Between 2007-2008 The Brasilian Amazon lost almost 3 million acres of forest due to illegal logging, soy plantations, and cattle ranching amongst others.
The Amazon rainforest regulates the world's climate, provides plants for medicine, and is home for thousands of people and some of the world's rarest wildlife.
The Amazon rainforest is a 'carbon sink', meaning it stores carbon dioxide preventing it from entering the atmosphere and fuelling the greenhouse effect. However deforestation releases this stored carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Due to this, deforestation accounts for about 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
25% of pharmaceuticals come from plants, and the Amazon has provided treatment for headaches, fever, high blood pressure, and muscle pain to name a few. We not only rely on these plants for their medicinal properties, but indigenous people rely on them for survival.
Illegal Logging:
This is when farmers cut down the timber in areas they have illegally occupied. This then leads to roads being built in these cleared spaces, which open up the rainforest for more deforestation. 60-80% of logging in the Brasilian rainforest is thought to be illegal, and 70% of that is thought to be wasted in mills. The US is the largest importer of Brasilian timber, and these companies have a real job to stop the illegal logging industry and promote legal timber production.
Agriculture, Cattle & Soy:
Brasil is the world's largest beef exporter, and this is the main cause of deforestation within the Amazon, accounting for 80% of forests lost.
Between 2004-5 around 1.2 million hectares of soya was planted, and the land cleared for these crops was mainly done illegally. However, Brasil's larger agricultural companies are pushing for changes to Brasil's conservation laws that would make clearing large areas on land easier, and excusing those who've already cleared land illegally.
Pig Iron:
Pig iron is a cause of deforestation that is hardly ever mentioned. It's when charcoal producers burn wood and vegetation from the rainforest to produce coal. And it is thought that people are working in slave-like conditions to achieve this.
Solutions:
Greenpeace are pushing governments to look into the legal, ecological, and social sustainability of timber production and wood products. They believe governments need to enforce laws that force companies to look closely at where their timber supply comes from, and therefore reduce the demand for illegally sourced wood.
Forests For Climate is a landmark proposal for an international funding mechanism to protect tropical rainforests. This proposal allows developing countries with tropical rainforests to commit to their forests in exchange for receiving funding for capacity-building efforts and national-level reductions in deforestation emissions.
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