Aloísio Milani and Valtemir Rodrigues
Reporters - Agência Brasil

Brasília - The Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA) and the Brazilian NGO Forum published a study demonstrating a relationship between the expansion of areas of soybean cultivation and the deforestation of native forests in Brazil, especially in the middle and north of the state of Mato Grosso. The study was prepared after a meeting with the Minister of Agriculture, Roberto Rodrigues, who, at the time, asked the environmentalists to substantiate their contentions.

The study is based on data gathered on the 65 largest areas of forest removal in Mato Grosso in 2003. All of them with more than 1,300 hectares. The study group used these areas to conduct low-level aerial photography and filming of 21 of the chief spots of deforestation. "We found that areas in which native forest was destroyed in 2002, 2003, and even in 2004 are now being used to plant soybeans, which shows a direct relationship between soybean cultivation and deforestation," says André Lima, a lawyer for the ISA and one of the authors of the study.

The region that was investigated in Mato Grosso includes 25 municipalities in the middle and the north of the state. The municipalities of Sinope and Sorriso are among them. According to the study, soybean cultivation also has an indirect relationship with deforestation, because it takes over areas previously used to raise livestock. As a result, soybean cultivation "pushes" livestock raising to new agricultural frontiers, and this increases the devastation of "native forests."

This week the Institute of Applied Economic Research (Ipea) released a paper on agricultural growth and the expansion of areas in which soybeans are cultivated in the country. The Ipea study found no relationship between deforestation and the expansion of soybean cultivation.

The ISA lawyer claimed that "our study doesn't contradict the hypotheses raised by the Ipea. Rather, it is intended to open an agenda of debates and joint efforts with the Ministry of Agriculture to determine strategies to regulate and guide the consolidation and expansion of the agricultural frontier, especially in the Amazon," Lima argues.

Translation: David Silberstein