Summary Soybeans represent a recent and powerful threat to tropical biodiversity in Brazil. Developing effective strategies to contain and minimize the environmental impact of soybean cultivation requires understanding of both the forces that drive the soybean advance and the many ways that soybeans and their associated infrastructure catalyse destructive processes. The present paper presents an up-to-date review of the advance of soybeans in Brazil, its environmental and social costs and implications for development policy. Soybeans are driven by global market forces, making them different from many of the land-use changes that have dominated the scene in Brazil so far, particularly in Amazonia. Soybeans are much more damaging than other crops because they justify massive transportation infrastructure projects that unleash a chain of events leading to destruction of natural habitats over wide areas in addition to what is directly cultivated for soybeans. The capacity of global markets to absorb additional production repre- sents the most likely limit to the spread of soybeans, although Brazil may someday come to see the need for discouraging rather than subsidizing this crop because many of its effects are unfavourable to national interests, including severe concentration of land tenure and income, expulsion of population to Amazonian frontier, and gold-mining, as well as urban areas, and the opportunity cost of substantial drains on government resources. The multiple impacts of soybean expansion on biodiversity and other development considerations have several impli- cations for policy: (1) protected areas need to be created in advance of soybean frontiers, (2) elimin- ation of the many subsidies that speed soybean expansion beyond what would occur otherwise from market forces is to be encouraged, (3) studies to assess the costs of social and environmental impacts associ- ated with soybean expansion are urgently required, and (4) the environmental-impact regulatory system requires strengthening, including mechanisms for commitments not to implant specific infrastructure projects that are judged to have excessive impacts. Keywords: soy, soybeans, deforestation, Amazonia, Brazil, biodiversity Introduction International markets for soybeans have been rapidly expanding and the amount supplied by tropical sources has increased even faster than the total volume of global soybean trade, as soy growing has progressively been transferred from temperate to tropical areas where land is cheaper. Latin America is the principal focus of this expansion, especially Brazil, followed by Bolivia and Paraguay. Soybeans represent a new and powerful force among the panoply of threats to biodiversity in Brazil (Carvalho 1999; Osava 1999). Effective strategies to contain the advance of soybeans and the damage this advance causes will require both understanding the processes by which the advance occurs and the nature of its impacts. Changing the direction of development can only be expected if decision-makers and the public are aware of the full range of impacts and of the often indirect means by which they are inflicted. The decision-making process clearly takes little note of the impacts when major projects are launched. The picture of development that emerges is one of a blind flight towards ever-greater and more widely-dispersed areas of soybeans. Brazil’s legal mechanisms for assessing environmental impacts and licensing infrastructure projects are incapable of detecting many of the most severe consequences of soybeans, especially the ‘dragging effect’ through which other destruc- tive activities (such as ranching and logging) are accelerated by infrastructure built for soybeans. Even when problems are evident despite limitations of the environmental impact assessment system, the system is no match for the lobbying power of soy interests. In addition to the inadequacy of regu- latory safeguards, the decision-making process that generates proposal after proposal for grandiose infrastructure projects is effectively disconnected from any consideration of the far- ranging impacts these projects cause. These aspects of the situation should not be taken as givens, but rather as subject to change. Considering the ramifications of the spread of soybeans in some detail provides ample justification for such reforms. The present paper presents a review of up-to-date information on the dynamics and potential impacts of the advance of soybeans in Brazil with a view to identifying appropriate policy responses. Soybeans and deforestation The global market for soybeans, which propels the advance of this crop, is really composed of three markets: whole soybeans, soy oil and soy meal. Most meal goes to Europe (to feed poultry and hogs) and most oil to Asia. The global Soybean cultivation as a threat to the environment in Brazil PHILIP M. FEARNSIDE* Department of Ecology, National Institute for Research in the Amazon (INPA), Avenida André Araújo, 2936 CP 478, 69011–970 Manaus, Amazonas. Study supported by Centre for Applied Biodiversity Science, Conservation International Date submitted: 7 January 2000 Date accepted: 10 October 2000 *Correspondence: Dr Philip M. Fearnside Tel: +55 92 643 1822 Fax: +55 92 642 8909 e-mail: pmfearn@inpa.gov.br Environmental Conservation 28 (1): 23–38 © 2001 Foundation for Environmental Conservation