{"id":4092,"date":"2015-04-28T13:56:38","date_gmt":"2015-04-28T17:56:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/?p=4092"},"modified":"2022-11-15T11:31:25","modified_gmt":"2022-11-15T16:31:25","slug":"chinas-influence-on-deforestation-in-brazilian-amazonia-a-growing-force-in-the-state-of-mato-grosso","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/2015\/04\/28\/chinas-influence-on-deforestation-in-brazilian-amazonia-a-growing-force-in-the-state-of-mato-grosso\/","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s Influence on Deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia: A Growing Force in the State of Mato Grosso"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment22468\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment22468\" style=\"width: 646px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/gdp\/files\/2015\/04\/sebastien-goldberg-w5pqeNrxKU0-unsplash-636x358.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"636\" height=\"358\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-22468\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/files\/2015\/04\/sebastien-goldberg-w5pqeNrxKU0-unsplash-636x358.jpg 636w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/files\/2015\/04\/sebastien-goldberg-w5pqeNrxKU0-unsplash-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/files\/2015\/04\/sebastien-goldberg-w5pqeNrxKU0-unsplash-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/files\/2015\/04\/sebastien-goldberg-w5pqeNrxKU0-unsplash-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/files\/2015\/04\/sebastien-goldberg-w5pqeNrxKU0-unsplash.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 636px) 100vw, 636px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment22468\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amazonia, Brazil. Photo by S\u00e9bastien Goldberg via Unsplash.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">China has become Brazil\u2019s largest trading partner and the greatest source of export surplus from agricultural goods at $85 billion in 2011, contributing to Brazil\u2019s economic growth and to reducing the country\u2019s vulnerability to external economic crises.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/files\/2017\/09\/Brazil.pdf\"><b><i>new working paper<\/i><\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, Philip M. Fearnside and Adriano M.R. Figueiredo explore China\u2019s influence on deforestation in the Brazilian Amazonia by examining China\u2019s role in Brazil\u2019s soy and beef sectors, particularly in Mato Grosso, a major source for soy and beef production.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>Main findings:<\/b><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Increases in Brazil\u2019s exports to China are significantly associated with increased deforestation rates.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Alongside soybean production, cattle herd size is also associated with increases in deforestation.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While changes in pasture to soybean cropping would lead to deforestation, increase in cattle would lead to more pasture and deforestation associated with opening up new areas.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Improved regulations mitigating environmental harm have led to declines in deforestation in recent years.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, an influx of money from the booming Chinese export market is reshaping the Brazilian political landscape, empowering the \u201cruralist\u201d voting block representing large landowners, to push for relaxing environmental regulations. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Deforestation destroys potentially renewable resources, eliminates Indigenous and traditional cultures that predominated in the area and provokes losses of environmental services such as<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">maintaining biodiversity, carbon storage and water cycling. To consolidate its gains against deforestation, especially during an agricultural export boom, the researchers suggest Brazil hold fast to its regulatory progress and resist the call to sacrifice long-term conservation goals for short-term export revenue.<\/span><\/p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/files\/2017\/09\/Brazil.pdf\" class=\"button\">Read the Working Paper<\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>China has become Brazil\u2019s largest trading partner and the greatest source of export surplus from agricultural goods at $85 billion in 2011, contributing to Brazil\u2019s economic growth and to reducing the country\u2019s vulnerability to external economic crises.\u00a0 In a new working paper, Philip M. Fearnside and Adriano M.R. Figueiredo explore China\u2019s influence on deforestation in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10886,"featured_media":22468,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[156,72,105,77,76,3064],"tags":[237,3047,538,3052,3051,3050,3048,3053,3049,2158,3054,3046,3033,2866],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4092"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10886"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4092"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22788,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4092\/revisions\/22788"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}