Deforestation is the conversion of forested areas to non-forested areas.

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 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%.

From 2002 to 2006, the conserved land in the Amazon Rainforest has almost tripled and deforestation rates have dropped up to 60%. About 100 million hectares, or 250 million acres have been put onto some sort of conservation, which adds up to a current amount of 173 million hectares or 432.5 million acres.

Deforestation affects the amount of water in the soil, groundwater and moisture in the atmosphere. Forests support considerable bio diversity, providing valuable habitat for wildlife; moreover, forests foster medicinal conservation and the recharge of aquifers. With forest biotopes being a major irreplaceable source of new drugs (like taxol), deforestation can destroy genetic variations (such as crop resistance) irretrievably.

Shrinking forest cover lessens the landscape's capacity to intercept, retain and transport precipitation. Instead of trapping precipitation, which then percolates to groundwater systems, deforested areas become sources of surface water runoff, which moves much faster than subsurface flows. That quicker transport of surface water can translate into flash flooding and more localized floods than would occur with the forest cover. Deforestation also contributes to decreased evapotranspiration, which lessens atmospheric moisture, which in some cases affects precipitation levels downwind from the deforested area, as water is not recycled to downwind forests, but is lost in runoff and returns directly to the oceans. According to one preliminary study, in deforested north and northwest China, the average annual precipitation decreased by one third between the 1950s and the 1980s.

Long-term gains can be obtained by managing forest lands sustainable to maintain both forest cover and provide a biodegradable renewable resource. Forests are also important stores of organic carbon, and forests can extract carbon dioxide and pollutants from the air, thus contributing to biosphere stability and probably relevant to the greenhouse effect. Forests are also valued for their aesthetic beauty and as a cultural resource and tourist attraction.

Brazil the rate of deforestation is largely driven by commodity prices. Recent development of a new variety of soybean has led to the displacement of beef ranches and farms of other crops, which, in turn, move farther into the forest. Certain areas such as the Atlantic Rainforest have been diminished to less than 10% of their original size and the Amazon Rainforest is awaiting the same fate at 600 fires daily. Although much conservation work has been done, few national parks or reserves are efficiently enforced.

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Did you know one of the main causes of rainforest destruction is for the purpose of making paper for worldwide needs? One pulpwood project in the Brazilian Amazon consists of a Japanese power plant and pulp mill. To set up this single plant operation, 5,600 square miles of Amazon Rainforest were burned to the ground and replanted with pulpwood trees. This single manufacturing plant consumes 2,000 tons of surrounding rainforest wood every day to produce 55 megawatts of electricity to run the plant. The plant, which has been in operation since 1978, produces more than 750 tons of pulp for paper every 24 hours, worth approximately $500,000, and has built 2,800 miles of roads through the Amazon Rainforest to be used by its 700 vehicles.

In addition to this pulp mill, the world’s biggest pulp mill is the Aracruz Mill in Brazil. Both units produce 2,700 tons of pulp for paper every 24 hours, or 1 million tons of pulp a year. All the while, harvesting the rainforest to keep the plant in business and displacing thousands of indigenous tribes.

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The main sources of deforestation in the Amazon are human settlement and development of the land. Between 1991 and 2000, the total area of forest lost in the Amazon rose from 415,000 to 587,000 km², an area twice the size of Portugal, with most of the lost forest becoming pasture for cattle.

Prior to the early 1960’s, access to the Amazon was incredibly restricted, aside from partial clearing along rivers, the forest remained basically intact. The key point in deforestation of the Amazon was when the colonists established farms within the forest during the 1600s. Their farming system was based on crop cultivation and the slash and burn method. The colonists were unable to successfully manage their fields and the crops due to the loss of soil fertility and weed invasion. The soils in the Amazon are productive for just a short period of time, and the farmers are therefore constantly moving 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. 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. 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.

70% of formerly forested land in the Amazon and 91% of land deforested since 1970, is used for livestock pasture. In addition, Brazil is currently the second-largest global producer of soybeans after the United States. This is mainly for livestock feed, so 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 five to ten times more than forested land and for that reason, is very valuable to the owner, whose ultimate objective is resale. As stated by Michael Williams, “The people of Brazil have always thought of the Amazon as a communal possession which they felt free to hack, burn, and abandon at will.”

The soy industry is the principal source of foreign currency for Brazil; therefore, 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 (1958) and the Cuiaba-Porto Velho (1968) were the only federal highways in the Legal Amazon to be paved and passable year-round before the late 1990’s. 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 re-enacted 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 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 and the land's ability to absorb carbon dioxide. Researchers found that in 2003, the peak year of deforestation, more than 20 percent of the Mato Grosso state’s forests were converted to cropland. This finding suggests that the recent cropland expansion in the region is contributing to further deforestation.

In 2005, soybean 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. But, deforestation rates could return to the high levels seen in 2003 as soybean and other crop prices begin to rebound in international markets.

Brazil has become a leading worldwide producer of grains including soybean, accounting for more than one-third of the country's gross national product. This new driver of forest loss suggests that the rise and fall of prices for other crops, beef and timber may also have a significant impact on future land use in the region, according to the study.

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Tropical and temperate rainforests have been subjected to heavy logging and agricultural clearance throughout the 20th century, and the area covered by rainforests around the world is rapidly shrinking. Biologists have estimated that large numbers of species are being driven to extinction (possibly more than 50,000 a year) due to the removal of habitat with destruction of the rainforests. Protection and regeneration of the rainforests is a key goal of many environmental charities and organizations. (It is doubtful that this rate will be sustained as the relative cost of logging rises with dwindling resources.) About half the world's species of animals and plants depend upon these forests for their survival.

About half of the mature tropical rainforests between 750 to 800 million hectares of the original 1.5 to 1.6 billion hectares that once graced the planet have already been felled. The devastation is already acute in Southeast Asia, the second of the world's great bio diversity hot spots. Most of what remains is in the Amazon basin, where the Amazon Rainforest covered more than 600 million hectares, an area nearly two thirds the size of the United States. The forests are being destroyed at an ever-quickening pace. Unless significant measures are taken on a world-wide basis to preserve them, by 2030 there will only be 10% remaining with another 10% in a degraded condition, 80% will have been lost, and with them, the natural diversity they contain will pass away forever.

Many tropical countries, including Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh, China, Sri Lanka, Laos, Nigeria, Liberia, Guinea, Ghana and the Cote d'lvoire have already lost large areas of their rainforest. Eighty per cent of the forests of the Philippine archipelago have already been cut down. "In 1960 Central America still had four fifths of its original forest; now it is left with only two fifths of it. Half of the Brazilian state of Rondonia's 24.3 million hectares have been destroyed or severely degraded in recent years. Several countries, notably the Philippines, Thailand and India have declared their deforestation a national emergency.

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Some estimates suggest that the illegal timber trade may comprise over a tenth of the total global timber trade, worth more than $150 billion a year. Although exact figures are difficult to obtain, given the illegal nature of the activity, reliable estimates indicate that more than half of all logging activities in particularly vulnerable regions – the Amazon Basin, Central Africa, Southeast Asia, the Russian Federation and some of the Baltic states – is illegal.

Illegal logging is not only a problem in the South or Russia. In Estonia illegal logging is estimated to reach 50% and in Latvia rates of 15 to 20% have been documented, while anecdotal evidence points towards 25% of logging being illegal. Illegal logging contributes to deforestation, causes loss of bio diversity and undermines the rule of law. These illegal activities undermine responsible forest management, encourage corruption and tax evasion and reduce the income of the producer countries, further limiting the resources producer countries can invest in sustainable development . Illegal logging has serious economic and social implications for the poor and disadvantaged. Furthermore, the illegal trade of forest resources undermines international security, and is frequently associated with corruption, money laundering, organized crime, human rights abuses and, in some cases, violent conflict. In the forestry sector, cheap imports of illegal timber and forest products, together with the non-compliance of some economic players with basic social and environmental standards, destabilize international markets. This unfair competition affects those European companies, especially the small and medium sized companies that are behaving responsibly and ready to play by fair rules.

In Brazil, 80% of logging in the Amazon violates government controls. At the core of illegal logging is widespread corruption. Often referred to as ‘green gold’, mahogany can fetch over US$1,600 m-3. Illegal mahogany opens the door for illegal logging of other species, and for widespread exploitation of the Brazilian Amazon. Recent Greenpeace investigations in the Brazilian state of Pará reveal just how deeply rooted the problem remains. No reliable legal chain of custody exists for mahogany, and the key players in its trade are ruthless.

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In the Amazon alone, scientists estimate that the trees contain more carbon than 10 years worth of human-produced greenhouse gases. When people clear the forests, usually with fire, carbon stored in the wood returns to the atmosphere, enhancing the greenhouse effect and global warming. Once the forest is cleared for crop or grazing land, the soils can become a large source of carbon emissions, depending on how farmers and ranchers manage the land. In places such as Indonesia, the soils of swampy lowland forests are rich in partially decayed organic matter, known as peat. During extended droughts, such as during El Niño events, the forests and the peat become flammable, especially if they have been degraded by logging or accidental fire. When they burn, they release huge volumes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Deforestation changes local weather. Cloudiness and rainfall can be greater over cleared land (image right) than over intact forest (left). This image of Alta Floresta, Brazil, was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite on August 29, 2006. (NASA image by Robert Simmon and Jesse Allen, based on data from the MODIS science team.)
Photograph of fire and smoke in Cambodian rainforest.

It is not certain whether intact tropical forests are a net source or sink of carbon. Certainly, the trunks of trees are a large, stable pool of carbon that grows as forests mature or regenerate on previously cleared land. But trees, plants, and microorganisms in the soil also respire, releasing carbon dioxide as they break down carbohydrates for energy. In the Amazon, huge volumes of carbon dioxide escape from decaying leaves and other organic matter in rivers and streams that flood large areas of forest during the rainy season. Undisturbed tropical forests may be nearly neutral with respect to carbon, but deforestation and degradation are currently a source of carbon to the atmosphere and have the potential to turn the tropics into an even greater source in coming decades.

Wildfires, along with slash and burn agriculture, release carbon dioxide that would otherwise be stored in the forest biomass into the atmosphere. Forest re growth and crops recapture some carbon, but overall, deforestation is a source of atmospheric carbon dioxide and therefore a contributor to global warming.

Amazonian evergreen forests account for about 10% of the world's terrestrial primary productivity and 10% of the carbon stores in ecosystems — of the order of 1.1 x 1011 metric tonnes of carbon. Amazonian forests are estimated to have accumulated 0.62 ± 0.37 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year between 1975 and 1996. Fires related to Amazonian deforestation have made Brazil one of the top greenhouse gas producers. Brazil produces about 300 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide a year; 200 million of these come from logging and burning in the Amazon. Despite this, Brazil is listed as one of the lowest per capita (rank 124) in CO2 emissions according to the US Department of Energy's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC).

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