Vital Forest Graphics

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Growth of cattle breeding in Amazonia

zil is caused by a complex set of factors including low land prices, devaluation of the Brazilian currency (the Real), and improved transportation infrastructure and production systems. Brazil has also been quick to respond to new export opportunities capitalizing, for example, on meat exports at times when out- breaks of diseases like foot-and-mouth are present in other regions and markets (Nepstad et al. 2006). Many of these trends in land use and agriculture tend to support the neo- classical economic theory that market forces will allocate land to the eco- nomically most efficient use (Dadzie 2006-2007). Yet this idea is being chal- lenged with the debate on deforest- ation at present focussing on the loss of vital ecological services, the economic values of which are still to be fully estimated. An example of this is the Mabira for- est reserve on the shores of Lake Victoria in Uganda. The forest is home to valu- able wildlife, serves as a timber resource and provides a number of ecosystem services – yet one third of the reserve has been allocated to sugarcane production. In the short-term, the growing of sugarcane appears to generate more economic benefits than maintaining the forest reserve intact. Yet over the lifetime of the timber stocks – about 60 years – the benefits that could be derived from the forest would exceed those of plant- ing sugarcane (Moyini et al. in press ). It should be noted however that such cost benefit analyses differ from area to area and region to region and a thorough evaluation of resources and services is vital before decisions on clearing forest lands are taken.

Source: Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (http://www.ibge.gov.br)

Trends in production and exports of soya beans

Million tonnes

250

Major soya beans producers

Major soya beans exporters

Projections

200

Rest of the world

China

150

Argentina

100

Brazil

Argentina

Brazil

USA