Actions of poor subsistence cultivators:
Why is the Brazilian Amazon being destroyed?
Rhett A Butler
In many tropical countries, the majority of deforestation results
from the actions of poor subsistence cultivators. However, in Brazil
only about one-third of recent deforestation can be linked to "shifted"
cultivators.
Historically a large portion of deforestation in Brazil can be
attributed to land clearing for pastureland by commercial and
speculative interests, misguided government policies, inappropriate
World Bank projects, and commercial exploitation of forest resources.
For effective action it is imperative that these issues be addressed.
Focusing solely on the promotion of sustainable use by local people
would neglect the most important forces behind deforestation in Brazil.
Brazilian deforestation is strongly correlated to the economic health
of the country: the decline in deforestation from 1988-1991 nicely
matched the economic slowdown during the same period, while the
rocketing rate of deforestation from 1993-1998 paralleled Brazil's
period of rapid economic growth. During lean times, ranchers and
developers do not have the cash to rapidly expand their pasturelands and
operations, while the government lacks funds to sponsor highways and
colonization programs and grant tax breaks and subsidies to forest
exploiters.
Deforestation in Amazon. (Source: Internet) |
A relatively small percentage of large landowners clear vast sections
of the Amazon for cattle pastureland. Large tracts of forest are cleared
and sometimes planted with African savanna grasses for cattle feeding.
In many cases, especially during periods of high inflation, land is
simply cleared for investment purposes.
When pastureland prices exceed forest land prices (a condition made
possible by tax incentives that favor pastureland over natural forest),
forest clearing is a good hedge against inflation.
Such favorable taxation policies, combined with government subsidized
agriculture and colonization programs, encourage the destruction of the
Amazon. The practice of low taxes on income derived from agriculture and
tax rates that favor pasture over forest overvalues agriculture and
pastureland and makes it profitable to convert natural forest for these
purposes when it normally would not be so.
Cattle ranching is the leading cause of deforestation in the
Brazilian Amazon. This has been the case since at least the 1970s:
government figures attributed 38 percent of deforestation from 1966-1975
to large-scale cattle ranching. However, today the situation may be even
worse. According to the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR),
"between 1990 and 2001 the percentage of Europe's processed meat imports
that came from Brazil rose from 40 to 74 percent" and by 2003 "for the
first time ever, the growth in Brazilian cattle production 80 percent of
which was in the Amazon was largely export driven."
Several factors have spurred recent Brazil's growth as a producer of
beef:
The devaluation of the Brazilian real against the dollar effectively
doubled the price of beef in reals and created an incentive for ranchers
to expand their pasture areas at the expense of the rainforest. The
weakness of the real also made Brazilian beef more competitive on the
world market [CIFOR].
The eradication of foot-and-mouth disease in much of Brazil has
increased price and demand for Brazilian beef.
Road construction gives developers and ranchers access to previously
inaccessible forest lands in the Amazon. Infrastructure improvements can
reduce the costs of shipping and packing beef.
Rainforest lands are often used for land speculation purposes. When
real pasture land prices exceed real forest land prices, land clearing
is a good hedge against inflation. At times of high inflation, the
appreciation of cattle prices and the stream of services (milk) they
provide may outpace the interest rate earned on money left in the bank.
In Brazil, colonists and developers can gain title to Amazon lands by
simply clearing forest and placing a few head of cattle on the land. As
an additional benefit, cattle are a low-risk investment relative to cash
crops which are subject to wild price swings and pest infestations.
Essentially cattle are a vehicle for land ownership in the Amazon.
Some have suggested that agricultural certification could help reduce
destructive clearing for cattle pasture.
Colonization
A significant amount of deforestation is caused by the subsistence
activities of poor farmers who are encouraged to settle on forest lands
by government land policies. In Brazil, each squatter acquires the right
(known as a usufruct right) to continue using a piece of land by living
on a plot of unclaimed public land (no matter how marginal the land) and
"using" it for at least one year and a day.
After five years the squatter acquires ownership and hence the right
to sell the land. Up until at least the mid-1990s this system was
worsened by the government policy that allowed each claimant to gain
title for an amount of land up to three times the amount of forest
cleared. Poor farmers use fire for clearing land and every year
satellite images pick up tens of thousands of fires burning across the
Amazon. Typically understory shrubbery is cleared and then forest trees
are cut.
The area is left to dry for a few months and then burned. The land is
planted with crops like bananas, palms, manioc, maize, or rice.
After a year or two, the productivity of the soil declines, and the
transient farmers press a little deeper and clear new forest for more
short-term agricultural land.
The old, now infertile fields are used for small-scale cattle grazing
or left for waste.
Between 1995 and 1998, the government granted land in the Amazon to
roughly 150,000 families. Forty-eight percent of forest loss in 1995 was
in areas under 125 acres (50 hectares) in size, suggesting that both
loggers and peasants are significant contributors to deforestation.
Source: Internet |