The Brazilian government claims that deforestation in the Amazon is currently at it’s lowest point since records began.

Brazil’s Environment Minister Carlos Minc claims that the deforestation figures, based on satellite monitoring of the Brazilian Amazon basin, for the year to July 2009 will be below 10,000 square kilometers for the first time since surveying began in the 1980s.

Whilst this is undoubtedly good news, it is not time to rejoice as the decline is primarily attributed not to conservation efforts, but instead to the global economic downturn.

Falling commodity prices, which have reduced financial incentives to chop down trees and restricted agricultural credit to ranchers and farmers, and government action to crack down on illegal clearing are credited for the decline in deforestation.

Conversion to cattle pasture accounts for roughly 80 percent of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Pasture is used for beef production as well as to speculate on rising land prices.

Nearly 20 percent of the Amazon has been cleared since the 1970s, but the Brazilian government has recently committed to significant reductions in deforestation under its climate change mitigation plan. The country aims to raise more than $20 billion in donations from industrialized countries to fund forest conservation.

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