Amazon Deforestation

  • More Efficient Tools

    When government incentives to clear land met bigger and better tools, large-scale deforestation in the Amazon began.
  • Moving

    Presidente Juscelino Kubitschek moves Brazil's capital from Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia.
  • Military Command

    Military dictatorship takes power, the generals encourage mass migration into the Amazon.
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    Riches

    During 1960 to 2010, the population grew from six million to twenty-five million as people migrated seeking their fortune.
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    Escalation in Deforestation

    During the 1970s and 1980s agriculture dwindles down and projects, such as highways, dams, and mines, bring workers and industry to the rainforest.
  • Ease of Access

    The government declares a plan to build a 2,500-mile long road throught the heart of the rainforest.
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    Brazilian bare-faced tamarin

    Predominantly due to habitat loss, the population of the Brazillian bare-faced tamarin fell by half from 1990 to 2008.
  • Voluntary pledge

    36 countries sign a voluntary pledge to "'at least halve the rate of loss of natural forests globally by 2020 and strive to end natural forest loss by 2030.'"(cfr.org). Brazil doesn't sign.
  • Improvement

    President Dilma Rousseff states that, since 2005, Brazil has reduced Amazonian deforestation by 82 percent. Also, she sets a goal to reduce carbon emissions by 37 percent from 1996–2006 average levels by 2025, and to abolish illegal deforestation by 2030.
  • Realization

    During the late 1980's, satellite images revealed the extent of no conservation laws and what it has done to the area.
  • Extinction

    Dozens of species of Amazonian animals will become extinct, and many plant species endangered by 2050, researchers say.