Economic and Social Causes of Deforestation

Why rainforest land is cleared

Deforestation means removing trees so that the land can be used for another purpose. To explain its causes, think about both what replaces the forest and why people want that new land use.

Economic causes involve earning income, producing goods and developing industries. Social causes involve people's needs, such as food, housing, fuel and access to land. These motives often overlap: a family may clear land to feed itself, while a commercial farm clears land to sell crops for profit.

Conversion to agriculture: food and income

Agriculture needs land. When farms expand into tropical rainforest, trees are removed to create fields, plantations or grazing land.

Cattle ranching is an important example in the Amazon Basin. Ranchers need extensive areas of pasture for cattle, so demand for beef encourages forest clearance. Vegetation may be cut and burned to prepare the land: this is slash and burn, a clearance method rather than a separate economic motive.

Forests are also cleared to grow commercial crops. In Brazil, land is used for soybean cultivation. Selling crops provides farmers with income and exports bring money into the national economy. Palm oil plantations are another example: demand for palm oil used in foods and cosmetics encourages the conversion of rainforest into plantations.

Not all agricultural clearance is carried out by large businesses. Landless families may seek a plot on which to grow food. Here, the immediate motive is meeting household needs rather than producing large quantities for export.

Resource extraction: timber and minerals

Rainforests contain resources that can be sold. Logging removes trees for timber and paper products. In the Amazon, valuable hardwoods such as mahogany can be sold for furniture. The prospect of income encourages companies to harvest trees.

Logging also creates access routes. Even where logging does not immediately convert the whole area to another land use, its roads can allow farmers and settlers to enter previously less accessible forest. Timber extraction can therefore help trigger later clearance for agriculture.

Mining requires forest to be cleared to reach mineral deposits and provide space for working areas and supporting infrastructure. At Carajás in Brazil, deposits include iron ore, copper and bauxite. The value of these resources creates an economic incentive to develop mines. Roads and energy supplies needed by mining can increase the area affected beyond the mine itself.

Population pressure: land, homes and livelihoods

Population pressure is the growing demand for land and resources as more people live in an area. It can result from population growth or from people moving into a rainforest region.

More residents need homes, food and fuel. Settlements expand, farmland is extended and trees may be cut for fuelwood. For landless people, moving into the forest may offer access to land and a way to earn a living. In Brazil, government encouragement of settlement in the Amazon has helped open the interior to farming and development.

Employment can also attract migrants. Parauapebas, in Brazil, has grown as workers have arrived for jobs in iron ore mining. This shows how an economic activity can create social pressure: mining attracts workers, and the growing population needs housing and services.

Roads and energy connect the causes

Infrastructure supports farming, logging, mining and settlement. The Trans-Amazon Highway increased access to the Amazon rainforest. Clearance occurs along the road itself, but the wider effect is that people and equipment can reach new areas and products can be transported to markets.

Hydroelectric power schemes supply electricity, but their reservoirs can flood forest. At Balbina in Brazil, reservoir creation caused the loss of rainforest. Energy development therefore supports economic activity while also directly removing forest cover.

These causes reinforce one another. A road may support a mine, attract workers and make nearby land accessible to farmers. A strong explanation follows these connections from the original demand to the resulting forest loss.