Brazil's success in slowing rain forest destruction has resulted in enormous reductions in carbon emissions and shows that it's possible to zealously promote sustainability while still growing the economy, suggests a new study out Thursday.

Since 2004, farmers and ranchers in Brazil have saved over 33,000 square miles (86,000 square kilometers) of rain forest from clear-cutting, the rough equivalent of 14.3 million soccer fields, a team of scientists and economists from the U.S. and South America report in Science. At the same time, production of beef and soy from Brazil's Amazon region rose.

The country has reduced deforestation by 70 percent and kept 3.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, because forests use carbon as they grow