Rainforest revival: has Brazil turned the tide on deforestation?

The sheer visible scale of both the destruction, and of what remains, is breathtaking. It’s one of Brazil’s greatest hopes, and greatest challenges.

Photo courtesy of Lalo de Almeida/NY Times

Big cities and global farming now driving deforestation, study finds

In recent years, tropical countries have been supplying growing amounts of palm oil, soybeans, sugar, meat and other processed products to distant markets abroad. Not all the products are used for food; palm oil and sugar in particular are also being converted into biofuels.

Photo courtesy of Damon Winter/NY Times

Amazon rainforest will bear cost of biofuel policies in Brazil

Business-as-usual agricultural expansion to meet biofuel production targets for 2020 will take a heavy toll on Brazil's Amazon rainforest in coming years, undermining the potential emissions savings of transitioning from fossil fuels to biofuels, warns a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Photo courtesy of Andre Penner/AP

Growing Demand for Soybeans Threatens Amazon Rainforest

Today the soybean occupies more U.S. cropland than wheat. And in Brazil, where it spread even more rapidly, the soybean is invading the Amazon rainforest.

[Photograph by: Dan Gunderson/MPR]