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Unlock This CourseThe spec asks for one detailed example of a named country or rainforest area. Ours is the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. You already know the general threats, impacts and management from Threats to Rainforests and the Impacts of Deforestation and Managing Rainforests Sustainably. Here we use named places, dates and figures so you can write a 6-mark answer.
Location: the Amazon rainforest covers the Amazon Basin in northern South America, around the Equator. The great river runs past the city of Manaus. The forest spreads across nine countries, and Brazil holds about 60% of it.
Scale: the whole rainforest covers about 5.5 million km2, which is more than half of the world's remaining rainforest. About one in ten of the world's known species live there. Brazil is an MIC.
Named places to use: the states of Pará, Mato Grosso and Rondônia lie along the southern and eastern edge, where clearance is heaviest. This band is often called the "arc of deforestation".
1965: the first Forest Code sets rules on how much forest landowners must keep.
1970: building starts on the Trans-Amazonian Highway.
1988: INPE starts yearly satellite counts of deforestation (PRODES).
2004: deforestation is about 28,000 km2 in a year, the highest of the 2000s.
2006: the soy moratorium begins.
2008: the Amazon Fund is created.
2012: the lowest rate recorded, about 4,600 km2. The Forest Code is updated.
2019: the Belo Monte dam is completed.
2021: the rate rises again to about 13,000 km2.
2025: the rate is about 5,800 km2.
| Threat | Named detail |
|---|---|
| Cattle ranching | The biggest cause. INPE studies found that about 60% of cleared land became cattle pasture. Pará and Mato Grosso have huge herds. |
| Soya farming | Large soya farms for export, mainly in Mato Grosso. Soya often takes land that was first cleared for cattle, which pushes ranchers further into the forest. |
| Logging | Roads cut into the forest for timber, some of it illegal, open it up to settlers and fires. |
| Mining | Iron ore at Carajás in Pará, and illegal gold mining, for example on Yanomami land. |
| Road building | The Trans-Amazonian Highway (BR-230) is about 4,000 km long. Side roads let people in, and clearing spreads out from them in a "fishbone" pattern. |
| HEP dams | Belo Monte on the Xingu River in Pará has a capacity of about 11,000 MW. The reservoir flooded forest and the dam changed the river's flow. |
| Settlements | Governments moved poor families from other regions to the Amazon from the 1970s. Small farmers clear plots using slash-and-burn, and new towns grow along the roads. |
Scales: at local scale, a village loses its fish and forest food. At national scale, Brazil gains export income. At global scale, extra carbon dioxide and lost species affect everybody.
Strategies are the action plans and agreements. Techniques are the methods used.
| Period | Trend | Likely reasons |
|---|---|---|
| 2004 to 2012 | Fell from about 28,000 to about 4,600 km2 a year, a fall of more than 80% | Satellite alerts and tougher enforcement, the soy moratorium, more protected areas |
| 2013 to 2021 | Rose again, to about 13,000 km2 in 2021 | Weaker enforcement, more illegal clearing, Amazon Fund frozen in 2019 |
| 2022 to 2025 | Fell each year, to about 5,800 km2 in 2025 | Enforcement stepped up, Amazon Fund restarted |
Strengths: the success to 2012 shows that strong monitoring plus enforcement can work, even in a forest this large. Weaknesses: the 2021 rise shows that progress depends on political will and funding, and illegal clearing is hard to police over millions of square kilometres. Who benefits: indigenous peoples, wildlife and the world's climate. Ranchers and miners lose short-term income. Cost: satellites, patrols and projects are expensive, and the Amazon Fund relies on money from other countries. Sustainable? For the Amazon, sustainable means keeping the forest and people's livelihoods for future generations. The rate in 2025 is still above the 2012 low, so protection needs to continue and farmers need ways to earn a living without clearing forest.
Writing "the Amazon is cut down for farming" with no names. Always add a named threat (cattle ranching, Belo Monte), a place (Pará, Mato Grosso), a figure or date, and a judgement. Another mistake is to say deforestation just keeps rising. The rate fell, rose, then fell again.
Fig. 1.1 shows made-up data for deforestation in a rainforest region called Region Z. Deforestation was 26,000 km2 in Year 1, 6,000 km2 in Year 8 and 12,000 km2 in Year 17.
(a) Identify the continent where the Amazon rainforest is found. [1]
(b) Describe the change in deforestation shown in Fig. 1.1 between Year 1 and Year 8. [2]
(c) Explain why building roads, such as the Trans-Amazonian Highway, leads to deforestation. [3]
(d) Evaluate the strategies and techniques used to manage the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. [6]
(a) South America (1)
(b) It fell from 26,000 km2 to 6,000 km2 (1), a fall of 20,000 km2 (1).
(c) Roads open up areas that were hard to reach (1). Settlers, ranchers and loggers move in along the road (1) and clear forest for farms, pasture and timber (1).
(d) Level 3 answer: INPE uses satellites, with PRODES for yearly counts and DETER for alerts, so illegal clearing can be found and punished. The soy moratorium of 2006 stopped big traders buying soya grown on newly cleared land. Indigenous reserves cover more than 20% of the Brazilian Amazon and have lower deforestation. The Amazon Fund, paid for mainly by Norway, pays for monitoring and sustainable projects. These worked well, as deforestation fell from about 28,000 km2 in 2004 to about 4,600 km2 in 2012. However, the rate rose to about 13,000 km2 in 2021 when enforcement was weaker and the Amazon Fund was frozen, so the strategies are effective only when they are enforced and funded.
Why this is Level 3: it names several strategies and techniques, supports them with figures and dates, weighs strengths against weaknesses and ends with a clear judgement.
For an evaluation, name at least three strategies or techniques, say what each achieved with a figure or date, and end with a judgement about how well they work.