> In brazil 80%+ of the deforestation of the Amazon is caused by cattle ranching or soybeans cultivation. Common misconception. The actual felling of trees is

> In brazil 80%+ of the deforestation of the Amazon is caused by cattle ranching or soybeans cultivation. Common misconception. The actual felling of trees is done by people who profit from selling tropical hardwood logs and then move on. Ranchers and farmers opportunistically move into newly deforested cheap land because it costs less than buying established farmland. Without the (illegal) lumber export, there's very little encroaching because the opportunistic frontier farmers would not have a supply of nearly free land to expand into.