LOWING cattle and sterile fields of soya are replacing Amazonian rainforest so fast that 40 per cent of the forest will be gone by 2050, if present trends continue. Even discounting land cleared for the wood itself, deforestation is threatening ecological meltdown in the region.
Britaldo Silveira Soares-Filho of the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, along with colleagues in the US, used a computer model to predict how the Amazon might look in mid-century under eight different development scenarios. The destruction of 40 per cent of its forest, in line with current rates, would release 32…
