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Brazil once had the highest deforestation rate in the world and in 2005 still had the largest area of forest removed annually.〔(World deforestation rates and forest cover statistics, 2000-2005 )〕 Since 1970, over of the Amazon rainforest have been destroyed. In 2012, the Amazon was approximately 5.4 million square kilometres, which is only 87% of the Amazon’s original state. Rainforests have decreased in size primarily due to deforestation. Despite reductions in the rate of deforestation in the last ten years, the Amazon Rainforest will be reduced by 40% by 2030 at the current rate.〔''National Geographic''. January 2007.〕 Between May 2000 and August 2006, Brazil lost nearly 150,000 square kilometres of forest, an area larger than that of Greece. According to the Living Planet Report 2010, deforestation is continuing at an alarming rate, but at the CBD 9th Conference 67 ministers signed up to help achieve zero net deforestation by 2020. ==History== In the 1940s Brazil began a program of national development for the Amazon Basin. President Getúlio Vargas declared emphatically that: Vargas established many government programs to begin developing his vision, including the Superintendency for the Economic Valorization of Amazonia (SPVEA) in 1953,〔João S. Campari,2005 ''The Economics of Deforestation in the Amazon''.〕 the Superintendency for the Development of Amazonia (SUDAM) in 1966, and the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) in 1970. It was in the 1960s that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon became more widespread, chiefly from the removal of forest to make way for cattle ranching to raise national revenue during a period of high world beef prices, to eliminate hunger and to pay off international debt obligations.〔 Extensive transportation projects, such as the Trans-Amazon Highway, were promoted in 1970, meaning that huge areas of forest would be removed for commercial purposes. Before the 1960s, much of the forest remained intact due to the restrictions in access to the Amazon aside from partial clearing along the river banks.〔Kirby, K. R., Laurance, W. F., Albernaz, A. K., Schroth, G., Fearnside, P. M., Bergen, S., Venticinque, E. M., & De Costa, C. (2006). The future of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Futures of Bioregions, 38, 432-453. Retrieved November 26, 2006, from Science Direct database.〕 The poor soil also made plantation-based agriculture unprofitable. The key point in deforestation of the Amazon was when the colonists established farms within the forest during the 1960s. Their farming system was based on crop cultivation and the slash and burn method. The colonists were unable to successfully manage their fields and the crops due to the loss of soil fertility and weed invasion.〔Watkins and Griffiths, J. (2000). Forest Destruction and Sustainable Agriculture in the Brazilian Amazon: a Literature Review (Doctoral dissertation, The University of Reading, 2000). Dissertation Abstracts International, 15-17〕 The soils in the Amazon are productive for just a short period of time, and so the farmers there must constantly move and clear more and more land.〔 Amazonian colonization was dominated by cattle raising, not only because it was possible to grow grass in the poor soil, but also because ranching required little labor, generated decent profits, and awarded social status in the community. However, the results of farming have led to extensive deforestation and have caused extensive environmental damage.〔Williams, M. (2006). Deforesting the Earth: From Prehistory to Global Crisis. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.〕 An estimated 30% of the deforestation is due to small farmers and the intensity within the area that they inhabit is greater than the area occupied by the medium and large ranchers who possess 89% of the Legal Amazon’s private land. This emphasizes the importance of using previously cleared land for agricultural use, rather the typical easiest political path of distributing still-forested areas.〔Fernside, P. M. (2005). Deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia: History, Rates, and Consequences. Conservation Biology, 19, 680-688.〕 In the Brazilian Amazon, the number of small farmers versus large landholders changes frequently with economic and demographic pressures.〔 In 1964, a Brazilian land law was passed that supported ownership of the land by the developer: if a person could demonstrate effective cultivation for a year and a day, then that person could claim a right to the land. This act paved the way for clearing enormous areas of forest for cattle production as developers sought to gain a financial profit from land with which they were provided.〔(Brazil Deforestation: Latifundios and Landless )〕 In the 1970s, with the growth of the Trans Amazonian highway, INCRA established schemes to attract hundreds of thousands of potential farmers westward into the Amazon and exploit the forest for cattle ranches. Between 1966 and 1975 Amazon land values grew at a rate of 100% per year as the government offered subsidies to reform the land; throughout the 1970s and 1980s, farmers rushed to claim land and quickly convert areas to farming and make a profit due to the improved transportation network and the high prices of beef.〔 The forest was also exploited for timber, which provided Brazil a way of paying off international debt. By the late 1980s, an area the size of England, Scotland and Wales was being removed annually.〔(Prince of Wales.gov.uk )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Deforestation in Brazil」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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