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Until the locals have an alternative means of income, I don't foresee a solution to this problem. It's all too easy for those in affluent countries to criticiz

Until the locals have an alternative means of income, I don't foresee a solution to this problem. It's all too easy for those in affluent countries to criticize the recklessness and irresponsibility of developing nations, but people such as cattle farmers (who are responsible for much of the land clearing that's going on) don't have the luxury of worrying about the world environment 50 years from now. As far as they are concerned, that's a far away and abstract threat vs the more immediate concern of how they are going to feed their families. Maybe the advent of new technologies like Beyond Meat, or new advances in construction materials (that could disincentive the use of unsustainable types of lumber in a meaningful way) will be the kinds of things paving the way forward for rainforest preservation.

pacala 7y ago
> Until the locals have an alternative means of income. Which locals? As long as the global demand for cattle is growing, people will move into the Amazon and turn it into pasture. Between strong population growth [1 billion every 20 years] and global enrichment, global demand for commodities is all but guaranteed to grow.
ricardobeat 7y ago
Don't be fooled, this is 99% the work of big corporations, and not individual farmers or loggers (if such a thing still exists). Most of the workers will have moved to the area because of the jobs.
- tepidandroid 7y ago
  This may be true, unfortunately I couldn't find any hard statistics about who is doing the land clearing and cattle ranching. I'd be curious to read about it. I found a line in a wikipedia article [1] that says "In 1995 nearly half, 48%, of the deforestation in Brazil was attributed to poorer farmers clearing lots under 125 acres (0.51 km2) in size" though that was 24 years ago so that figure has probably changed. There is a pretty in-depth study on Amazon deforestation here [2] that says: >In Amazonia as a whole, large (officially defined in Brazilian Amazonia as > 1000 ha) and medium-sized (101–1000 ha) actors have traditionally predominated in deforestation (Fearnside, 1993, 2008b); but the relative importance of small (≤ 100 ha) farmers has been increasing, as indicated by the decreasing average size of new clearings (Rosa, Souza, & Ewers, 2012) They also seem to lack hard numbers on who is doing the deforesting: >Two key questions affecting the relationship of population and deforestation are (a) who are the actors, such as ranchers versus small farmers, and (b) what population and land use is being replaced. If the situation is one of small farmers replacing “unoccupied” forest, then a greater population (of small farmers) translates into more deforestation. If it is ranchers who are replacing “unoccupied” forest, then the same relationship applies, although the number of people will be lower and the amount of deforestation per capita will be much greater. If the situation is one of ranchers replacing small farmers, then the human population will decrease and the rate of deforestation per capita will increase, resulting in a negative relationship between population change and deforestation rate. They summarize with: >It is not enough to prohibit deforestation and punish violations—alternatives must be offered for supporting the small farmers who sustain themselves by clearing forest, for both subsistence and commercial production. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_Brazil#Cattle_ranching_and_infrastructure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_Brazil#Cattle... [2]https://oxfordre.com/environmentalscience/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199389414.001.0001/acrefore-9780199389414-e-102 https://oxfordre.com/environmentalscience/view/10.1093/acref...

pacala 7y ago

> Until the locals have an alternative means of income. Which locals? As long as the global demand for cattle is growing, people will move into the Amazon and turn it into pasture. Between strong population growth [1 billion every 20 years] and global enrichment, global demand for commodities is all but guaranteed to grow.

ricardobeat 7y ago

Don't be fooled, this is 99% the work of big corporations, and not individual farmers or loggers (if such a thing still exists). Most of the workers will have moved to the area because of the jobs.

tepidandroid 7y ago
This may be true, unfortunately I couldn't find any hard statistics about who is doing the land clearing and cattle ranching. I'd be curious to read about it. I found a line in a wikipedia article [1] that says "In 1995 nearly half, 48%, of the deforestation in Brazil was attributed to poorer farmers clearing lots under 125 acres (0.51 km2) in size" though that was 24 years ago so that figure has probably changed. There is a pretty in-depth study on Amazon deforestation here [2] that says: >In Amazonia as a whole, large (officially defined in Brazilian Amazonia as > 1000 ha) and medium-sized (101–1000 ha) actors have traditionally predominated in deforestation (Fearnside, 1993, 2008b); but the relative importance of small (≤ 100 ha) farmers has been increasing, as indicated by the decreasing average size of new clearings (Rosa, Souza, & Ewers, 2012) They also seem to lack hard numbers on who is doing the deforesting: >Two key questions affecting the relationship of population and deforestation are (a) who are the actors, such as ranchers versus small farmers, and (b) what population and land use is being replaced. If the situation is one of small farmers replacing “unoccupied” forest, then a greater population (of small farmers) translates into more deforestation. If it is ranchers who are replacing “unoccupied” forest, then the same relationship applies, although the number of people will be lower and the amount of deforestation per capita will be much greater. If the situation is one of ranchers replacing small farmers, then the human population will decrease and the rate of deforestation per capita will increase, resulting in a negative relationship between population change and deforestation rate. They summarize with: >It is not enough to prohibit deforestation and punish violations—alternatives must be offered for supporting the small farmers who sustain themselves by clearing forest, for both subsistence and commercial production. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_Brazil#Cattle_ranching_and_infrastructure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_Brazil#Cattle... [2]https://oxfordre.com/environmentalscience/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199389414.001.0001/acrefore-9780199389414-e-102 https://oxfordre.com/environmentalscience/view/10.1093/acref...