Deforestation produces more harm than social or economic benefits in the Amazon region, concludes a report published by the Institute of Man and Environment of the Amazon. Logging in the jungles “generates a surge in employment and interest for no more than 20 years. With the decline of lumber and the establishment of farming, social, economic and environmental collapse begins in most of the region's municipalities,” Danielle Celentano, co-author of the study “The Advance of the Frontier in the Amazon: From Boom to Collapse”, told Tierramérica.

“The burden of this unregulated occupation is transferred to all of society,” she added.

In three decades, deforestation went from 0.5 percent of original forests to nearly 17 percent. Fourteen percent of the deforested areas are already degraded and abandoned.