The Amazon is burning: 4 essential reads on Brazil’s vanishing rainforest

Rachel Garrett,Assistant Professor of the Human Dimensions of Global Change in the Department of Earth and Environment at Boston University, was interviewed for a recent article on the factors driving deforestation in the Amazon .

Garrett was interviewed for a August 23, 2019 article in The Conversation entitled “The Amazon is burning: 4 essential reads on Brazil’s vanishing rainforest”

From the text of the article:

“Deforestation is largely due to land clearing for agricultural purposes, particularly cattle ranching but also soybean production,” writes Rachel Garrett, a professor at Boston University who studies land use in Brazil. Since farmers need “a massive amount of land for grazing,” Garrett says, they are driven to “continuously clear forest – illegally – to expand pastureland.”

Garrett’s research found that improved pasture management in line with stricter federal land use policies led the number of cattle slaughtered annually per acre to double.

“Farmers are producing more meat – and therefore earning more money – with their land,” she writes.