Cattle ranching is the leading cause of deforestation in the Amazon which is located in Brazil. Since the 1970s, the government figures that 38 percent of deforestation from 1966-1975 is from large scale cattle ranching. Today the situation is much 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."
A small percentage of large landowners clear vast areas of the Amazon for cattle pastureland. Large tracts of forest are cleared and usually planted with African savanna grasses for cattle feeding. More and more often, during periods of high inflation, land is just cleared for investment purposes. When pastureland prices exceed forest land prices, when tax incentives that favor pastureland over natural forest, forest clearing is an easy way out of inflation.Favored taxation policies like these, combined with government subsidized agriculture and colonization programs, encourage the destruction of the Amazon. Such tax hikes are extremely profitable not only for the ranch owners, but for the government as well.Facts about deforestation: CURRENCY DEVALUATION—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].CONTROL OVER FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE—The eradication of foot-and-mouth disease in much of Brazil has increased price and demand for Brazilian beef.INFRASTRUCTURE—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.INTEREST RATES—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.LAND TENURE LAWS—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.My two cents: THis sickens me to think that filthy rich land owners think that they need to be even more filthy stinking rich and can destroy the land and forests that have been thriving thousands of millenia. It just doesn't make sense to me; we need the rain forests. Without the protection and balance that our natural ecosystem provides, the Earth will die and become a barren rock and wasteland as Mars is now. Something needs to be done to stop and reverse this terrible process
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Otherwise, well done!