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

degraded pastures are often rotated or abandoned as idle land. In other areas,
it is the expansion of large-scale agriculture that is consolidating lands
previously owned for pasture. This is a cycle that is being fuelled particularly
by soy producers, who buy these degraded lands from ranchers. This enables
the soy producers to expand their lands without having to resort to expensive
loans. Land speculation and unclear land tenure are also underlying drivers.
The impact of cattle-ranching and agriculture on the Amazon are compounded
by a series of other ever-growing threats, such as intensive logging, climate
change, and large-scale transportation and energy infrastructure projects –
primarily large-scale water infrastructure – and to a lesser degree by mining to
tap important reserves of industrial minerals. In 2000, 90% of Brazil’s energy
was supplied by hydroelectric power, and its dam network is now being
expanded to meet Brazil’s growing energy needs. Dams can cause biodiversity
and habitat loss, and can impact on fisheries and cause riverine and coastal
erosion. They can also disrupt several stages in the life cycle of fish –
spawning, growth and breeding. Many Amazon fish are migratory, requiring
unobstructed journeys across large stretches of river to critical spawning
grounds.
Aside from causing deforestation in their construction, transportation
infrastructure projects push deeper into the Amazon, thus enabling other
unsustainable activities to expand further into former wilderness areas.
The Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America
(IIRSA) is a bold effort by the governments of South America to construct a
new infrastructure network for the continent, including roads, waterways, ports,
and energy and communications interconnections.
The economic transformation of the Amazon is gaining momentum and yet,
as those forces grow in strength, we’re also finding that the Amazon plays
a critical role in maintaining climate functions regionally and globally. It’s a
contribution that everyone – rich or poor, in Manaus or London – depends on.
The Amazon’s canopy cover helps to regulate temperature and humidity, and
is intricately linked to regional climate patterns through hydrological cycles that
depend on the forests.
Given the enormous amount of carbon stored in the forests of the Amazon,
there is tremendous potential to alter global climate if the forests are not
properly stewarded. Currently, land conversion and deforestation in the
Cattle graze among the stumps of
burnt trees in the Brazilian Amazon.
Cattle ranching is the number one cause of
deforestation in the Amazon.
© Mauri Rautkari / WWF-Canon
36 amazon alive! I a decade of discovery 1999-2009