Future threats to the Amazon rainforest

The reasons for land-clearing in the Amazon are compelling: cheap land and booming demand for commodities driven by a surging China and growing interest in biofuels. These factors have helped Brazil become an agricultural superpower — the world’s largest exporter of beef, cotton, coffee, orange juice, soybeans, and sugar, among other products — in less than a generation. Amazon landowners have seen their land values double every 4-5 years in areas that just a decade ago were pristine rainforests. The market is driving deforestation and will continue to drive deforestation into the future, although two new developments could accelerate the process: oil palm and next-generation biofuels based on cellulosic ethanol technology.
The announcement in July 2008 that Malaysia’s Land Development Authority FELDA would establish 100,000 hectares (250,000) of oil palm plantations in the Brazilian Amazon came little surprise — 2.3 million square kilometers of the Brazilian rainforest are suitable for cultivation of the edible oil crop. Presently little commercial palm oil is produced in the region due partly to the traditional nature of Brazilian farmers and pest concerns, but the entrance of industry-leading Malaysian producers could serve as a model and quickly increase palm oil’s visibility as a viable form of land use. As the world’s highest yielding mass market oilseed, palm oil will likely offer better financial returns than cattle ranching and mechanized soy farms, the dominant agricultural activities in Brazilian Amazon, and will employ larger numbers of people (oil palm plantations may employ roughly one worker per 8-10 ha, whereas a single cowboy can handle 4,000-5,000 head of cattle grazing hundreds of ha of land). Oil palm expansion in the Amazon will likely be facilitated by infrastructure projects currently underway in these region, including road-building, port expansion, and new hydroelectric projects. Oil palm producers may also benefit from a “logging subsidy” whereby timber harvested from a tract of land helps offset the cost of establishing a plantation. Before the recent run-up in palm oil prices, logging had been a key element to the profitability of oil palm plantations in Southeast Asia.

companies are spending large sums of cash on research and development. Once the technology is perfected, the Amazon could well be an early victim of the initial wave of large-scale forest conversion for energy feedstock. Assuming a yield of 70 gallons of ethanol per ton of dry biomass, razing the rainforest as feedstock could generate 15,000 gallons of ethanol worth $30,000-40,000 per hectare. A million-hectare lot could generate $7 billion in profit. The land could be replanted with fast-growing feedstock for future production.

On a historical basis the Amazon has proved to be resilient to climate change, large-scale human disturbance by pre-Colombian populations, and even periods of fire and extreme drought during millennial el Nino-like events. Nevertheless, the present onslaught of forces affecting the Amazon is unprecedented. Never before has the region experienced the simultaneous impact of large-scale forest loss and degradation, fragmentation, forest fires, and climate change.

Scientists are working to understand the potential impact of climate change on Earth’s largest rain forest. Some models suggest parts of the Amazon will experience elevated temperatures and less rainfall, while other regions will get more rain, but the debate is far from settled when it comes to predicting the sensitivity and responsiveness of the region’s ecosystems to elevated CO2 levels.

The little that is known about present change in the Amazon is little cause for comfort.

Mongabay