Deforestation in Brazilian Amazon

The process of occupation in Amazon stimulated lots of factors that induced deforestation. These factors are cattle ranching and agriculture, logging, settlement projects, the opening of new roads, land property rights, populational growth, land speculation, economic growth, and others. This study had the objective of evaluating the influence of many social-economics factors in the deforestation process in Brazilian Amazon, during 1980 and 1999. The variables of the model are deforestation in the Northern region of Brazil, price of cattle meat, cattle heerd in Northern region, production of round wood from native forest, production of timber industry, extension of roads in the Northern region, PIB, IGP, population, rural credit and benefits, average of land prices, average of land prices for agriculture, average of land prices for pasture. The data set was submitted to some statistical analysis, like correlation analysis, main components analysis and linear regression analysis. Results showed that the major factor affecting deforestation is the production of round wood, but the origin of the timber had not been identified, if it's legal or not, from clearing forest or sustainable management. After this, considering the order of importance population growth, productions of sawn wood, roads and cattle herd.