Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-9pm4c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T09:15:28.657Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Temporal fluctuations in Amazonian deforestation rates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2008

ROBERT M. EWERS ,
WILLIAM F. LAURANCE  and
CARLOS M. SOUZA JR
ROBERT M. EWERS*
Affiliation:
Imperial College London, Silwood Park Campus, Ascot, Berkshire SL5 7PY, UK
WILLIAM F. LAURANCE
Affiliation:
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 0843-03092, Balboa, Ancón, Republic of Panama
CARLOS M. SOUZA JR
Affiliation:
Instituto do Homem e Ambiente da Amazônia, Caixa Postal 5101, CEP 66613-397, Belém, Pará, Brazil
*
*Correspondence: Dr Robert M. Ewers e-mail: r.ewers@imperial.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Tropical deforestation is one of the most important components of global change. Rates of deforestation in Brazil, the nation with the single largest concentration of tropical forest on Earth, have fluctuated widely over the last twenty years. Based on local knowledge, such fluctuations have been variously attributed to a wide range of factors such as the expansion of cattle ranching and soybean farming, infrastructural expansion and the proliferation of paved and unpaved roads, macroeconomic shocks to the Brazilian economy and international exchange rates. Many, if not all, of these arguments are plausible explanations for temporal variation in deforestation rates, but have to date not been subjected to rigorous statistical testing; this study investigates the potential impact of these variables on Brazilian tropical deforestation over the period 1990–2005. When analysed at the basin-wide scale, nearly all variables were highly inter-correlated through time and were also closely correlated with deforestation rate, but appropriate time-series analysis found no statistical evidence that any of the variables have systematically caused variation in deforestation rates. Power analysis showed that the variables may exert small or medium influences on deforestation rates, but the impacts, if present, are not strong. Future analyses of time series data at finer spatial scales that exploit spatiotemporal variation in deforestation rates and in the hypothesized predictor variables may find significant causal processes that are overlooked when analysed at the basin-wide scale.

Keywords

agricultureBrazilian Amazoncattle ranchingcommodity pricesdeforestationdomestic economyexchange ratesoyatime series
Type
Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 35 , Issue 4 , December 2008 , pp. 303 - 310
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Achard, F., Eva, H.D., Stibig, H.J., Mayaux, P., Gallego, J., Richards, T. & Maliingreau, J.-P. (2002) Determination of deforestation rates of the world's humid tropical forests. Science 297: 999–1002.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Alves, D.S. (2002) Space-time dynamics of deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia. International Journal of Remote Sensing 23 (14): 2903–2908.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arcand, J.L., Guillaumont, P. & Jeanneney, S.G. (2008) Deforestation and the real exchange rate. Journal of Development Economics 86: 242–262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Balmford, A., Green, R.E. & Scharlemann, J.P.W. (2005) Sparing land for nature: exploring the potential impact of changes in agricultural yield on the area needed for crop production. Global Change Biology 11: 1594–1605.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barreto, P., Arima, E. & Brito, M. (2006 a) Cattle ranching and challenges for environmental conservation in the Amazon. State of the Amazon No. 5. Belém, Brazil: IMAZON.Google Scholar
Barreto, P., Souza Jr, C.M., Noguerón, R., Anderson, A. & Salomão, R. (2006 b) Human pressure on the Brazilian Amazon forests. IMAZON and the World Resources Institute, Belém, Brazil.Google Scholar
Bradshaw, C.J.A., Sodhi, N.S., Peh, K.S.H. & Brook, B.W. (2007) Global evidence that deforestation amplifies flood risk and severity in the developing world. Global Change Biology 13 (11): 2379–2395.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandão Jr, A.O., Souza Jr, C.M., Ribeiro, J.G.F. & Sales, M.H.R. (2007) Desmatamento e estradas nao-oficiais da Amazonia. Anais XIII Simpósio Brasileiro de Sensoriamento Remoto April 2007: 2357–2364.Google Scholar
Brown, J.C., Koeppe, M., Coles, B. & Price, K.P. (2005) Soybean production and conversion of tropical forest in the Brazilian Amazon: the case of Vilhena, Rondônia. Ambio 34 (6): 462–469.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bruijnzeel, L.A. (2004) Hydrological functions of tropical forests: not seeing the soil for the trees? Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 104: 185–228.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carvalho, G., Barros, A.C., Moutinho, P. & Nepstad, D.C. (2001) Sensitive development could protect Amazonia instead of destroying it. Nature 409: 131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cattaneo, A. (2001) Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon: comparing the impacts of macroeconomic shocks, land tenure, and technological change. Land Economics 77 (2): 219–240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, J. (1988) Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences. New Jersey, USA: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Cohen, J. (1992) A power primer. Quantitative Methods in Psychology 112 (1): 155–159.Google ScholarPubMed
Ewers, R.M. (2006) Interaction effects between economic development and forest cover determine deforestation rates. Global Environmental Change 16: 161–169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ewers, R.M. & Laurance, W.F. (2006) Scale-dependent patterns of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Environmental Conservation 33 (3): 203–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Faminow, M.D. (1997) Spatial economics of local demand for cattle products in Amazon development. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 62: 1–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fearnside, P.M. (1997) Protection of mahogany: a catalytic species in the destruction of rain forests in the American tropics. Environmental Conservation 24: 303–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fearnside, P.M. (2005) Deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia: history, rates and consequences. Conservation Biology 19 (3): 680–688.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fearnside, P.M. (2006) Containing destruction from Brazil's Amazon highways: now is the time to give weight to the environment in decision-making. Environmental Conservation 33 (3): 181–183.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferraz, S.F.d., Vettorazzi, C.A., Theobald, D.M. & Ballester, M.V.R. (2005) Landscape dynamics of Amazonian deforestation between 1984 and 2002 in central Rondônia, Brazil: assessment and future scenarios. Forest Ecology and Management 204: 67–83.Google Scholar
Foley, J.A., Asner, G.P., Costa, M.H., Coe, M.T., DeFries, R., Gibbs, H.K., Howard, E.A., Olson, S., Patz, J., Ramankutty, N. & Snyder, P. (2007) Amazonia revealed: forest degradation and loss of ecosystem goods and services in the Amazon Basin. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 5 (1): 25–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geist, H.J. & Lambin, E.F. (2001) What drives tropical deforestation? A meta-analysis of proximate and underlying causes of deforestation based on subnational case study evidence. LUCC Report Series 4, Land-Use and Land-Cover Change Project, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.Google Scholar
Green, R.E., Cornell, S.J., Scharlemann, J.P.W. & Balmford, A. (2005) Farming and the fate of wild nature. Science 307: 550–555.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Greenpeace (2006) Eating up the Amazon. Report, Greenpeace International, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.Google Scholar
Gujarati, D.N. (2003) Basic Econometrics. New York, USA: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
INPE (2007) Estimativas Annuais de Desmatamento. Projecto PRODES monitoramento da fl oresta Amazônica Brasileira por satélite, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espacial, Brasil [www document]. URL http://www.obt.inpe.br/prodes/Google Scholar
Kahn, J.R. & McDonald, J.A. (1995) Third-world debt and tropical deforestation. Ecological Economics 12: 107–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaimowitz, D., Mertens, B., Wunder, S. & Pacheco, P. (2004) Hamburger connection fuels Amazon destruction. Centre for International Forestry Research, Bogor, Indonesia.Google Scholar
Kerr, S., Hendy, J., Liu, S. & Pfaff, A.S.P. (2004) Tropical forest protections, uncertainty, and the environmental integrity of carbon mitigation policies. Motu Working Paper 04–03, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research, Wellington, New Zealand.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laurance, W.F. (1999) Reflections on the tropical deforestation crisis. Biological Conservation 91: 109–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laurance, W.F. (2007) Switch to corn promotes Amazon deforestation. Science 318: 1721.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Laurance, W.F., Albernaz, A.K.M. & Da Costa, C. (2001b) Is deforestation accelerating in the Brazilian Amazon? Environmental Conservation 28 (4): 305–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laurance, W.F., Albernaz, A.K.M., Schroth, G., Fearnside, P.M., Bergen, S., Venticinque, E.M. & Da Costa, C. (2002) Predictors of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Journal of Biogeography 29: 737–748.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laurance, W.F., Cochrane, M.A., Bergen, S., Fearnside, P.M., Delamonica, P., Barber, C., D'Angelo, S. & Fernandes, T. (2001 a) The future of the Brazilian Amazon. Science 291: 438–439.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Maggini, R., Lehmann, A., Zimmermann, N.E. & Guisan, A. (2006) Improving generalized regression analysis for the spatial prediction of forest communities. Journal of Biogeography 33: 1729–1749.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marquart-Pyatt, S. (2004) A cross-national investigation of deforestation, debt, state fiscal capacity, and the environmental Kuznets curve. International Journal of Sociology 34: 33–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mato Grosso & FEMA (2001) Environmental control system of rural properties in Mato Grosso. State Foundation of the Environment – FEMA, Cuibá, Mato Grosso, Brasil.Google Scholar
Matthews, E., Payne, R., Rohweder, M. & Murray, S. (2000) Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems: Forest Ecosystems. Washington, DC, USA: World Resources Institute.Google Scholar
Mertens, B., Poccard-Chapius, R., Piketty, M.G., Lacques, A.E. & Venturieri, A. (2002) Crossing spatial analyses and livestock economics to understand deforestation processes in the Brazilian Amazon: the case of São Félix do Xingú in south Pará. Agricultural Economics 27: 269–294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005 a) Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Biodiversity Synthesis, p. 86. Washington, DC, USA: World Resources Institute.Google Scholar
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005 b) Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Synthesis. Washington, DC, USA: Island Press.Google Scholar
Mollicone, D., Achard, F., Federici, S., Eva, H., Grassi, G., Belward, A., Raes, F., Seufert, G., Stibig, H.J., Matteucci, G. & Schulze, E.D. (2007) An incentive mechanism for reducing emissions from conversion of intact and non-intact forests. Climatic Change 83: 477–493.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morton, D.C., DeFries, R., Shimabukuro, Y.E., Anderson, L.O., Arai, E., Espirito-Santo, F.d.B., Freitas, R. & Morisette, J. (2006) Cropland expansion changes deforestation dynamics in the southern Brazilian Amazon. PNAS 103 (39): 14637–14641.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nakagawa, S. (2004) A farewell to Bonferroni: the problems of low statistical power and publication bias. Behavioral Ecology 15 (6): 1044–1045.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nepstad, D.C., Carvalho, G., Barros, A.C., Alencar, A., Capobianco, J.P., Bishop, J., Moutinho, P., Lefebvre, P., Silva Jr, U.L. & Prins, E. (2001) Road paving, fire regime feedbacks, and the future of Amazon forests. Forest Ecology and Management 154: 395–407.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nepstad, D.C., Schwartzman, S., Bamberger, B., Santilli, M., Ray, D., Schlesinger, P., Lefebvre, P., Alencar, A., Prinz, E., Fiske, G. & Rolla, A. (2006 b) Inhibition of Amazon deforestation and fire by parks and indigenous lands. Conservation Biology 20 (1): 65–73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nepstad, D.C., Soares-Filho, B., Merry, F., Moutinho, P., Rodrigues, H.O., Bowman, M., Schwartzman, S., Almeida, O.T. & Rivero, S. (2007) The Costs and Benefits of Reducing Carbon Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in the Brazilian Amazon. Falmouth, USA: The Woods Hole Research Center.Google Scholar
Nepstad, D.C., Stickler, C.M. & Almeida, O.T. (2006 a) Globalization of the Amazon soy and beef industries: opportunities for conservation. Conservation Biology 20 (6): 1595–1603.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pfaff, A. S. P. (1999) What drives deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon? Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 37: 26–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
R Development Core Team (2004) R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing.Google Scholar
Ribero, B., Veríssimo, A. & Pereira, K. (2006) Deforestation in protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon: the case of Rondonia. Report, IMAZON, State of the Amazon No. 6. Belém, Brazil.Google Scholar
Ricketts, T.H., Daily, G.C., Ehrlich, P.R. & Michener, C.D. (2004) Economic value of tropical forest to coffee production. PNAS 101 (34): 12579–12582.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rudel, T.K. (2005) Tropical Forests: Regional Paths of Destruction and Regeneration in the Late Twentieth Century. New York, USA: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rudel, T.K., Coomes, O.T., Moran, E., Achard, F., Angelsen, A., Xu, J. & Lambin, E.F. (2005). Forest transitions: towards a global understanding of land use change. Global Environmental Change 15: 25–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rylands, A.B. & Brandon, K. (2005) Brazilian protected areas. Conservation Biology 19: 612–618.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (2001) The value of forest ecosystems. Report, Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Technical Series no. 4, Montreal, Canada: 67 pp.Google Scholar
Soares-Filho, B.S., Nepstad, D.C., Curran, L.M., Cerqueira, G.C., Garcia, R.A., Ramos, C.A., Voll, E., McDonald, A., Lefebvre, P. & Schlesinger, P. (2006) Modelling conservation in the Amazon basin. Nature 440: 520–523.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Soares-Filho, B., Alencar, A., Nepstad, D.C., Cerqueira, G., Diaz, M.d.C.V., Rivero, S., Solórzano, L. & Voll, E. (2004) Simulating the response of land-cover changes to road paving and governance along a major Amazon highway: the Santarém-Cuiabá corridor. Global Change Biology 10: 745–764.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Torras, M. (2000) The total economic value of Amazonian deforestation, 1978–1993. Ecological Economics 33: 283–297.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Veríssimo, A., Cochrane, M.A. & Souza Jr, C. (2002) National Forests in the Amazon. Science 297 (5586): 1478CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
World Bank (2004) World Development Indicators 2004. World Bank, [www document]. URL http://go.worldbank.org/ U0FSM7AQ40.Google Scholar