Mailing: 9 March 2012 This article in Science Daily is based on
materials prepared by the French Institut de Recherche pour le
Développement (IRD) It argues that Brazil’s reliance on
agricultural exports to drive economic growth is environmentally
unsustainable and highlights the link between deforestation for
cattle grazing, soy production on cleared land which pushes
cattle further into the forest, and the sale of high value
timber. The article states that government controls introduced
from the year 2000 have scaled down deforestation from around
20,000 to 6,000 km² per year, but the threat of an increase in
world demand is always just over the horizon, with implications
for further deforestation. You can read the Science Daily
article here. The IRD’s materials are here. Note that China is
now the world’s biggest buyer of Brazilian soy. The Nature
Conservancy has published a report on the Brazil-China soybean
trade – ref: Brown-Lima C, Cooney M and Cleary D (undated) An
overview of the Brazil-China soybean