultural technique which involves cutting and burning of forests or woodlands to create fields. It is subsistence agriculture that typically uses little technology or other tools. It is typically part of shifting cultivation agriculture, and of transhumance livestock...

 method. However, the colonists were unable to successfully manage their fields and the crops due to the loss of soil fertility and weed

Weed

A weed in a general sense is a plant that is considered by the user of the term to be a nuisance, and normally applied to unwanted plants in human-controlled settings, especially farm fields and gardens, but also lawns, parks, woods, and other areas. More specifically, the term is often used to...

 invasion.
In indigenous areas of the Peruvian Amazon, such as the Urarina

Urarina

The Urarina are an indigenous people of the Peruvian Amazon Basin who inhabit the Chambira, Urituyacu, and Corrientes Rivers. According to both archaeological and historical sources, they have resided in the Chambira Basin of contemporary northeastern Peru for centuries. The Urarina refer to...

's Chambira River Basin

Drainage basin

A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...

, the soils are productive for relatively short period of time, and indigenous horticulturalists like the Urarina are therefore constantly moving to new areas and clearing more and more land.
Amazonian colonization was ruled by cattle raising because ranching required little labor, generated decent profits, and awarded social status in the community. Additionally, grass can grow in the poor Amazon soil. However, the results of the farming lead to extensive deforestation and caused extensive environmental damage. An estimated 30% of the deforestation is due to small farmers and the intensity within the area that they inhabit is greater than the area occupied by the medium and large ranchers who possess 89% of the Legal Amazon’s private land. This emphasizes the importance of using previously cleared land for agricultural use, rather the typical easiest political path of distributing still-forested areas.
In the Brazilian Amazon, the amount of small farmers versus large landholders changes frequently with economic and demographic pressures.

In 2008, Peruvian President Alan García pushed through by executive decree Law 840 (also known as "Ley de la Selva," "the Law of the Jungle" or simply the "Forest Law"), which allowed the sale of uncultivated Amazon land under state ownership to private companies, without term limits on the property rights. While the law was promoted as a "reforestation" measure, critics claimed the privatization measure would in fact encourage further deforestation of the Amazon, while surrendering the nation's rights over natural resources to foreign investors and leaving uncertain the fate of Peru's indigenous people

Indigenous peoples in Peru

Indigenous people in Peru comprise a large number of distinct ethnic groups who inhabited the country's present territory prior to its discovery by Europeans around 1500...

, who do not typically hold formal title to the forestlands on which they subsist. Law 840 met widespread resistance and was eventually repealed by Peru's legislature for being unconstitutional.

Causes

The Amazon Rainforest is being cut away for many different reasons. Cattle Pasture, the valuable hardwood, housing space and farming space especially soybeans are just the main reasons.The annual rate of deforestation in the Amazon region has continued to increase from 1990 to 2003 because of factors at local, national, and international levels. 70% of formerly forested land in the Amazon, and 91% of land deforested since 1970, is used for livestock pasture

Ranch

A ranch is an area of landscape, including various structures, given primarily to the practice of ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle or sheep for meat or wool. The word most often applies to livestock-raising operations in the western United States and Canada, though...

. In addition, Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

 is currently the second-largest global producer of soybean

Soybean

The soybean or soya bean is a species of legume native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean which has numerous uses...

s after the United States, mostly for export and biodiesel production, and as prices for soybeans rise, the soy farmers are pushing northwards into forested areas of the Amazon. As stated in Brazilian legislation, clearing land for crops or fields is considered an ‘effective use’ of land and is the beginning towards land ownership. Cleared property is also valued 5–10 times more than forested land and for that reason valuable to the owner whose ultimate objective is resale. The needs of soy farmers have been used to validate many of the controversial transportation projects that are currently developing in the Amazon. The first two highways: the Belém-Brasília

Rodovia Belém-Brasília

Rodovia Belém-Brasília is a federal highway in Brazil. It is named after its chief engineer, who died in an accident during the construction of the highway, when a tree fell over his tent...

 (1958) and the Cuiaba-Porto Velho (1968) were the only federal highways in the Legal Amazon

Amazônia Legal

Amazônia Legal is the largest socio-geographic division of the South American nation of Brazil, which contains all of its territory in the Amazon Basin...

 to be paved and passable year-round before the late 1990s. These two highways are said to be “at the heart of the ‘arc of deforestation’”, which at present is the focal point area of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. The Belém-Brasilia highway attracted nearly two million settlers in the first twenty years. The success of the Belém-Brasilia highway in opening up the forest was reenacted as paved roads continued to be developed unleashing the irrepressible spread of settlement. The completions of the roads were followed by a wave of resettlement and the settlers had a significant effect on the forest.

Scientists using NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

 satellite data have found that clearing for mechanized cropland has recently become a significant force in Brazilian Amazon deforestation. This change in land use may alter the region's climate. Researchers found that in 2003, the then peak year of deforestation, more than 20 percent of the Mato Grosso

Mato Grosso

Mato Grosso is one of the states of Brazil, the third largest in area, located in the western part of the country.Neighboring states are Rondônia, Amazonas, Pará, Tocantins, Goiás and Mato Grosso do Sul. It also borders Bolivia to the southwest...

 state’s forests were converted to cropland. This finding suggests that the recent cropland

Farm

A farm is an area of land, or, for aquaculture, lake, river or sea, including various structures, devoted primarily to the practice of producing and managing food , fibres and, increasingly, fuel. It is the basic production facility in food production. Farms may be owned and operated by a single...

 expansion in the region is contributing to further deforestation. In 2005, soybean

Soybean

The soybean or soya bean is a species of legume native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean which has numerous uses...

 prices fell by more than 25 percent and some areas of Mato Grosso showed a decrease in large deforestation events, although the central agricultural zone continued to clear forests. However, deforestation rates could return to the high levels seen in 2003 as soybean and other crop prices begin to rebound in international markets. This new driver of forest loss suggests that the rise and fall of prices for other crops

Crop (agriculture)

A crop is a non-animal species or variety that is grown to be harvested as food, livestock fodder, fuel or for any other economic purpose. Major world crops include maize , wheat, rice, soybeans, hay, potatoes and cotton. While the term "crop" most commonly refers to plants, it can also include...

, beef

Beef

Beef is the culinary name for meat from bovines, especially domestic cattle. Beef can be harvested from cows, bulls, heifers or steers. It is one of the principal meats used in the cuisine of the Middle East , Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Europe and the United States, and is also important in...

, and timber

Lumber

Lumber or timber is wood in any of its stages from felling through readiness for use as structural material for construction, or wood pulp for paper production....

 may also have a significant impact on future land use in the region, according to the study. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NasaNews/2006/2006091923131.html

In 1996, the Amazon was reported to have shown a 34% increase in deforestation since 1992. The mean annual deforestation rate from 2000 to 2005 (22,392 km² per year) was 18% higher than in the previous five years (19,018 km² per year). In Brazil, the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE, or National Institute of Space Research) produces deforestation figures annually. Their deforestation estimates are derived from 100 to 220 images taken during the dry season in the Amazon by the Landsat

Landsat program

The Landsat program is the longest running enterprise for acquisition of satellite imagery of Earth. On July 26, 1972 the Earth Resources Technology Satellite was launched. This was eventually renamed to Landsat. The most recent, Landsat 7, was launched on April 15, 1999. The instruments on the...

 satellite, also may only consider the loss of the Amazon rainforest biome – not the loss of natural fields or savannah within the rainforest. According to INPE, the original Amazon rainforest biome in Brazil of 4,100,000 km² was reduced to 3,403,000 km² by 2005 – representing a loss of 17.1%.

in the Brazilian Amazon (km²)||Annual forest
loss (km²)||Percent of 1970
cover remaining||Total forest loss
since 1970 (km²)
|-
|Pre–1970 || 4,100,000 || — || — || —
|-
|1977 || 3,955,870 || 21,130 || 96.5% || 144,130
|-
|1978–1987 || 3,744,570 || 21,130 || 91.3% || 355,430
|-
|1988 || 3,723,520 || 21,050 || 90.8% || 376,480
|-
|1989 || 3,705,750 || 17,770 || 90.4% || 394,250
|-
|1990 || 3,692,020 || 13,730 || 90.0% || 407,980
|-
|1991 || 3,680,990 || 11,030 || 89.8% || 419,010
|-
|1992 || 3,667,204 || 13,786 || 89.4% || 432,796
|-
|1993 || 3,652,308 || 14,896 || 89.1% || 447,692
|-
|1994 || 3,637,412 || 14,896 || 88.7% || 462,588
|-
|1995 || 3,608,353 || 29,059 || 88.0% || 491,647
|-
|1996 || 3,590,192 || 18,161 || 87.6% || 509,808
|-
|1997 || 3,576,965 || 13,227 || 87.2% || 523,035
|-
|1998 || 3,559,582 || 17,383 || 86.8% || 540,418
|-
|1999 || 3,542,323 || 17,259 || 86.4% || 557,677
|-
|2000 || 3,524,097 || 18,226 || 86.0% || 575,903
|-
|2001 || 3,505,932 || 18,165 || 85.5% || 594,068
|-
|2002 || 3,484,538 || 21,394 || 85.0% || 615,462
|-
|2003 || 3,459,291 || 25,247 || 84.4% || 640,709
|-
|2004 || 3,431,868 || 27,423 || 83.7% || 668,132
|-
|2005 || 3,413,022 || 18,846 || 83.2% || 686,978
|-
|2006 || 3,398,913 || 14,109 || 82.9% || 701,087
|-
|2007 || 3,387,381 || 11,532 || 82.6% || 712,619
|-
|2008 || 3,375,413 || 11,968 || 82.3% || 724,587
|}