Ethanol production in U.S. causing deforestation in Brazil

The bottom chart shows the relationship between the expansion of soy as a crop in the Brazillian Amazon from 1990-2005 in relation to the amount of deforestation occuring in the same time period. I chose to use this graph because it shows a relationship between increasing deforestation and an increasing amount of soy being grown. The top chart I will discuss further down, I was just having a problem with formatting.

Soy production in Brazil is increasing because of events and issues that are occuring in other parts of the world, like the United States. The availability of fossil fuels is rapidly decreasing, our consumption rates are incredible. Fossil fuels are non-renewable resources, and yet we have built much of our transportation systems in our modern society to rely on fossil fuels. Recently scientists have figured out how to fuel our cars and other devices off of ethanol, a fuel derived mainly from corn. Foreign relations and gas prices have recently stimulated a huge push for higher ethanol production in the United States, which caused a shift in the type of crops that our farmers are planting. Many farmers "see" a better future with corn these days, because of the demand for ethanol. So instead of planting a diverse selection of crops, they choose to focus their efforts on corn. Because of this, they are producing less soy than they were previously, as shown in the top graph. Because the U.S. is producing less soy, and the demand for soy is still the same or greater, other countries are having to pick up the slack. Brazil is one of those countries.

Since 1990, soy production in Brazil has been increasing steadily, at a rate of 14.1% per year. Soy cropping has pushed out other more traditional farmers and livestock cultivaters, causing them to move to new areas, and deforest them. Land that was once used for other purposed has been swiped up, and land that was forested is no longer. As you can see in that second graph, deforestation is growing roughly in proportion to soy expansion in Brazil.

It seems that even though there is an environmental movement occuring in which we are trying to develop new or sustainable ways of living in this world, our actions have consequences that aren't necessarily the ones we are aiming for.

I found information about this issue at: http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0516-ethanol_amazon.html, an environmental news website.