Amazon deforestation not caused by ethanol, a German professor reports

A German academic has analyzed the factors that are causing deforestation of the Amazon, and concluded that sugarcane ethanol production in south-central Brazil is not pushing cattle and soy farming into the Amazon region. Peter Zuurbier, Associate Professor and Director of the Wageningen UR Latin America Office, said that the problem is unclear land titles, unscrupulous timber companies, and poor soil conservation practices by cattle ranchers. He said that after illegal clear cutting by timber companies, the land is occupied by nomadic cattle herds that, over a period of 3 to 4 years, ruin the thin soil of the Amazon areas, which causes fertilizer-based soy farming to be brought into the area to improve productivity.

Researchers say that Amazonian deforestation has increased in pace in 2007 and is likely to rise throughout 2008. Carlos Nobre, a scientist with Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, said that 2,300 square miles of forest had been converted to farmland in the past four months, compared with 3,700 square miles in the 12 months ending last July.

A Leeds University professor and expert on deforestation issues said that recent data indicates that, on a global basis, some types of tropical forest have increased since 1990, rather than decreasing. He said that losses in areas such as the Amazon have been more than offset in tropical forest gains in countries such as the Gambia and Vietnam.

In Bali last month, the WWF released a report concluding that half of the Amazon rainforest would disappear by 2030 and would release 100 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as a result, or twice the annual emissions of all countries combined. At the Clinton Global Initiative earlier this year, primate scientist Jane Goodall said that crops growing for biofuels is damaging rain forests in Asia, Africa and South America and adding to the emissions blamed for global warming.

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