Amazon Deforestation in Brazil: What Has Not Happened and How the Global Media Covered It. (August 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Boucher, Doug; Chi, Dora
• Is Part Of: Tropical conservation science. Volume 11(2018)
• Publication Date: 2018-08
• Subjects: deforestation rate -- Amazon forest -- Brazil -- stability -- recession -- political turmoil -- balance as bias; Rain forest conservation -- Periodicals; Rain forest ecology -- Periodicals; Rain forest conservation; Rain forest ecology; Electronic journals; Periodicals; 577.34
• DOI: 10.1177/1940082918794325
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1940-0829

Abstract

There has been no further change in the deforestation rate in the Brazilian Amazon since our 2013 article in Tropical Conservation Science on the dramatic reduction in deforestation in the late 2000s. This lack of change was actually a remarkable occurrence because deforestation remained stable during a period of major economic recession and great political turbulence at the national level. Coverage of Brazilian Amazon deforestation in the global media during this period was misleading, emphasizing short-term increases in deforestation and erroneously presenting them as "balancing" the earlier dramatic reduction. However, the steady level of deforestation during this period does represent a political failure in which national political leaders did not achieve—or even try to achieve—the eminently feasible goal of zero deforestation.