Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest , and recover of degraded pastures. In August 2017, Brazilian president Michel Temer abolished an Amazonian nature reserve the size of Denmark in Brazil's northern states of Pará and Amapá. Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest The cattle sector of the Brazilian Amazon, incentivized by the international beef and leather trades, has been responsible for about 80% of all deforestation in the region, or about 14% of the world's total annual deforestation, making it the world's largest single driver of deforestation. By 2017, 20% of land forested before 1970 in the Amazon had been deforested, and 90% of that been converted
Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest not purchase soybeans produced in the Brazilian Amazon in recently deforested areas. Before the moratorium, 30 percent of soy field expansion had occurred through deforestation, contributing to record deforestation rates. After eight years of the moratorium, a 2015 study found that although soy production area had expanded another 1.3 million hectares, only about 1 percent of the new soy expansion had come at the expense of forest. In response to the moratorium, farmers were choosing to plant on already cleared land. The needs of soy farmers have been used to validate some controversial transportation projects that have developed in the