In slash-and-burn agriculture, you first go through the thick tree cover with a machete and chop all the vegetation. That’s the slash. Then, you come back a few days or weeks later, when the vegetation has died and dried out a bit, and you start a big fire, like this one. That’s the burn. It’s happening on the edge of an undisturbed area of rainforest in the Amazon basin in Brazil.
Ideally, you would farm the cleared area for a few years. Once the soil loses its fertility, slash and burn farmers would typically leave for a few years and allow the area to regrow. This doesn’t happen anymore, and the net result is poor soils and deforestation.
Does this kind of development bring economic prosperity?
“…whenever he cleared the rainforest, the rain washed the fertility from the soil, and within a couple of years the cultivated portion of the plot had to be abandoned, and new areas of forest cleared for planting. He became yet another shifting cultivator in the Amazon rainforest.”
“Life has been hard. As each plot became exhausted, they moved on. But were soon forced to return. And each time the soils were worse, the weeds grew higher and the crops grew less well. With little cash for fertilisers and other inputs, the growing number of farmers were clearing huge areas of rainforest, leaving behind a trail of eroded soils, degraded vegetation and broken dreams.” in the field
From a teacher in Brazil:
“Burning fields and pastures is very common here in Brazil. There are two reasons for it: bugs, rodents, snakes etc. and the acidity of the land. On our little farm, we could only convince the field hands to stop burning once we showed them how to use chemicals – fertilizers and insecticides – which got into the lake and caused minor disaster.” Katarina Berg via Tropical Poison
The area that people deforest in Brazil every year is rising again. In 2005 it will pass the peak set in back in 1995.
It’s turned the Amazon basin into a major source of pollution.
The Mato Grosso state’s governor is also the agriculture tycoon Blario Maggi, (known locally as “O Rei da Soja,” the King of Soy) who clears rainforest to grow soybeans. Maggi is the largest producer of soybeans in the world. Mato Grosso led all Brazilian states in deforestation with 48 per cent of the destruction last year, feeding Brazil’s booming Soya industry.
Recently, Maggi ousted his environmental chief, who was arrested and accused of involvement in corruption, and suspended the issuance of new logging permits.
“He acted after federal police made 90 arrests government officials and businessmen connected to loggers. Among those arrested was Moacir Pires, head of Brazil’s federal environmental protection agency in Mato Grosso.”
I suspect that Maggi would be a tough man to work for.
“Authorities allege those arrested were responsible for the illegal clearing of nearly 50,000 hectares of Amazon rainforest over the last two years, much of it on native reserves and national parks.” cnews
I need u to put in wjat happens to the farmers if they save the rainforest. could u please do that for me. I need to know by tomorrow afternoon. i will send back if u do
A good insight into one of the biggest environmental problem we’re facing. As a brazilian forest engineer, what I can add to the information posted is related to the methods used to clear the land. Ok, someone in northern Brazil can still be using a machete to clear some bush outside his home, but you can’t do this over 50,000 km². To do the big work, the landowner at first usually rents the area to a logging company to cut out the most valuable trees. Then the thinned forest is put by bulldozers, sometimes two of them linked by a heavy iron chain – our popular “correntão” process. After some weeks its becomes dry enough to light up the first big fire. The amount of logs unburned is so big that one year’s burn isn’t sufficient to clear the land. Then the owner disperses fast growing grass’s seeds by plane before the raining season. At the following year dry season, another fire is set to complete the clearing. Some log will still be there, but the area is open enough for crops and livestock.
If there are any other doubts about Brasil and the way we “manage” our environment, ask me.
Bye.
This info was very useful to me, but I would like to know more about deforestation methods other then the slash and burn technique because I must be informed in order to write a report on it.
The indeginous people of the Rainforest have been doing this form of farming since they came there thousands of years ago. They want to stay there living thier lives as normal. How dare anybody say that they can’t and how dare they even try and meddle with other people’s lives. Sure if timber companies do this it is unacceptable but you can’t tell people stop doing what they do to survive.
They were growing soybeans for export to North America thousands of years ago?
dis website was a great help for my geography hwk. i needed 2 find out wot slash nd burn ment!
thnx
don’t be dense! they cleared land to plant either maize or manioc. Also, to get rid of trees they didn’t want so they could plant food trees they did want
There is a huge difference between growing food to support an indigenous population and the industrial destruction of millions of acres of forest to grow soybeans for export.
Ummm I’m looking for more specific advantages and disadvantages. Can anybody help me?
slash and burn helps add to the green house gas emissions
[...] Visible impact of clearcutting [...]
I dont understand either that why thrzz so hype of creatin soyabean for export and not for the general food crop in that area.
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