Feeding China is Destroying the Amazon

China Wants Food. Brazil Pays the Price.

National efforts to strengthen food security have an impact far beyond any single country’s borders.

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The rain forest here in Brazil has progressively fallen victim to global demand for soy and beef. And the country’s biggest customer for both is China. The story of the Amazon has become entangled not simply with the story of Brazil’s poor protection of its forest frontier but also with that of the rise of this new superpower and its food-security strategy. Soy is China’s weak link, the main food commodity it needs from the outside world. The country imports the crop, which it mostly uses to feed its pigs, and Chinese state-owned companies also invest directly in Brazil’s supply chain so the South American country can increase its own exports. This growing hunger for soy has incentivized Brazilian prospectors to keep pace by razing pristine jungle, thereby accelerating deforestation.

This dynamic highlights some of the tensions inherent in the challenge of combatting climate change. China’s middle class has a growing hunger for meat, leading to a rise in demand for soy. For a country that has pledged to honor the Paris Agreement, China’s food-security measures run counter to its environmental efforts, yet while the climate deal aims to reduce national carbon emissions, it doesn’t account for the activities and responsibilities of signatories in other countries. And Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, argues that the country must prioritize economic growth, even if it comes at the cost of destroying the planet’s largest tropical rain forest.

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In one of the most tangible displays of his priorities, Bolsonaro sent the army to the Amazon to complete construction of BR-163, once a jammed and muddy dirt highway. BR-163 is also right where China sees an opportunity for its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The global infrastructure-development strategy envisions an international network of railways, ports, energy pipelines, and other megaprojects connecting Beijing’s economy to the world. Physically paralleling BR-163, the railway project would reduce transport costs by 40 percent and shave weeks off delivery dates, making Brazil more competitive against its chief soy rival, the United States.

If destroyed or degraded, the Amazon, as a system, is simply beyond humanity’s ability to get back: Even if people were to replant half a continent’s worth of trees, the diversity of creatures across Amazonia, once lost, will not be replenished for roughly 10 million years. And that is 33 times longer than Homo sapiens, as a species, has existed.

HawkTheSlayer wrote:South Americans can be easily bought. It's always been that way.

They are almost as bad as Democrats.

vege57 wrote:

HawkTheSlayer wrote:South Americans can be easily bought. It's always been that way.

They are almost as bad as Democrats.

Lets pop them on the scales,, Greasers, Democrats . Ooooh Aaahh, Yip, exactly the farkin same ,

HawkTheSlayer wrote:

vege57 wrote:

HawkTheSlayer wrote:South Americans can be easily bought. It's always been that way.

They are almost as bad as Democrats.

Lets pop them on the scales,, Greasers, Democrats . Ooooh Aaahh, Yip, exactly the farkin same ,

I always wanted to get me some South American sun in Paraguay . I almost ended up in Venezuela in the early 80s on a job offer at a large Agri-business firm.

Should have gone. Could have retired and got out in 2002-3 before Chavez reeked havoc.

Prolly worked out for the best. I'd more than likely have kids with 2 Venezuelan sisters. They'd be cousins and half siblings at the same time! I'd be dare uncle and daddy! Lololol.    

Damn I'd have to buy too many gifts at Christmas.

Calypso Jones wrote:I have a question.   The amazon Rain Forest must put out scads of Co2....but ...Co2 is bad say these environmentalists...and really ...they don't mention the amount of Co2 from the Rain forest.  So it seems that they and mr. Gates would like to see the rain forests destroyed.  

But no..they talk about the water....1/5 the earth's water is contained(?) in the RainForest?  and what's the other thing..the biggest thing that they harp on with the loss of Rain forests??