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The world is not a very peaceful place right now. Not only there are a lot of armed conflicts happening, trade war is an on-going problem as well. And you know what is going to suffer from it the most? Scientists from the University of Edinburgh and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology say that is going to be nature, because Brazil will have to increase its production of soya beans at the cost of Amazon forest.
Amazon rainforest is likely to suffer from increasing soya bean production in Brazil. Image credit: kevincure via Wikimedia (CC BY 2.0)
Tariffs on US soya beans increased, which significantly reduced export of US soya beans to China. The demand for soy did not decline at the same time, which caused a shortage of soya beans in the Chinese market. However, economy doesn’t lake empty spots – someone is going to have to supply those missing soya beans. And scientists say that Brazil is already feeling the pressure to increase its land used for crop production by up to 39 %, which is around 13 million hectares. And we know from history what it means to the fragile wilderness of the country.
Soya bean production in Brazil has been growing for decades already and it lead to noticeable deforestation in Brazil’s rainforests. Farmers need land and the one reclaimed from Amazon rainforests seems to be particularly well-suited for growing soya. Of course, only after all the trees are removed. Political powers in Brazil could control deforestation with tremendous effort and for some time expansion of soya bean production in the Amazon region was taken to a halt. However, now the regulations are weakened and deforestation increased by 29 % between 2015 and 2016. At the same time, in the past two decades China’s Brazilian imports have increased by 2,000 % and at the end of 2018 75 % of China’s soya bean import came from Brazil.
Chinese are not going to start consuming less soy products. Now that import from US decreased significantly, Brazil is going to have to pick up the slack, which might result in a new wave of deforestation. Scientists are urging Brazil to take action now to enforce environmental protection policies. Dr Peter Alexander, one of the researchers in the study, said: “Governments, producers, regulators and consumers must act now. If they don’t, the Amazon rainforest could become the greatest casualty of the US–China trade war”.
Trade wars can require as little as couple of years or even just months to be resolved. However, damage to rainforests is pretty permanent. People should start taking in a wider picture – today’s gain may mean losses tomorrow. But, as usual, when political interests collide collateral damage is almost unavoidable.
Source: University of Edinburgh