At dawn in the Amazonian village of Tekohaw in northern Brazil, small flocks of noisy green parrots soar overhead as children run and play between wooden homes, kicking up sandy soil — in places white and bare as a beach.
The only way to meet both goals is to find more paths for people to make a living in the Amazon without further destroying the rainforest, say experts who have long worked in the region. That means using already deforested land more efficiently — to reduce pressure to clear more forest — as well as supporting businesses that sustainably harvest native products such as açaí and cacao.
Valentim, who works in the northern state of Acre, where he’s lived for four decades, points from the window of his truck to areas of abandoned farmland: some are patches of bare soil or red clay; others are overgrown with dark shrubby weeds.
The scale of abandoned farm and pastureland across the Brazilian Amazon is massive — covering an area larger than Portugal, according to an AP analysis of data derived from satellite imagery by the Brazilian research collaboration Mapbiomas.
Other researchers estimate that ranching, which accounts for between 60% and 80% of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, is only a third as productive as it should be, and that increasing the efficiency on the same land area would more than meet increasing demands for meat through 2040. Brazil is a major exporter of beef to global markets, and 43% of Brazil’s cattle are raised within the Amazon region, according to an AP analysis of government data.
“You have to enforce laws against deforestation, but that’s only part of the solution. You also have to give people alternatives” to improve their livelihoods, said Rachael Garrett, a researcher at Cambridge University who’s conducted fieldwork in the Amazon since 2006.
There are 28 million people living in just Brazil’s portion of the Amazon — including Indigenous farmers, ranchers who migrated from other parts of the country, and settlers forcibly relocated decades ago when the government took their old land for infrastructure projects like the Itaipú Dam.
“You can’t ignore that millions of people are living there,” Garrett said. “The more their needs are ignored, the worse some problems get.”
After coaxing the first three animals into wooden pens, she, her husband and their 22-year-old son Thalisson each took a milking station. The family provides all the labor on their small farm.
On another day, Valentim visits a larger family ranch owned by Luiz Augusto Ribeiro do Valle. Do Valle said the last year he cleared new forest to expand the ranch was 2007. Now he’s focused on improving productivity. In addition to planting forage peanuts in his pastures, he has changed the way he grazes cattle.
Holding up a detailed map of his ranch, he said, “You take a large pasture, divide it into smaller areas and rotate where the cattle graze.” The goal is to keep cattle always feeding on new grass, while other areas regrow — the new growth is more nutritious and easier to digest.
Cows bray in the distance and dragonflies buzz at his feet as he strolls up a hill, periodically bending to inspect the grass. “You have to keep checking the plan against the reality on the ground,” he said. By combining rotational grazing and forage peanuts, he said he can keep between 20% and 40% more cattle on the same amount of land.