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 Amazon has resulted from farmers clearing land for small-scale subsistence agriculture or for mechanized cropland. Scientists using NASA satellite data found in 2006 that clearing for mechanized cropland had become a significant force in Brazilian Amazon deforestation. This change in land use may alter the region's climate. Researchers found that in 2003, a peak year of deforestation, more than 20 percent of the Mato Grosso state's forests were converted to cropland. In 2005, soybean prices fell by more than 25 percent and some areas of Mato Grosso showed a decrease in large deforestation events, suggesting that the rise and fall