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I'm sort of surprised that the focus is on the leather industry, which I assumed was a byproduct of raising cattle for beef. Are cattle raised specifically for

I'm sort of surprised that the focus is on the leather industry, which I assumed was a byproduct of raising cattle for beef. Are cattle raised specifically for their hides?

jwagenet 5y ago
My understanding is Amazon deforestation is to accommodate other land uses, in this case presumably cattle. The cattle maybe be used for beef and leather, but whatever the end use the forest impact is the same and focused on a shortsighted incentive.
- nielsbot 5y ago
  They state the number one driver of Amazon deforestation is cattle ranching.
  - framecowbird 5y ago
    It isn't quite true that cattle is the biggest driver of deforestation in the Amazon. The number one driver is soy. However, landowners will typically deforest and then place cattle on land for five years, before converting to soy to circumvent regulation. This creates the impression that cattle was the driver, when it was in fact soy. That said, a lot of the soy does feed cattle too!
    - gffrd 5y ago
      Reading this surprised me … How much is soy worth per acre? I assume the demand/payoff must be sizable to justify the cost of converting forest to agricultural land?
      - framecowbird 5y ago
        Soy is exported at about 380 USD per ton, and yield is something like 3 tons per hectare. I'm not sure how much the farmer doing the deforestation gets though. But deforesting the Amazon is sadly very cheap. Much cheaper than it should be given the value of the Amazon. It's a disastrous market failure.
- jimmaswell 5y ago
  A viewpoint I've never seen addressed - if the people of this country have unmet economic needs they can only meet by using some land from the Amazon, is it really more important to preserve it as a landmark than for the land to go to use? I'm all for conservation but there must be some reason everyone down there wants some of this land as opposed to going elsewhere.
  - hulitu 5y ago
    Some people "have unmet economic needs" and some people have greed. Now, my economic needs are: a nice island just for me in the pacific, one house in Beverly Hills, a couple of sport cars, a private jet. The best way to achieve my economic needs is to destroy some ecosystem and raise cattle or trees plantages.
  - framecowbird 5y ago
    A lot of the people doing deforestation in the Amazon are incredibly poor, and deforestation is the only option to them to increase their standard of living. However, to say we are preserving the Amazon as a "landmark" is not quite right. Globally speaking the best use for the Amazon is as a carbon sink and biodiversity hotspot. What should be happening is that the global community should be paying for this benefit: a big capital flow from the whole world to Brazil. But they are not, they are just free-riding.
    - hulitu 5y ago
      And a lot of those poor people have specialised machines to cut the forest. Always blame the poor. It works so well.
  - slymon99 5y ago
    > is it really more important to preserve it as a landmark than for the land to go to use The Amazon has 10% of the worlds biodiversity, I wouldn't exactly call it a landmark, this isn't historic preservation - and the land is already "in use". Also I'm not sure that "the people of the country" are buying and farming cattle on large chunks of the Amazon, I'd assume the economic gains are highly concentrated amongst a few companies (this is conjecture). Either way, lowering demand for cattle raised in the Amazon would be one way to make this less common.
thepete2 5y ago
It states that amazon deforestation is driven by demand for beef and leather. Presumably leather is easier to transport and hence global leather demand plays a role here? Just a guess though.
- hulitu 5y ago
  Of course it is driven by demand. Government corruption has nothing to do with it.
- framecowbird 5y ago
  It's not really about transportation. Cattle are transported live to slaughterhouses near the port, before global export. However leather "subsidies" the industry because it makes the cows more valuable: this is how it contributes to deforestation.
klyrs 5y ago
Yeah, it's interesting. I was under the impression that the majority of leather is used for cars and furniture. But I don't see any auto brands here. This appears to be focused on the shoe industry. I tried to find a breakdown of what leather is used for, and came up with this instead: https://blog.bizvibe.com/blog/top-10-largest-leather-producing-countries https://blog.bizvibe.com/blog/top-10-largest-leather-produci... Italy imports and exports more leather than anybody?
- framecowbird 5y ago
  It's surprising but true that shoes come out top! A breakdown is hard to come by because supply chains are proprietary information but see this article: https://medium.com/trase/european-and-us-companies-need-deforestation-policies-for-brazil-china-leather-trade-c570775651e https://medium.com/trase/european-and-us-companies-need-defo...

I'm sort of surprised that the focus is on the leather industry, which I assumed was a byproduct of raising cattle for beef. Are cattle raised specifically for their hides?

jwagenet 5y ago

My understanding is Amazon deforestation is to accommodate other land uses, in this case presumably cattle. The cattle maybe be used for beef and leather, but whatever the end use the forest impact is the same and focused on a shortsighted incentive.

nielsbot 5y ago
They state the number one driver of Amazon deforestation is cattle ranching.
- framecowbird 5y ago
  It isn't quite true that cattle is the biggest driver of deforestation in the Amazon. The number one driver is soy. However, landowners will typically deforest and then place cattle on land for five years, before converting to soy to circumvent regulation. This creates the impression that cattle was the driver, when it was in fact soy. That said, a lot of the soy does feed cattle too!
  - gffrd 5y ago
    Reading this surprised me … How much is soy worth per acre? I assume the demand/payoff must be sizable to justify the cost of converting forest to agricultural land?
    - framecowbird 5y ago
      Soy is exported at about 380 USD per ton, and yield is something like 3 tons per hectare. I'm not sure how much the farmer doing the deforestation gets though. But deforesting the Amazon is sadly very cheap. Much cheaper than it should be given the value of the Amazon. It's a disastrous market failure.
jimmaswell 5y ago
A viewpoint I've never seen addressed - if the people of this country have unmet economic needs they can only meet by using some land from the Amazon, is it really more important to preserve it as a landmark than for the land to go to use? I'm all for conservation but there must be some reason everyone down there wants some of this land as opposed to going elsewhere.
- hulitu 5y ago
  Some people "have unmet economic needs" and some people have greed. Now, my economic needs are: a nice island just for me in the pacific, one house in Beverly Hills, a couple of sport cars, a private jet. The best way to achieve my economic needs is to destroy some ecosystem and raise cattle or trees plantages.
- framecowbird 5y ago
  A lot of the people doing deforestation in the Amazon are incredibly poor, and deforestation is the only option to them to increase their standard of living. However, to say we are preserving the Amazon as a "landmark" is not quite right. Globally speaking the best use for the Amazon is as a carbon sink and biodiversity hotspot. What should be happening is that the global community should be paying for this benefit: a big capital flow from the whole world to Brazil. But they are not, they are just free-riding.
  - hulitu 5y ago
    And a lot of those poor people have specialised machines to cut the forest. Always blame the poor. It works so well.
- slymon99 5y ago
  > is it really more important to preserve it as a landmark than for the land to go to use The Amazon has 10% of the worlds biodiversity, I wouldn't exactly call it a landmark, this isn't historic preservation - and the land is already "in use". Also I'm not sure that "the people of the country" are buying and farming cattle on large chunks of the Amazon, I'd assume the economic gains are highly concentrated amongst a few companies (this is conjecture). Either way, lowering demand for cattle raised in the Amazon would be one way to make this less common.

thepete2 5y ago

It states that amazon deforestation is driven by demand for beef and leather. Presumably leather is easier to transport and hence global leather demand plays a role here? Just a guess though.

hulitu 5y ago
Of course it is driven by demand. Government corruption has nothing to do with it.
framecowbird 5y ago
It's not really about transportation. Cattle are transported live to slaughterhouses near the port, before global export. However leather "subsidies" the industry because it makes the cows more valuable: this is how it contributes to deforestation.

klyrs 5y ago

Yeah, it's interesting. I was under the impression that the majority of leather is used for cars and furniture. But I don't see any auto brands here. This appears to be focused on the shoe industry. I tried to find a breakdown of what leather is used for, and came up with this instead: https://blog.bizvibe.com/blog/top-10-largest-leather-producing-countries https://blog.bizvibe.com/blog/top-10-largest-leather-produci... Italy imports and exports more leather than anybody?

framecowbird 5y ago
It's surprising but true that shoes come out top! A breakdown is hard to come by because supply chains are proprietary information but see this article: https://medium.com/trase/european-and-us-companies-need-deforestation-policies-for-brazil-china-leather-trade-c570775651e https://medium.com/trase/european-and-us-companies-need-defo...