Deforestation declines as agricultural production increases

An international study with Brazilian participation indicates that deforestation in Mato Grosso has diminished and that soy production in the state grew in the last few years through changes in land use.

By Elton Alisson

Agência FAPESP – The soy production in Mato Grosso has increased more than 30% from 2006 to 2010, increasing from 15.6 million to 20.5 million tons. In parallel with this growth in agricultural production, deforestation in the state, which is responsible for 31% of the soybeans produced in the country and had led in the felling of trees in the Amazon at the beginning of the millennium, has also diminished by 30% in the same period, reaching 850 km² in 2010; this value represents 11% of its historical average of 7,500 km² registered between 1996 and 2005.

The changes were obtained through increases in productivity and in the utilization of already-deforested areas to grow oilseed, thus eliminating the need to deforest other areas, notes an international study with Brazilian participation.

The results of the study were published this week online and will soon be in print in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Among the study’s participants were Yosio Shimabukuro from the National Space Research Institute’s Remote Sensing Division (INPE), Cláudia Stickler of the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), and Marcia Macedo of Columbia University, in addition to scientists from NASA and Woods Hole Research Center, both in the United States.

Combining satellite data with government statistics on deforestation and agricultural production in Mato Grosso during the previous decade, the researchers found that the decline in the region’s deforestation rate in the 2006-2010 period – a record-breaking period of expansion for the state’s agriculture – was caused mainly by changes in land use.

According to these researchers, the increased soy production in Mato Grosso from 2001-2005 was due largely to the expansion of the cultivation of oilseed in areas previously dedicated to pasture (74%), followed by forested areas (26%).

From 2006-2010, 22% of the increase in production was obtained through productivity gains, and 78% was due to the expansion of the growing area, largely (91%) into areas that had already been deforested. At the same time, deforestation for the expansion of planting areas in the state dropped from 10% to 2% between the 2001-2005 period and 2006-2010 period.

“The research shows a break in the link between the expansion of soybean production and deforestation in Mato Grosso, which could serve as a model for other states in the Amazon,” explains Shimabukuro in an interview with Agência FAPESP.

“It would be possible to avoid deforestation in these states through the better utilization of planting areas that are already available and increasing the productivity of the crop, which is what happens, for example, in southeastern Brazil where agricultural techniques are better,” Shimabukuro states.

The scientist coordinated the project “Using satellite data to determine the area of active fire and numerical modeling of the injection of trace gases and aerosols from the fire radiative energy approach,” which was funded by FAPESP, and is one of the lead investigators of the Thematic Project "Land use change in Amazonia: institutional analysis and modeling at multiple temporal and spatial scales.”

According to Shimabukuro, another of the study’s findings was that the decline in deforestation in Mato Grosso in the 2066-2010 period coincided with the implementation of several governmental initiatives to reduce deforestation in the region.

In 2004, for example, the Brazilian federal government established the Plan of Action for Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon (PPCDAM) and required Amazon states to develop and implement their own deforestation control programs.

In 2006, the main soy producer associations, non-governmental agencies and the government declared a “moratorium on soybean.” The environmental pact established a commitment to ban sales of soybeans from deforested areas in the Amazon biome.

Finally, in 2008, the sector created a “blacklist” of the Amazon municipalities with the highest deforestation rates, which imposed a series of sanctions against deforesters in these regions. Among the sanctions were the elimination of subsidies, the reduction of agricultural credit and the exclusion from the chain of suppliers to large exporters, among other measures.

“Part of the decrease in deforestation was caused by a more rigorous government control of activities that could cause the deforestation that occurs in all of the states throughout the Amazon,” explains Shimabukuro.
According to the researchers, in contrast to what could have occurred, evidence was not found that a reduction in Mato Grosso’s deforestation resulted in an increase in soybean production and the felling of trees in other states in the Amazon comprising the “arc of deforestation,” including Rondônia and Pará.

The study indicates that deforestation in these two states has also fallen during the same period. “This proves that the problem was not transferred to another area,” Shimabukuro adds.

MODIS sensor

For the study, researchers utilized a Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor, which operates from the EOS-AM Earth satellite launched by NASA in 1999.

According to Shimabukuro, the sensor is one of the best Earth satellites for analyzing large regions because it visualizes and captures images from the planet’s entire surface almost daily, and therefore, has data available on the Mato Grosso region since 2000 – the study’s initial evaluation period.
“The sensor allowed us to verify if the new soybean planting areas in the state were located in the areas previously deforested or not,” Shimabukuro explains.

Shimabukuro participated in the study through a collaboration that began with one of the project’s main researchers, Ruth DeFries of Columbia University, through the Large-Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA) projects coordinated by the National Amazon Research Institute (INPA) and through research projects on remote sensing in Mato Grosso, which were funded in part by FAPESP.

The article “Decoupling of deforestation and soy production in the southern Amazon during the late 2000s” (doi: 10.1073/pnas.1111374109) by Yosio Edemir Shimabukuro and others can be read by subscribers to PNAS at www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1111374109.