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Brazil to crack down on Amazon cattle invasion

by Sanjay Jha | June 4, 2008 at 03:01 am | 1359 views | 7 comments | 12 recommendations

Increase in the Amazon rain forest destruction has got a new villain. Brazil's enviornment minister has blamed cattle for destroying rain forest. He is even ready to seize cattle grazing on forest land.

Destruction of the Amazon rain forest appears to be on the upswing, and Brazil's new environment minister has wasted no time in aiming at a villain: cattle.
The minister, Carlos Minc, says Brazil's government will impound cattle caught grazing on illegally cleared pastures with an operation, dubbed "Rogue Bull," to attack deforestation in the rain forest.
"The price of meat and soy has skyrocketed and there is a historic relationship between prices and deforestation," Minc said as he announced the new measures late Monday.
Officials are going after livestock because ranchers routinely find ways to avoid fines for illegal logging by felling public forests for grazing land.
After three years of decline, Amazon deforestation appears to be accelerating again as international demand for agricultural products skyrocket. Minc's announcement marked his first step to prevent deforestation since being named environment minister last month.
He replaced Marina Silva, a renowned Amazon defender who resigned May 13, citing stagnation in promoting the federal environmental agenda.
Government researchers said Monday that preliminary data indicate the Amazon lost at least 2,258 square miles (5,850 square kilometers) of forest cover from August to April 2008. That was up from 1,920 square miles (4,974 square kilometers) over the same period a year before.
The Amazon's 73 million cows outnumber the human population about three to one and feeding them is the biggest driver of deforestation.
Cattle pasture already covers 7.8 percent of Brazil's 1.6-million-square-mile (4.1-million-square-kilometer) Amazon region, according to the National Statistics Institute.

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Dave Keating

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 03:24 on June 4th, 2008

Sanjay Jha, I like this story. It's good stuff.

victor_pillac

at 13:36 on June 4th, 2008

Fight for light in the amazonian forest: every single plant has developped strategies to get the maximum amount of light and/or get quickly to the canopy

victor_pillac has contributed a photo to this story.

wquatman

at 07:20 on June 9th, 2008

I can´t add much other than I believe the data to be true. My wife works for Brazil´s IBAMA, and most of my buddies are IBAMA federal agents. I routinely pose as a tourist, inform on illegal activity and photograph what I can. The habitat loss is one problem, wildlife poaching another, illegal mining another, and bio-piracy still another. It isn´t only Brazilians but international pressures as well. Working on the front lines, I see a major problem and no end to the battle, but I´ve also seen a bigger effort on the part of the Brazilian government and better inter agency cooperation, including from Brazil´s military. I haven´t seen much occurring to stop poaching in Peru and of course Colombia has little control over it´s forests. Only a little more than 50% of the Amazon is in Brazil.

wquatman has contributed a photo to this story.

AmazonExpeditions

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 17:48 on June 8th, 2008

Sanjay Jha, I like this story. It's good stuff. I operate an ecolodge and rain forest guide service Peru and I have seen the cattle industry at work there as well and it is staggering the amount of land that is being taken for grazing. My goal has been to show local communities that their land has more commercial value (through tourism) as preserved forest and animal sanctuaries than castle ranches. It's a hard sell sometimes. Ironically enough I've found that more of the communities in the Amazon, even the one's raising cattle don't even eat beef, they are river communities that prefer fish. Go figure. Keep up the good work!

SOLARLIFE

at 23:25 on June 8th, 2008

Blame cattle, raised for american fast food chains, called Hamburgers, McDo and others, bon appetit, start here to think before buying junk food. Antony Robbins wistle blower with his foundation made the destroying effect of Hamburger eating on Amazon rainforest public in 1997.

wquatman

at 07:29 on June 9th, 2008

Let´s not let soy off the hook. Soy production is still a major industry and a major culprit in Brazil´s environmental loss. The cerrado habitat which has been reduced to less than 18%, the last I heard, as well as a lot of rain forest, is mainly due to soy bean farming. There are sites appealing to North American investers to buy, clear, and farm soy beans in Brazil.