LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Deforestation: Brazils
built 645 days ago
Deforestation per se is relatively easy to monitor and measure using satellite data, and Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE) has been doing so accurately since 1988. Historically the rate of deforestation has varied with fluctuations in the economy and the weather, but the long-term average is about 6,900 square miles per year. The frontier got its start in the 1970s with the military government's geopolitically inspired roads, harebrained colonization schemes, and fat subsidies for cattle ranching, then cruised through the '80s and early '90s when placer gold mining and mahogany logging kicked in. In the first years of the millennium... the level of development rose dramatically. While Brazil's economic growth stagnated, deforestation climbed steadily to 10,500 square miles in 2004, the second highest year on record.
Source:
Deforestation is a local problem with global consequences. Recently, Brazil's Amazon rainforest has come into the international spotlight prompted by concerns for a warming planet. In 1991, it was predicted that at current deforestation rates, only scattered"remnants" of tropical rainforests will exist and a quarter of all species on Earth will be extinct by the time today's preschoolers retire (Binswanger, 1991). This rapid rate of deforestation raises concern in a number of different environmental issues such as biodiversitiy loss and global warming.
Source:
Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest fell 37% for the 2004-2005 year according to Brazilian government figures released today. Between July 2004 and August 2005, 7,298 square miles of rainforest (18,900 square kilometers)—an area almost half the size of Switzerland—were destroyed.
Source:
A new and increasing force driving deforestation is export commodities such as soybeans and beef. Soybeans have taken over much of the cerrado (central Brazilian savanna) and are advancing in some rainforest areas such as Santarém, Pará. Soybeans have a large indirect force on deforestation by providing economic justification for highway construction projects that spur forest loss through cattle ranching, logging and land speculation. Beef export has traditionally not been a force behind deforestation in Brazil (in sharp contrast to the “hamburger connection” of Central America) because the presence of foot-and-mouth disease made major markets in Europe, Japan and North America unwilling to import beef in frozen form. Since 1996 states in Brazil have successively been certified as free of foot-and-mouth disease, starting in the extreme south of the country and now including three of the nine Amazonian states. The impact of beef export on deforestation already affects all of Amazonia, even though most of the area is still uncertified and cannot export beef directly.
Source:
Different regions and sectors of Brazil employ various programs that promote deforestation. The SUDAM, Grand Carajas program, and the IBDF (Instituto Brasileiro de Desenvolvimento Florestal) are programs that basically single out specific corporate enterprises and provide those companies with special tax incentives (Binswanger, 1991). For example, the SUDAM program offers certain corporations a tax credit scheme that promotes live stock ranches in the legal Amazon. The SUDAM program was considered the worst according to Binswanger. Designed to improve economic development in a region, the result is rapid deforestation, modest afforestation, and enormous fiscal costs (exceeding $1 billion US dollars in the time period between 1975 and 1986) (Binswanger, 1991).
Source:
Developing countries have owed massive debts to the industrialized developed countries since the 1970's and 1980's; this is a major reason for the deforestation of their rainforests. Foreign leaders lent over $27 billion (US) to developing countries, today that equates to roughly $1.3 trillion (Waste.org, 1994). In order to reduce their debt, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are forcing developing countries to destroy their rainforests. Over 50,000 km2or 1.4% of Brazil's rainforest were suggested by the World Bank to be "brought under control and management" (Waste.org, 1994). Due to increasing interest rates, it is relatively impossible for these poorer nations to pay the interest let alone the debt.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Brazils