Amazon Alive: A Decade of Discoveries 1999-2009 - WWF

Amazon under threat
© Nigel Dickinson / WWF-Canon
Despite its magnitude, the Amazon is an increasingly fragile place. The world’s
biggest tropical forest is being cleared for cattle and crops.
By all accounts, compared to other tropical forests around the world, the
Amazon is in relatively good shape. However, while the Amazon still has 83%
of its natural ecosystems standing 82 , the picture is shifting rapidly. A disastrous
combination of threats is increasingly eroding the Amazon’s connectivity. And
numerous endemic species are being subjected to waves of resource
exploitation. After centuries of limited human disturbance, at least 17% – some
930,000 sq km – of the seemingly boundless forests of the Amazon have been
destroyed in just 50 years 83 . This is an area greater than the size of
Venezuela, or twice the size of Spain.
The primary cause of this transformation is the rapid expansion in regional and
global markets for meat, soy and biofuels. These have increased the demand
for land.
In almost every Amazon country, extensive cattle ranching is the number one
cause of deforestation 84 . Of the 930,000 sq km of forest cleared in the Amazon
by 2000, 80% was replaced with pasture. Amid rising overseas and domestic
demand for beef, cattle numbers in the Amazon have more than doubled to 57
million since 1990.
Brazil is a giant for both cattle ranching and agriculture. In the case of livestock
production, Brazil has 84% of the pasture land area and 88% of the Amazon
herd. The next biggest producers are Peru and Bolivia 85 . In 2003, Brazil
surpassed Australia as the world’s largest exporter of beef. The area of the
cattle industry where most of this growth is occurring is the Amazon, where
Brazilian herds are expanding at an annual rate of 9% compared to the growth
rate of 6% of the national herd 86,87 . The result has been an astonishing growth
of the cattle industry in the Brazilian Amazon. Between 2004 and 2008, the
supply of beef slaughtered from the Amazon States of Mato Grosso, Pará,
Rondônia and Tocantins increased rapidly from 107 tonnes, with a value of
US$155 million, to 494 tonnes, with a value of US$1.1 billion 88 .
In addition to forest conversion, cattle ranching is the main cause of conversion
of floodplains in the Amazon 89 . Together with agricultural practices, it causes
significant soil erosion and river siltation, as well as aquatic contamination
through fecal matter from cattle and the use of agrochemicals 90,91 .
The second biggest driver of forest conversion is agriculture. In contrast to
cattle ranching, agriculture in the Amazon is extremely diverse. At one end of
the spectrum, there is small-scale agriculture for subsistence, producing crops
such as manioc, beans, rice, corn, coffee, bananas and other fruit for
subsistence. At the other end of the spectrum, and arguably of greatest impact,
are the agro-industrial sectors, with trends of rapid expansion in the Amazon –
particularly in Brazil and Bolivia.
Brazil is the world’s number one exporter of orange juice, ethanol, sugar,
coffee and soy 92 . Brazil’s significant investment in the agro-industrial sector has
rippled throughout the country and in the Amazon in particular. Soy production
in the Brazilian Amazon has tripled, increasing from two million to over six
million hectares from 1990 to 2006. Other crops such as sugar cane and palm
oil for biofuels, as well as cotton and rice, are also expanding in the Amazon.
The cultivation of coca for cocaine production has been an important
contributor to the conversion of forests found on the upper watersheds of the
Amazon basin, and in the eastern slopes of the Andes in Colombia, Peru and
Bolivia. The cultivation of illicit crops was responsible for half the area
deforested in Colombia in 1998 93 .
Cattle ranching and agriculture are the two gravest threats facing the Amazon
today, and they are interlinked. Logging is the first activity in a new area, and
roads are created to access remote stands of timber. Then, in some areas,
small-scale farmers gradually clear the forest alongside the logging roads
using slash-and-burn methods. Ranchers then come in, buy smaller
landholdings and consolidate them into larger ranches, pushing smaller
farmers deeper into the forest. Once pastures become degraded, if land is
suitable for large-scale agriculture, it is bought by larger farmers. Otherwise,
34 amazon alive! I a decade of discovery 1999-2009