The importance of secondary forests and the impacts of their substitution by large-scale mechanized grain cultivation in the Amazon region

The teen "degraded lands" leas been used to refer to secondary; or regenera ted, forests in the Brazilian Amazon. Both government and private enterpris e have proposed the mechanized cultivation of grains, specially so bean, ma ize, and rice, as an alternative utilization of these areas, considered pri ma facie to be degraded and unproductive. An analysis of the importance of Amazonian second-growth forests was undertaken front ecological, social and economic points of view, and the impacts are discussed of their proposed s ubstitution by large-scale mechanized grain cultivation.