Amazon Deforestation: Earth’s Heart and Lungs Dismembered

Splintered, charred wood litters the outskirts of an expansive ranch that lies on recently cleared land in the Brazilian Amazon. On the newly planted pasture, cattle leisurely graze, occasionally lifting their heads to gaze past heaps of dead trees towards an island of dense vegetation that has thus far been spared. But it too may soon be cut down.

Such scenes are becoming increasingly common as large swaths of the Brazilian Amazon are being bulldozed and burned to accommodate expanding cattle ranches. Deforestation, which is dismembering the Earth’s functional heart and lungs, is largely resulting from cattle ranching driven by economic incentives and demand for Brazilian beef, according to the Center for International Forestry Research.


Brazil has historically had the distinction of serving as the world’s leader of deforestation. According to Walker, during the last three decades, an annual average of 6,500 square miles of the Brazilian Amazon – an area that is greater than the size of Connecticut – has been deforested.

Satellite data indicates that the rate of Amazonian deforestation is accelerating; in some areas, the rate increased by 50 percent since last year. And with over 20 million people and 70 million cattle now inhabiting the Amazon, about a 600 percent increase in the last 60 years, more trees are being razed to make room for cattle ranches, said Walker

…deforestation has transformed the Amazon into ground zero for global extinction. In addition, burning and rotting trees release carbon dioxide, which contributes greatly to climate change.

“Brazil overall is the fifth or sixth largest emitter of carbon dioxide and by far the most important source is deforestation,” said Eugenio Arima, an assistant professor of environmental studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and a former conservation and development researcher at the Brazilian nonprofit institute Imazon.

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