Vital Forest Graphics

Drivers of forest conversion

per cent of total world production and 88 per cent of global exports (FAO 2008). Over the past decade, the area covered by oil palms in Indonesia has quadrupled, covering 4.1 million hect- ares in 2006 (FAO 2008). Though palm oil tends to be asso- ciated mainly with the food and cos- metic industry, its applications are far wider, taking in, for example, the tex- tile industry and more recently – with increased production of bio-fuels – the transportation sector. Many important organizations associated with palm oil, such as the Malaysian Palm Oil Coun- cil, regard palm oil as a second-gene- ration bio-fuel which could, through upgraded technologies, become an important source of energy and sup- port the future expansion of the bio-

In Latin America, cattle ranches are expanding rapidly (FAO 2007a) and, according to one study, accounted for an estimated 70 per cent of defor- estation in Brazil in 2007 (Malhi et al. 2008). While the average size of a cat- tle ranch in Brazil is 24 000 hectares, some are as large as 560 000 hectares: in the Brazilian Amazon region, ranches cover an area of at least 8.4 million hec- tares in total. The Amazon is now part of a national and international economy which, through globalization, is responding to market demands, accel- erating the rate at which agricultural crops and cattle ranching are replac- ing or impoverishing native forests (Nepstad et al. 2006). The expansion of these agricultural industries in Bra-

%

60

50

40

30

20

10

0

Changes between 1990 and 2000 (in percentage) Direct conversion of forest area to small-scale permanent agriculture Direct conversion of forest area to large-scale permanent agriculture AFRICA LATIN AMERICA ASIA PAN-TROPICAL

Source: FAO 2001a.

fuel business. Continuing high world prices for palm oil are leading to rapid expansion in areas planted with the crop (Kanninen et al. 2007) and the conversion of forest to oil-palm plan- tations is a significant contributor to deforestation in some countries.

Deforestation benefits...

What is becoming of the Amazonian forest?

VENEZUELA

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SURINAME

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Boa Vista

COLOMBIA

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Roraima

Manaus

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Amazonas

Acre

Río Branco

Palmas

Tocantin

Mato Grosso

BOLIVIA

BRAZIL

300 Km

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Legal Amazon Deforested area

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Breeding area with many herds larger than 100 000 heads of cattle.

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Fields under crop (soy, maize, sugar cane, rice, beans, cassava, coffee, orange, cacao)

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Sources: Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (http://www.ibge.gov.br); La déforestation en Amazonie (http://www.deforestation-amazonie.org)

22 VITAL FOREST GRAPHICS