How fast can we destroy the Amazon rainforest?

[corourke]

Half the Amazon Rainforest to be Lost by 2030


According to this article, half of the Amazon rainforest will be gone by 2030. That's quite a bit, and really upsetting, but it got me thinking: could this have happened earlier?

For this to be a really meaningful discussion, it has to be a deliberate action of a state, corporation, or other human entity, not some natural or human-caused event that got out of control, like a meteor or huge fire.


I think the most likely scenario would be an alt-Brazil that really required raw materials and space. If South America had been home to a state that developed a real international significance as a world power, I could see the Amazon being destroyed faster in order to a) build ships (in the age of sail), b) build houses, c) free up land for settlement, farming, and mineral extraction

If sugar were to become extremely valuable, for example in a world where ethanol was used as a fuel, then perhaps the rainforest would be cleared to provide land for huge sugar plantations.

Your thoughts?

 

[Ghydain]

Depends. If Britain colonized South America instead of Spain (it's gonna take a lot of time to figure that out unless of course England remains Catholic) then you'd lose some serious forest (for ships and such). I doubt such a large effect could possibly come from this though.

 

[dreadnought jenkins]

Depends. If Britain colonized South America instead of Spain (it's gonna take a lot of time to figure that out unless of course England remains Catholic) then you'd lose some serious forest (for ships and such). I doubt such a large effect could possibly come from this though.

Brazil was colonised by the Portuguese and thats where most of it is. I don't think England is always the solution.

 

[Ghydain]

Brazil was colonised by the Portuguese and thats where most of it is. I don't think England is always the solution.

I thought Portugal only gained a small piece when the Pope drew that line on the map (forget what it was called, sorry). It was just a thought, though.

 

[Blackwood]

Im still going with my Protestant work ethic. Clearing the forest in the 19th Century for settlement and mining; early global warming anyone? Victorians wouldnt know what hit them......

The economist who thought of the theory was I think Max Weber. His theory however does not take in the economic development of the Po Valley or Catholic Germany. But Niall Ferguson in Empire contrasts the British settler attitude with the Spanish- the British settler put huge value on hard work and a big family; the Spanish married native wives and were less inclined to big families. At least thats what I think it says.....

Eehh...sounds plausible in a sense, but like you said, very vague. I don't think Brazil failed to reach its potential because it "lacked a Protestant work ethic." Put like that it actually sounds vaguely insulting. But I do get what you're saying (I think).

Anyway, Victorian global warming! p) Sounds fun.

 

[Hnau]

This is something I might explore in my Columbian Crusade timeline.

- The Spanish don't discover the Americas, the Portuguese do, beginning with Brazil.
- Ottoman Empire succumbs to a European crusade, which opens up the old Asian trade routes.
- The trans-Africa routes Portugal has been using become much less profitable.
- With colonies in Brazil, Portugal decides to make up the difference in the loss of their monopoly over their trade routes around Africa by expanding in the Americas to take more natural resources.

An earlier boost, but I don't know if long-term trends reduce the importance of that.

 

[rewster]

Well, about 12% of the rainforest was created by Amerindians, and much of the rest was actively managed to maximize fruit and nut trees for human consumption. If they had chosen a different strategy (like overdoing slash and burn) they could have destroyed it hundreds of years ago.

 

[corourke]

Wow, that would be an awesome POD. If the Amerindians had destroyed the rainforest 1000 years ago, and instead there was simply a big grassland, or maybe even a desert. I don't know enough about ecology to know if there could still be a desert with that large of a river going through it.

But what if South America had a vast interior desert, like Australia? How would that change history?

 

[Youdontwanttoknow]

Wow, that would be an awesome POD. If the Amerindians had destroyed the rainforest 1000 years ago, and instead there was simply a big grassland, or maybe even a desert. I don't know enough about ecology to know if there could still be a desert with that large of a river going through it.

But what if South America had a vast interior desert, like Australia? How would that change history?

Ummm, large rivers running through desert..... have you heard of a river called the Nile?? I think this is a good example of how that would work. We could see an Egyptian like civilization in South America.

Another thing that occurs to me with your post is that Australia once had a huge inland sea, that is now the deserts... what if this sea never disapeared?

Obviously the removal of the Amazons does affect weather patterns and climates all around the world.

 

[ninebucks]

Perhaps if Brazil wasn't so big?

If an Alt-Brazil existed surrounding the mouth of the Amazon and extending inwards, but excluding most of OTL Southern Brazil, (maybe the Spanish have it, or maybe another Portuguese colony).

A *Brazil that lacks the productive land to the south, will be much more reliant on the rainforest.

Another great way to destroy an environment is war. In OTL, South America has been relatively peaceful, but say that in TTL, war is a constant occurance in the northern half of the continent. *Brazil's western neighbours attempt to invade through the rainforest, slashing and burning their way through, and the, *Brazil counter-invades, slashing and burning their way back.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

What if 'terra preta' is discovered earlier and the Brazilians use a modern variant and manage to use the ex-rainforest for farming instead for low productivity ranching. This makes the idea of opening up 'unused' land for poor farmers more saleable, and more move north. ?

 

[corourke]

Ummm, large rivers running through desert..... have you heard of a river called the Nile?? I think this is a good example of how that would work. We could see an Egyptian like civilization in South America.

haha, how embarrassing!

Imagine how many crackpot theories about Egyptians traveling to the new world would exist in a TL where South America had its own version of the Nile running through a desert similar to the Sahara...

 

[rewster]

What if 'terra preta' is discovered earlier and the Brazilians use a modern variant and manage to use the ex-rainforest for farming instead for low productivity ranching. This makes the idea of opening up 'unused' land for poor farmers more saleable, and more move north. ?

Interesting. I assume you mean rediscovered? If it happened before the modern environmentalist movement but after the advent of steam, the forest could be gone in a couple of decades... since people would need the wood to create the charcoal to make the dark earth. On the other hand, the farmers would be offered good money for the lumber by the timber industry. I suspect they'd sell the good timber and char the rest. To do it right, they'd want to let the forest regrow in some areas, at least until there was enough carbon in the soil. On the other hand, even if they did it wrong, it just gets us what we're looking for, the destruction of the forest, even faster.

 

[Atom]

Well, about 12% of the rainforest was created by Amerindians, and much of the rest was actively managed to maximize fruit and nut trees for human consumption. If they had chosen a different strategy (like overdoing slash and burn) they could have destroyed it hundreds of years ago.

I don't think they would be able to last long enough to do that kind of massive enviromental destruction. Things would collapse too fast for them to adapt.

The best may is probably to find a couple of cures for most of the Jungle diseases in the early 19th century and have America take less imigrants which will go to Brasil.

 

[Berra]

The ideology that would really have the best chance is communism as it has been applied in the 1900's. I think it is the mix of hard work and low efficency that did it.

A lazy, low efficient system would just grow enough to live from day to day having a good time on the beaches. A High efficency, low work system would have the same outcome, good time on the beach but with gadgets.

A hard work, high efficency system would be rich and thus afford to same Amazonas.

But a hard work (forced), low efficency wouln't afford to save Amazonas and have the ability to cut it down. A lazy society wouldn't.

So Karl Marx goes to Brazil carrying a big ASB in his pocket.

 

[Joseph Solis in Australia]

The colonizers in Brazil is British instead of Portuguese, maybe Brazil would become richer BUT the Amazon rainforest will be done by 1950s due to the rapid industrialization by the British in ATL. Amazon rainforest doesn't done because Portuguese and Brazilians didn't industrialize Brazil fully in 19th century and Portugal also is late on Industrial Revolution. Brazilian economy booms in late-60s up to mid-70s but didn't last. If the Brazilian boom continues (a sustain high growth rate of average of 10% from 1968 to 1990) up to today, maybe Amazon rainforest will be fully done by 2010s replaced by a huge industrial zone or a larger city.

 

[leonardocruzbr]

Just some brazilian insight

Interesting, but... Protestant work ethic, English Colonization, larger population, stronger/earlier industrialization, none of that would work.

The great problem in these sugestions is a fact of the history of economical and demographic development of Brazil. Most of our colonization were in the costal regions, and most of our population lives in the Southeast and the Northeast regions, and most of our industries are in the Southeast Region. And, with both these regions been far, far away from the Amazon Rainforest, it's simply not economically viable, and the reason that the Atlantic Forest (which is located near the coast) is nowadays so small.

And, about using the rainforest region to give land to poor farmers, most of our farms are actually in the Central-West and South Regions. And there's still a lot of unused land that we could possible double or triple our productions without having to came even near the Amazon Rainforest.

leonardocruzbr,
writting from home, in Rio de Janeiro.

 

[leonardocruzbr]

Sorry, the map was supposed to have a legend.

Orange => Northeast Region
Red => Southeast Region
Blue => South Region
Yellow => Central-West Region
Green => North Region

 

[rewster]

I don't think they would be able to last long enough to do that kind of massive enviromental destruction. Things would collapse too fast for them to adapt.

Hmmm. So slash and burn is probably out. Then let's say they stick with the Terra Preta method, but instead of letting the forest grow up on some of the Terra Preta and managing it to produce fruit and nuts, they use it only for cassava and other farm crops. That's about 10-12% of the rainforest right there that wouldn't be there. Ideally, this would mean a larger food supply, which would mean a larger population eventually, and that could lead to further expansion into the rainforest to plant even more cassava, sweet potatoes, etc.