From: Cool Earth
Reducing deforestation in endangered rainforest in Brazil will not be an easy task due to the economic and political powers at work in the area, it has been claimed.
Endangered rainforest in Brazil is victim of large-scale deforestation
Talking to Mongabay, Roberto Smeraldi, founder and director of environmentalist activist network Amigos da Terra - Amazonia Brasileira, said that there is strong interest "in turning the region into a powerhouse of extraction-based industries".
He went on to say that cattle ranching is the largest cause of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest and noted that it will be hard to stop deforestation due to the billions of dollars and huge companies involved in exploiting the area.
"Already tens of billions of dollars are flowing into the region to develop infrastructure that will facilitate the rapid expansion of logging, mining, drilling and large-scale agriculture across substantial swathes of the Amazon," Mr Smeraldi said.
To help the fight for rainforest conservation, he suggested that making such cattle ranches more productive may help to reduce the rate of deforestation in the area, which has up to 300 different types of tree species in just one hectare.