- Spatial Production Allocation Model (SPAM), the Atlas of Pastures and Amazon Mining Watch have released or updated satellite data and visualization tools this year that show what crops are grown in the Amazon, where cattle ranching overlaps with other kinds of land use and how much of the rainforest is being cleared for mining.
- Amazon Conservation’s Monitoring of the Amazon Project (MAAP) compiled the data into one report this month, creating an “overall estimate” of land use across the nine Amazon countries.
- Some of the crops are well-known drivers of deforestation, such as soy, but lesser-discussed crops are also present in the region, such as rice and sorghum.
A series of recently published data is shining a new light on patterns of deforestation in the Amazon, revealing where crops, cattle ranching and mining are encroaching on the rainforest.
Several monitoring organizations — including the Spatial Production Allocation Model (SPAM), the Atlas of Pastures and Amazon Mining Watch — have released or updated satellite data and visualization tools this year that show what kinds of crops are being grown, where cattle ranching overlaps with other kinds of land use and how much of the rainforest is being cleared for mining.
“We’re seeing all these products starting to come out with all these recent advances in satellite imagery, machine learning and AI,” Matt Finer, director and senior research specialist of Amazon Conservation’s Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP), told Mongabay. “To be able to do a direct comparison between crops, cattle and mining — I think it’s very compelling.”
MAAP compiled the data into one report this month, creating an “overall estimate” of land use across the nine Amazon countries, including Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Suriname, French Guyana and Guyana. It could help identify new patterns and trends in drivers of deforestation, Finer said.
The data shows that at least 40 different crops are present in the Amazon, amounting to over 106 million hectares (261 million acres), or around 13% of the biome, according to SPAM, a crop distribution platform.
Some of the crops are well-known drivers of deforestation, such as soy, which covers over 67.5 million hectares (166 million acres) across much of southern Brazil and northeastern Bolivia. Maize covers around 70 million hectares (172 million acres) and oil palm covers around 8 million hectares (19.7 million acres), most notably in Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, according to the MAAP report.
But other, lesser-discussed crops are also present in the region. Rice takes up around 13.8 million hectares (34.1 million acres) and sorghum, a cereal grain, takes up 10.9 million hectares (26.9 million acres). Cassava accounts for 9.8 million hectares (24.2 million acres) and coffee 6.7 million hectares (16.5 million acres).
Besides being a leading soy producer, Brazil is one of the world’s top-10 producers of cassava, sorghum and coffee, according to USDA. The crops contribute to deforestation, soil erosion and pollution from fertilizers.
Several Amazon countries are also global leaders in beef production, the pastures for which take up 76.3 million hectares (188.5 million acres), or 9% of the biome, according to Atlas of Pastures, which maps lands used for pastures.
In total, crops and pasture have encroached on 19% of the Amazon, the data shows.
Open-pit gold mining only covers 1.9 million hectares (4.7 million acres), or about 0.23% of the Amazon, the data revealed. But it also accounts for some of the most acute deforestation in the Amazon, and often in protected areas. Venezuela’s Yapacana National Park saw over 750 hectares (1,870 acres) of deforestation in the span of just a year back in 2021 and 2022, with thousands of pieces of machinery entering the park.
The MAAP report also helps show where different commodities are produced and how they transition from one region to the next.
In eastern Brazil, a soy frontier abruptly changes to cattle ranching, with a few spots showing where communities participate in both. In the northern Amazon, soy plantations appear to overlap with mining activity near the Guyana border, whereas in other mining hotspots, there isn’t any agricultural activity at all.
The data also reflects the larger policies that some countries have taken to protect the Amazon. While crop readings are high in places like Brazil, other countries that have shied away from developing their agricultural industries — such as Suriname, Guyana and French Guyana — have virtually no crop readings at all.
Agriculture, defined as crops plus cattle ranching, is by far the largest driver of deforestation in the Amazon, Finer said. Any strategy to save the Amazon will involve understanding patterns across such a vast landscape and breaking down their spatial distribution. That should only become easier as technology continues to advance, he said.
“We can now start to zoom in and try to figure out the deforestation responsibility and potential of each crop,” he said. “The data is getting better and better at linking individual commodities with deforestation and that represents a big advance to Amazon conservation.”
Banner image: The Amazon Rainforest in Peru. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.
See related from this reporter:
Weak banking regulations leave two-thirds of Amazon vulnerable to oil and gas
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