The government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil inherited, in its National Forest Program, a formidable proposal to increase the area designated to national forests (Flonas) in the Amazon from eight to 50 million hectares by the year 2010. This objective is an ambitious and worthy conservation goal, and one that appears to be holding approval, give or take a few million hectares, within the new government. Attached to this plan, however, is a lingering desire to allow private timber harvesting on Flonas through a system of forest concessions.
Climatic limit for agriculture in Brazil
Climatic limit for agriculture in Brazil
Brazil’s leadership in soybean and maize production depends on predictable rainfall in the Amazon-Cerrado agricultural frontier. Here we assess whether agricultural expansion and intensification in the region are approaching a climatic limit to rainfed production....