The cattle population in the Brazilian Amazon exploded from 26 million head in 1990 to 57 million in 2002, the study by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) said.

Most of these cattle are now grazing on land that was once rainforest, it said.

"The total area of forest lost in the Amazon rose from 41.5 million hectares in 1990 to 58.7 million hectares in 2000. In just 10 years, the region lost an area of forest twice the size of Portugal. Most of it has become pasture," CIFOR said.

The figures, backed by satellite images of the shrinking forest, show that cattle ranching is even more of a danger to Amazonia than logging and the expansion of soybean cultivation, both of which have received headline attention, the Jakarta-based organisation said.

"This research provides the first substantial data to support recent speculation about the role international demand for Brazilian beef is playing in Brazil's skyrocketing deforestation rate," one of the authors, CIFOR Director-general David Kaimowitz, said.

"Cattle ranchers are making mincemeat out of Brazil's Amazon's rainforests."

Eighty percent of Brazilian beef production comes from the Amazon, and sales abroad have rocketed, driven by devaluation of the Brazilian currency, the real, and Europe's scares about mad-cow disease and foot and mouth disease.

Exports rose from less than 500 million dollars in 1995 to 1.5 billion in 2003, the study, citing data provided by the US Department of Agriculture, said.

TERRA.WIRE