Vital Forest Graphics

commodities take over

could grow back, more recent forest clearances are often carried out on a much larger scale and aim to establish permanent agriculture. Forest areas with the most favour- able environmental conditions – those with good drainage and soil fertil-

ity – are most likely to be converted for agricultural purposes (Kanninen et al. 2007; Stickler et al. 2007). Tropical for- est nations vary greatly in suitability for mechanized agriculture. In some coun- tries such as Malaysia, French Guiana and Cameroon, virtually all forest land

has high agricultural potential or high population densities, while in other nations such as Bolivia, Congo, Vene- zuela and Guyana one third to one half of the forests are unsuitable for agri- culture or have low concentrations of farmers (Stickler et al. 2007). To address pressures on forest land the Brazilian government enacted a law in 2006 stipulating that landowners can clear-cut no more than 20 percent of their forests, while the remaining 80 percent has to remain under forest cover. Though this can be seen as an important step in forest conservation, problems over land ownership and lack of clear land titles mean that the law is often not properly implemented. Increasing populations also raises demand for food and other commodi- ties, requiring ever more land to be used for production (Kanninen et al. 2007). At the present time, produc- tion of commodities such as soya beans and palm oil are reaching record lev- els, with world soya bean production in 2006 reaching about 222 million tonnes. Brazil is the world’s second big- gest soya bean producer, accounting for 23 per cent of the global total. About 220 thousand square kilometres land in Brazil is now planted with soya (FAO 2008a), mostly in the south-eastern part of the country. Indonesia and Malaysia are major producers of palm oil: in 2006 these two countries accounted for 85

Major producers of palm oil and beef

7YVK\J[PVU PU 4PSSPVU [VUULZ 16

12

15

15

8

4

0

Nigeria

Thailand

Malaysia

Colombia

Indonesia

7HST VPS

Source: FAO 2008a.

7YVK\J[PVU PU 4PSSPVU [VUULZ

12

United States

12

10

8

6

France

Russia

4

2

United Kingdom

Germany

Canada

2

China

Mexico

7

2

0

Italy

Brazil

8

India

Australia

Colombia

2

Argentina

South Africa

3

New Zealand

)LLM

Source: FAO 2008a.

VITAL FOREST GRAPHICS 21