The notion that deforestation is the result of
poor people clearing to feed themselves is
promoted by politicians in Brazilian Amazonia
to justify their claims that anyone suggesting
that deforestation is harmful or should be
reduced is against the people. Central government
officials have also begun to blame the poor
for clearing, using the (erroneous) argument
that clearing by large ranchers has been
controlled by suspending incentives, so that the
remaining clearing is the work of small farmers.
A strong association between the size distribution
of properties and deforestation rate,
sufficient to explain 74% of the variance in
deforestation rates among the Amazonian
states, indicates that neither of these claims is
true.14 Relatively little deforestation in Brazil is
due to subsistence agriculture; established cattle
ranching projects continue to receive government
subsidies, and ranches (many of which
never had incentives) continue to account for
most deforestation. In both 1990 and 199 1,
small farmers (defined in Brazilian Amazonia
as those with < 100 ha of land) accounted for
about 30% of the deforestation activity, with
70% being done by ranchers. The social costs of
greatly reducing the rate would therefore be
much less than is implied by those who blame
poverty for deforestation.