Deforestation in Pará has more or less come to a halt. In the Brazilian Amazon as a whole, it has fallen from 28,000 sq km in 2004 to under 5,000 sq km last year (see chart 6). Although small farmers continue to clear land in areas where the authority of the state is weak, the big beef and soya companies that used to do it themselves or buy produce from those that did no longer want anything to do with it.