How land is utilized has a huge impact. You'd think Brazil's rainforests would be on incredibly fertile land, but the soil actually stinks for agriculture. Br

How land is utilized has a huge impact. You'd think Brazil's rainforests would be on incredibly fertile land, but the soil actually stinks for agriculture. Brazilian farmers use Swidden (a.k.a. Slash-and-Burn) agriculture. They clear the land and generally only get a few useful growing seasons before the soil is infertile. Then they move on. Land has more uses than agriculture of course. Forestry is huge. The amazon, were it sustainably logged instead of hastily burned, could supply a tremendous amount of lumber. Canada and Russia do have a lot of perma-frost in the far North, but an even larger portion of their uninhabited land is boreal forest. This land is far from useless even if much of it is not suitable for agriculture.