Protecting the Amazon Requires Changing Policy and Eating Less Beef

smoke from amazon rainforest firest

Smoke rises from fires in the Amazon rainforest, as seen from the International Space Station. Photo: Luca Parmitano

By Cayte Bosler

The Amazon forests of Brazil, Peru, and Republic of bolivia are called-for to death. The Amazon, which covers ii.1 million square miles, is often referred to equally the "lungs of the planet" considering it's thought to produce xx percent of the oxygen in our planet'due south atmosphere, and accept in 17 percent of the carbon dioxide stored by the world'due south copse.

Now the world is watching as a soccer field-sized patch of rainforest turns to ash every minute. The scene is apocalyptic: thousands of foursquare miles of forest destroyed, countless corpses of creatures who could non abscond.

"The smoke is so thick that we can barely await at the horizon," says Victor Moriyama, a Brazilian documentary photographer who is producing real-time images by airplane. "I remember the scenes from the movie Platoon, in which the smoke enveloped the jungle and gave us the sensation of war. I feel equally if on the brink of an abyss."

For years, scientists, conservationists, and indigenous communities accept been telling us about their struggles to protect the nigh biodiverse nature on the planet, advocating in favor of keeping ecosystems intact instead of converting them for beefiness and soy production, mining, and logging. Nonetheless, global demand for products that strain the resources from the Amazon take made it a mostly losing battle. The driving forces are international, and the jumbo loss of life affects the entire planet. As such, the fires in the Amazon require a global response.

Cows vs. Trees

The Amazon did not evolve with natural fires. The fires are set by farmers to clear country for cattle to sell as meat, and to grow soy to feed pigs, chickens, and cows.

"From above information technology is possible to see the livestock expansion happening at a rapid footstep, responsible for the numerous fires that plague various parts of the Amazon," says Moriyama. "Historically, Brazil has not built an constructive civilisation to stimulate sustainable forest development. The consequence of this is that many workers end up going to illegal deforestation activities such equally tree felling, mining and land grabbing."

In by decades, Bolivian and Brazilian forests have mainly been deforested by the expansion of agricultural frontier evolution, driven by the growing global demands for beef. Although the use of burn to articulate land is technically illegal, penalties are rarely enforced.

Brazil is the globe'south largest exporter and producer of beef. Beef exports make upwardly ii.33 pct of its economy. The country exports one-fifth of the meat it produces; the rest, about 80 per centum, is for local consumption by 200 1000000 Brazilians.

There are 232 million heads of cattle in Brazil, more than anywhere else in the world — about ane per Brazilian resident. One pound of beef requires 298 square anxiety of cropland and 211 gallons (800 liters) of water, on average. An average moo-cow produces close to 400 pounds of meat. Adding it all up, that means a unmarried cow will require 84,000 jugs of water piled on 2 football fields of cropland to go the hamburger you lodge at a drive-thru.

Equally the demand for beef grows by ten percent a year in Brazil, so does the demand for land, which is why ranchers desire access to more land for grazing.

chart showing amazon rainforest loss versus growth in cattle industry

The number of cows raised in Brazil continues to grow, as does deforestation in the Amazon.

An Firsthand Solution

Beefiness is 1 of the products with the highest carbon and resources footprint on the planet. Ane-third of all freshwater on Earth and of all cropland worldwide is used for livestock. Raising livestock in rangelands also severely reduces biodiversity, which in turn threatens entire ecosystems we rely on for our survival. Reducing our consumption of beef is thus a nutrient security issue, not only an environmental 1. As we approach 8 billion in the world population, nosotros simply cannot continue to consume so much beef.

"One firsthand solution to the threat to the Amazon is to reduce the need for Brazilian beef," says Alexander More, a climate change historian at Harvard Academy and the University of Maine. The top consumers of Brazilian beef are Cathay (+43.eight% demand in 2018) the nigh populous land in the world, Hong Kong and the EU (Germany +338.4% need in 2018) among others, generally all first world countries.

"The governments of these countries should get-go importing beefiness from other sources, in guild to end the demand for land, and therefore fires used to clear that country in the Amazon," says More than. "Certain countries are driving meat exports from all nations surrounding the Amazon, attempting to feed a beef frenzy that did non exist only a few years ago. This is driven past civilization, economic evolution, a feeling of entitlement, but certainly not need."

"If we tin capitalize on the attention the Amazon has brought to the touch of livestock and industrialized agriculture on the lungs of the planet, then we can change the world," says More. "Many of the countries that consume Brazilian beef practise non participate in the social media and information sphere ascendant in the US and Europe, so these cultural and lifestyle changes demand to happen on the ground, through policy, or major education and communications campaigns. A proficient example of an effective campaign is WildAid'south campaign against shark fin soup with Yao Ming, which contributed to reducing demand by 70 percent [in China], even as other countries increased it."

A severe, government-mandated reduction in Brazilian beef imports, equally some European leaders have already suggested, would become a long fashion toward curtailing further destruction of the Amazon. Local beef consumption in Brazil besides needs to be curbed, and as of 2015, at that place were indications that this trend was already starting.

Policy also plays an important role. Moriyama sees the Amazon fires equally a consequence of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro'southward promises to strengthen agribusiness at the expense of conserving the rainforest; Bolsonaro'south government continues to antechamber new countries to open their markets to Brazilian beef.

In Bolivia, also, the authorities is not helping matters, explains Alfredo Romero-Muñoz, Bolivian wildlife biologist and environmental policy skilful. "The fires in Bolivia come a month after [President Evo] Morales signed Supreme Decree 3973 to expand the agronomical frontier to produce beefiness to export to People's republic of china. Bolivia was already amongst the top five countries for deforestation last year. In but a few weeks this year, nosotros accept tripled last year'south amount."

Nearing a Tipping Signal?

By gutting the earth's wilds and consuming its products, we turn a bullheaded eye that could i solar day pb to our own demise. Our health as humans is derived from and dependent upon plants, animals, and the land.

"Biodiversity is declining quickly in these regions," says Romero-Muñoz, who authored a study in Nature Ecology & Evolution about the year ahead beingness pivotal for Bolivian conservation policy. "Autonomously from losing biodiversity, we'll lose the services they bring. Republic of bolivia is 1 of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate breakdown and already has big problems with h2o scarcity. At that place are projections almost all lowland forests outside protected areas in Bolivia — 38 million hectares — may be destroyed past 2050 in the worst-case scenario. With the electric current policies, we are heading in that management. This is a ending."

We may have already destroyed 15 percent of the original territory of the Amazon, says Moriyama. Some scientists have predicted that "if deforestation continues past 20 percentage, the recovery of the woods will exist irreversible. We are at a disquisitional point where in that location is no turning dorsum."

"The devastation of these forests allowed and even encouraged by governments is not just a trouble of Republic of bolivia or Brazil, information technology'due south a trouble of the whole world," says Mariana Da Silva, Bolivian conservation scientist. "The Amazon biome is our natural heritage, we depend on it for water and oxygen, it is fundamental to mitigate the climate crisis nosotros are causing, it is likewise the dwelling of countless human and non-homo life that accept the correct to exist there and deserve better than to be burnt alive. This is a crime against nature and each ane of u.s., no matter where in the world nosotros are. We can't just watch a crime equally it happens, we must organize and act to terminate it now."

It is worth mentioning here that scientists and environmental activists speaking out against their governments' complicity in the destruction are doing so at their peril.

"We are the country where activists are almost murdered," says Moriyama of Brazil.

"In Bolivia, I know several colleagues do non desire to speak for fear of retaliation from the regime," says Romero-Muñoz, who is from Bolivia and now based in Berlin.

Fifty-fifty with the risks, many are taking to the streets of Bolivia to demand international help to repel laws allowing the agricultural expansion. In July, President Morales signed the legislation (D.S. 3973) that allowed the agricultural frontier expansion through fires to gain political support generally from the agroindustrial elites; the consequences of this are now dramatically on display. This pressure for policy reform comes every bit Morales campaigns to be reelected in Oct 2019. The fires are notwithstanding burning in Bolivia, and after most a month, Morales has finally said he volition accept international help. "I've instructed the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry building of Strange Relations to see how they can be of help to put out these fires," said Morales.

It's tempting to wish for a solution as spectacular in effect equally the raging flames. The United States dispatched a supertanker airplane to disperse water, albeit 16 days into the blaze, with over ane million hectares already ravaged. Even when the flames subside, nosotros tin't bring back what'south already lost. The all-time prevention for future crises is stalwart protection of what wilds remain.

A will to alter lifestyle habits like meat consumption is necessary but pointless without a commitment to changing the political and economic structures that currently prioritize unsustainable economic growth over life itself, the bodies of trees, animals, and indigenous people. At that place is a pattern of violence against nature that's broad, that'due south deep-set, ruthless and mostly remains unspoken. It's becoming harder to ignore the violence being wrought on the planet, especially when the spectacle is so horrific it can be seen from space. To protect the remaining wild, we must act similar our lives and the lives of everyone we beloved depend on it. Because they exercise.

Cayte Bosler is a pupil in Columbia's Sustainability Management masters program. She is a fellow member of the Explorer'south Guild and spent part of summer 2019 in the Bolivian Amazon doing wild fauna research.

Special thanks to Alexander More for his contribution to data analysis.