Amazon rainforest major threat to the Amazon rainforest. The highway still has not been completed, limiting the environmental damage. Between 1991 and 2000, the total area of forest lost in the Amazon rose from , with most of the lost forest becoming pasture for cattle. Seventy percent of formerly forested land in the Amazon, and 91% of land deforested since 1970, is used for livestock pasture. Currently, Brazil is the second-largest global producer of soybeans after the United States. New research however, conducted by Leydimere Oliveira et al., has shown that the more rainforest is logged in the Amazon, the less precipitation
Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest Amazon's deforestation. Loggers have killed natives, and encroached on to their land. Many uncontacted peoples have come out of the jungles to mingle with mainstream society after threats from outsiders. Uncontacted peoples making first contact with outsiders are susceptible to diseases to which they have little immunity. Tribes can easily be decimated, the deaths resulting have been compared to a genocide. Using the 2005 deforestation rates, it was estimated that the Amazon rainforest would be reduced by 40% in two decades. The rate of deforestation is now slowing; rates of forest loss in 2012 were the slowest on record. However,