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Tropical rainforests: threats and management

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Rainforests give the world food, medicine and a stable climate. Yet huge areas are being cleared. Can they be used sustainably?

Goods and services

Goods: food such as Brazil nuts, bananas and cocoa; medicines; timber such as mahogany.
Services: storing carbon, regulating the climate and the water cycle, protecting soils, and recreation.
Climate change threatens rainforests with longer droughts, more fires and species struggling to adapt.

Causes of deforestation in the Amazon

Cattle ranching is the biggest cause.
Commercial farming, especially soya.
Logging of valuable hardwoods.
Mining, roads (such as the Trans-Amazonian Highway, opened in the 1970s) and hydro-electric dams.
Population pressure: settlers clear land for small farms.

Sustainable management

Governance: laws such as Brazil's Forest Code, protected areas and satellite monitoring help catch illegal clearing. Deforestation in Brazil fell sharply in the late 2000s when enforcement increased, then rose again when enforcement weakened.
Commodity value: high prices for beef and soya increase pressure to clear land.
Ecotourism earns money from keeping the forest standing.
Certification, such as the FSC label, shows timber comes from managed forests.
Worked example

Explain how commodity prices affect deforestation.

  1. When world prices for beef or soya rise, farming becomes more profitable.
  2. Farmers and companies clear more forest to expand pasture or fields.
  3. When prices fall, there is less incentive to clear land.

Answer: High commodity prices increase the incentive to clear forest.

Key idea

Rainforests provide goods (food, medicine, timber) and services (carbon storage, climate and water regulation). Amazon deforestation is driven mainly by cattle ranching, plus soya, logging, mining, roads and dams. Strong governance, monitoring, ecotourism and certification support sustainable management.

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