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A web of front people conceals environmental offenders in the Amazon
- A paper trail left by a notorious land grabber reveals how he used relatives and an employee as fronts to evade environmental fines and lawsuits, shedding light on this widespread practice in the Brazilian Amazon.
- Fronts prevent the real criminals from having their assets seized to pay for environmental fines, besides consuming time and resources from the authorities, who spend years trying to prove who the real financier of the deforestation is.
- Experts say it’s best to go after environmental offenders where it hurts the most, by seizing their assets, rather than to chase down their true identity.
- This investigation is part of a partnership between Mongabay and Repórter Brasil.
Tropical forest loss puts 2030 zero-deforestation target further out of reach
- The overall rate of primary forest loss across the tropics remained stubbornly high in 2023, putting the world well off track from its net-zero deforestation target by 2030, according to a new report from the World Resources Institute.
- The few bright spots were Brazil and Colombia, where changes in political leadership helped drive down deforestation rates in the Amazon.
- Elsewhere, however, several countries hit record-high rates of forest loss, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bolivia and Laos, driven largely by agriculture, mining and fires.
- The report authors call for “bold global mechanisms and unique local initiatives … to achieve enduring reductions in deforestation across all tropical front countries.”
Squeezed-out Amazon smallholders seek new frontiers in Brazil’s Roraima state
- As infrastructure projects and soy plantations pump up land values in the Brazilian Amazon, smallholders are selling up and moving to more distant frontiers, perpetuating a cycle of displacement and deforestation.
- The isolated south of Roraima state has become a priority destination for these migrants, who buy land from informal brokers with questionable paperwork; much of the land has been grabbed from the vast undesignated lands of the Brazilian government.
- Although the appetite for land grabs has diminished since the start of the Lula administration, the region has seen an increase in deforestation in recent years.
Meet the think tank behind the agribusiness’ legislative wins in Brazil
- Agribusiness giants in the soy, beef, cotton and pesticides industries, among others, maintain a strong lobbying presence in Brazil’s Congress that offers advisory, technical and communication support to “ruralist” legislators.
- Central to these lobbying efforts is Pensar Agro (“thinking agribusiness”), or IPA, the think tank behind newly passed legislation like the so-called time frame bill that undermines Indigenous land rights and opens up the territories to mining and agribusiness.
- The institute’s strategy includes spreading fake news and crafting talking points for legislators from the agribusiness caucus to force through their bills.
Why the Amazon’s small streams have a major impact on its grand rivers
- An unprecedented time-series study in the basin of the Tapajós River, a major tributary of the Amazon, assesses the level of degradation of small rivers threatened by agribusiness expansion.
- Researchers from several universities will assess the conservation status of 100 streams spread between the municipalities of Santarém and Paragominas, at the confluence of the Tapajós and the Amazon, which were first analyzed in 2010.
- The impact of dirt roads and their network of river crossings, which causes sediment load, siltation, erosion and changes in water quality, was one of the factors that caught researchers’ attention in the initial time-series study.
- Experts say that local development models should ideally start from water to land, rather than the other way around, given the importance of water for the rainforest, its biodiversity, and the inhabitants who depend on both.
Promise of full demarcation for isolated Amazon tribe rings hollow for some
- The 23-year struggle to declare a territory for the isolated Kawahiva people of the Brazilian Amazon could finally conclude this year after the government announced the closing stages of the demarcation process will begin soon.
- The physical demarcation will formally define the boundaries of the 412,000-hectare (1.02-million-acre) territory in Mato Grosso state, home to some 45-50 Kawahiva, which is a crucial step before a presidential declaration recognizing the Indigenous territory.
- However, some Indigenous experts remain skeptical the territory will ever be fully demarcated in the face of ever-present delays and structural problems within the Indigenous affairs agency.
- The territory sits within the “Arc of Deforestation” in the southern part of the Brazilian Amazon, which is slowly moving north as cattle ranchers, miners, loggers and soy growers clear forest for more land.
Rural finance in the Pan Amazon: the Brazil success case
- Mongabay has begun publishing a new edition of the book, “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon,” in short installments and in three languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.
- Author Timothy J. Killeen is an academic and expert who, since the 1980s, has studied the rainforests of Brazil and Bolivia, where he lived for more than 35 years.
- Chronicling the efforts of nine Amazonian countries to curb deforestation, this edition provides an overview of the topics most relevant to the conservation of the region’s biodiversity, ecosystem services and Indigenous cultures, as well as a description of the conventional and sustainable development models that are vying for space within the regional economy.
- Click the “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon” link atop this page to see chapters 1-13 as they are published during 2023 and 2024.
Roundtables and certification schemes in the Pan-Amazon
- Mongabay has begun publishing a new edition of the book, “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon,” in short installments and in three languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.
- Author Timothy J. Killeen is an academic and expert who, since the 1980s, has studied the rainforests of Brazil and Bolivia, where he lived for more than 35 years.
- Chronicling the efforts of nine Amazonian countries to curb deforestation, this edition provides an overview of the topics most relevant to the conservation of the region’s biodiversity, ecosystem services and Indigenous cultures, as well as a description of the conventional and sustainable development models that are vying for space within the regional economy.
- Click the “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon” link atop this page to see chapters 1-13 as they are published during 2023 and 2024.
Coca in the Amazon – The anti-development crop
- Mongabay has begun publishing a new edition of the book, “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon,” in short installments and in three languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.
- Author Timothy J. Killeen is an academic and expert who, since the 1980s, has studied the rainforests of Brazil and Bolivia, where he lived for more than 35 years.
- Chronicling the efforts of nine Amazonian countries to curb deforestation, this edition provides an overview of the topics most relevant to the conservation of the region’s biodiversity, ecosystem services and Indigenous cultures, as well as a description of the conventional and sustainable development models that are vying for space within the regional economy.
- Click the “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon” link atop this page to see chapters 1-13 as they are published during 2023 and 2024.
Local and national food crops in the Andean Amazon
- Mongabay has begun publishing a new edition of the book, “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon,” in short installments and in three languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.
- Author Timothy J. Killeen is an academic and expert who, since the 1980s, has studied the rainforests of Brazil and Bolivia, where he lived for more than 35 years.
- Chronicling the efforts of nine Amazonian countries to curb deforestation, this edition provides an overview of the topics most relevant to the conservation of the region’s biodiversity, ecosystem services and Indigenous cultures, as well as a description of the conventional and sustainable development models that are vying for space within the regional economy.
- Click the “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon” link atop this page to see chapters 1-13 as they are published during 2023 and 2024.
The man who made a pact with wild bees in Colombia’s Amazon
- Delio de Jesús Suárez Gómez, a member of the Indigenous Tucano community in Colombia, is combining ancestral knowledge with science to help pollinating bees survive the harsh conditions of life in the rainforest.
- In return, the bees provide honey for families, which is sold, and boosts the communities’ food and fruit supply through pollination.
- The newly-formed group Asomegua (Asociación de Meliponicultores del Guainía) is the result of a decade of beekeeping in La Ceiba, a community on the banks of the Inírida River near the famous Mavicure Hills.
- Bee populations around the world, which participate in the pollination of 75% of the world’s food crops, are on the decline, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
High quality cacao in Amazonia
- Mongabay has begun publishing a new edition of the book, “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon,” in short installments and in three languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.
- Author Timothy J. Killeen is an academic and expert who, since the 1980s, has studied the rainforests of Brazil and Bolivia, where he lived for more than 35 years.
- Chronicling the efforts of nine Amazonian countries to curb deforestation, this edition provides an overview of the topics most relevant to the conservation of the region’s biodiversity, ecosystem services and Indigenous cultures, as well as a description of the conventional and sustainable development models that are vying for space within the regional economy.
- Click the “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon” link atop this page to see chapters 1-13 as they are published during 2023 and 2024.
Cultivation and processing of Amazonian coffees
- Mongabay has begun publishing a new edition of the book, “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon,” in short installments and in three languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.
- Author Timothy J. Killeen is an academic and expert who, since the 1980s, has studied the rainforests of Brazil and Bolivia, where he lived for more than 35 years.
- Chronicling the efforts of nine Amazonian countries to curb deforestation, this edition provides an overview of the topics most relevant to the conservation of the region’s biodiversity, ecosystem services and Indigenous cultures, as well as a description of the conventional and sustainable development models that are vying for space within the regional economy.
- Click the “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon” link atop this page to see chapters 1-13 as they are published during 2023 and 2024.
Coffee and cacao in the Pan Amazon
- Mongabay has begun publishing a new edition of the book, “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon,” in short installments and in three languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.
- Author Timothy J. Killeen is an academic and expert who, since the 1980s, has studied the rainforests of Brazil and Bolivia, where he lived for more than 35 years.
- Chronicling the efforts of nine Amazonian countries to curb deforestation, this edition provides an overview of the topics most relevant to the conservation of the region’s biodiversity, ecosystem services and Indigenous cultures, as well as a description of the conventional and sustainable development models that are vying for space within the regional economy.
- Click the “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon” link atop this page to see chapters 1-13 as they are published during 2023 and 2024.
The coveted legacy of the ‘Man of the Hole’ and his cultivated Amazon forest
- Tanaru, also known as The Man of the Hole, was an Indigenous person who survived several massacres that decimated his relatives in the state of Rondônia, in the Brazilian Amazon, in the 1980s and 1990s.
- He was the last of his group and refused contact with non-Indigenous Brazilian society and with other Indigenous people for decades, and he died peacefully in 2022.
- Tanaru’s dramatic story was told in Corumbiara, a documentary by Vincent Carelli, who hoped to capture Tanaru’s footage to persuade the Brazilian state to recognize the land as an Indigenous territory.
- Now Indigenous people and advocates are fighting for the Tanaru Indigenous land to remain an Indigenous territory, but ranchers want to take possession of the plot to turn it into pastures and soy fields.
French banks accused of money laundering linked to Amazon deforestation
- A coalition of NGOs has filed a criminal complaint against several French banks for allegedly financing meat companies driving deforestation in Brazil.
- Between 2013 and 2021, the four French banks involved invested a total of nearly $70 million in bonds issued by leading meat companies in Brazil generating about $11.7 million in profits.
- This is the first time that French banks have received a criminal complaint for money laundering, receiving stolen goods related to funding deforestation and profiteering from it.
- An analysis of JBS and Marfrig slaughterhouses in Pará and Mato Grosso found that more than 50% and 40% of suppliers, respectively, showed evidence of irregularities, including deforestation and intrusion into Indigenous lands and protected forests.
Palm oil cultivation in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil
- Mongabay has begun publishing a new edition of the book, “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon,” in short installments and in three languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.
- Mongabay has begun publishing a new edition of the book, “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon,” in short installments and in three languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.
- Chronicling the efforts of nine Amazonian countries to curb deforestation, this edition provides an overview of the topics most relevant to the conservation of the region’s biodiversity, ecosystem services and Indigenous cultures, as well as a description of the conventional and sustainable development models that are vying for space within the regional economy.
- Click the “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon” link atop this page to see chapters 1-13 as they are published during 2023 and 2024.
Study links pesticides to child cancer deaths in Brazilian Amazon & Cerrado
- According to new research, for every 5 tons of soy per hectare produced in the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado, an equivalent of one out of 10,000 children under 10 succumbed to acute lymphoblastic leukemia five years later.
- The researchers estimate that 123 childhood deaths during the 2008-19 period are associated with exposure to pesticides from the soy fields, amounting to half the deaths of children under 10 from lymphoblastic leukemia in the region.
- Experts say that the research is just the tip of the iceberg, and many other diseases and deaths may be associated with chemicals used in crops; further studies are needed.
Oil palm in the Pan Amazon
- Mongabay has begun publishing a new edition of the book, “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon,” in short installments and in three languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.
- Author Timothy J. Killeen is an academic and expert who, since the 1980s, has studied the rainforests of Brazil and Bolivia, where he lived for more than 35 years.
- Chronicling the efforts of nine Amazonian countries to curb deforestation, this edition provides an overview of the topics most relevant to the conservation of the region’s biodiversity, ecosystem services and Indigenous cultures, as well as a description of the conventional and sustainable development models that are vying for space within the regional economy.
- Click the “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon” link atop this page to see chapters 1-13 as they are published during 2023 and 2024.
Agriculture in the Pan-Amazon: Swine and poultry – Adding value to farm production
- Mongabay has begun publishing a new edition of the book, “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon,” in short installments and in three languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.
- Author Timothy J. Killeen is an academic and expert who, since the 1980s, has studied the rainforests of Brazil and Bolivia, where he lived for more than 35 years.
- Chronicling the efforts of nine Amazonian countries to curb deforestation, this edition provides an overview of the topics most relevant to the conservation of the region’s biodiversity, ecosystem services and Indigenous cultures, as well as a description of the conventional and sustainable development models that are vying for space within the regional economy.
- Click the “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon” link atop this page to see chapters 1-13 as they are published during 2023 and 2024.
Agriculture in the Pan Amazon: Industrial infrastructure for grains and cereals
- Mongabay has begun publishing a new edition of the book, “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon,” in short installments and in three languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.
- Author Timothy J. Killeen is an academic and expert who, since the 1980s, has studied the rainforests of Brazil and Bolivia, where he lived for more than 35 years.
- Chronicling the efforts of nine Amazonian countries to curb deforestation, this edition provides an overview of the topics most relevant to the conservation of the region’s biodiversity, ecosystem services and Indigenous cultures, as well as a description of the conventional and sustainable development models that are vying for space within the regional economy.
- Click the “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon” link atop this page to see chapters 1-13 as they are published during 2023.
Intensive agriculture in the Pan Amazon: Soy, maize and other field crops
- Mongabay has begun publishing a new edition of the book, “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon,” in short installments and in three languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.
- Author Timothy J. Killeen is an academic and expert who, since the 1980s, has studied the rainforests of Brazil and Bolivia, where he lived for more than 35 years.
- Chronicling the efforts of nine Amazonian countries to curb deforestation, this edition provides an overview of the topics most relevant to the conservation of the region’s biodiversity, ecosystem services and Indigenous cultures, as well as a description of the conventional and sustainable development models that are vying for space within the regional economy.
- Click the “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon” link atop this page to see chapters 1-13 as they are published during 2023.
Livestock farming in the Andean Amazon and the rest of the Amazon
- Mongabay has begun publishing a new edition of the book, “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon,” in short installments and in three languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.
- Author Timothy J. Killeen is an academic and expert who, since the 1980s, has studied the rainforests of Brazil and Bolivia, where he lived for more than 35 years.
- Chronicling the efforts of nine Amazonian countries to curb deforestation, this edition provides an overview of the topics most relevant to the conservation of the region’s biodiversity, ecosystem services and Indigenous cultures, as well as a description of the conventional and sustainable development models that are vying for space within the regional economy.
- Click the “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon” link atop this page to see chapters 1-13 as they are published during 2023.
Plan to bring Mennonite farmers to Suriname sparks deforestation fears
- Investors from Argentina and the Netherlands have spent the past several years trying to bring Mennonite farming communities to Suriname from Belize, Mexico and Bolivia.
- Mennonite farmers have faced criticism for clearing thousands of hectares of forest across Latin America, often in protected areas and Indigenous territories.
- The company behind the project is called Terra Invest Suriname & Guyana, and plans to purchase as much as 30,000 hectares (about 74,000 acres) for approximately 1,000 Mennonite families.
Cacao and cupuaçu emerge as Amazon’s bioeconomy showcases
- A handful of pioneering Amazonian chocolatiers are promoting keeping the rainforest standing by taking advantage of two forest products: cacao and cupuaçu.
- Selling high-end chocolate made from both of these closely related pods increases the value of the products and also allows local communities to earn higher incomes, thereby giving them an incentive not to deforest.
- Portable biofactories are also set to teach traditional communities how to make bean-to-bar premium chocolate products, helping to increase the value of the raw cacao by up to 2,000%.
- These projects are part of an emerging bioeconomy in the Amazonian region, which experts say will keep the rainforest standing while also lifting the region’s population out of poverty.
EU bill and new green policies spur progress on Brazil’s cattle tracking
- Brazilian banks have created new rules for releasing credit to meatpackers and slaughterhouses in Amazonian states in which their clients must implement traceability and monitoring systems by 2025 to show that their cattle didn’t come from illegal deforestation.
- Even the powerful Brazilian Agriculture and Livestock Confederation (CNA) recognizes the cattle tracking demand and proposes a traceability model to the federal government.
- A new study shows that existing cattle companies’ zero-deforestation commitments have reduced Brazilian Amazon deforestation by 15% and that the devastation could be halved by scaling up the implementation of supply chain policies.
- The ideal animal tracking model is individual, but experts defend a middle-of-the-road solution to reduce illegal deforestation based on cross-referencing from inter-ranch cattle transport data and the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR).
In Roraima, Indigenous communities forge sustainable solutions amid threats
- Sustainable farming, mercury-free fishing and circular trade are among the strategies Amazon Indigenous peoples have been developing to survive in one of the most hostile states for Indigenous people in Brazil.
- Territorial and Environmental Management Plans (PGTAs) are one of the Indigenous-led tools for communities to create strategies to manage their natural resources and provide income for families in their territories.
- For long-term survival, these sustainable initiatives require investments, but previous experience has shown that a top-down approach is often counterproductive.
- But even as they achieve successes with various initiatives, monoculture agribusiness, illegal mining and land grabbing continue to threaten their livelihoods.
How the Amazon’s ‘greatest devastator’ sold cattle to a Carrefour supplier
- Arrested by Brazilian Federal Police, cattle rancher Bruno Heller and relatives have already received over $5 million in environmental fines. He is also suspected of land grabbing.
- Heller transported cattle from a family farm fined for environmental violations to two other properties free from environmental implications — this maneuver is an indication of the so-called “cattle laundering.”
- A Frialto Group meatpacking plant confirmed that it slaughtered 249 animals for the Heller family. The facility supplies Carrefour, but the French retail company states that the meat from animals raised by Heller did not reach its supermarkets.
Oil palm and balsa plantations trigger deforestation in Ecuadorian Amazon
- Roads constructed for the oil industry have facilitated timber extraction in the Amazon for decades. Recent deforestation alerts show that this problem is ongoing.
- In Via Auca, one of the most deforested areas of Ecuador’s Amazon, farmers are turning to planting oil palm under the contract farming model.
- On the Via a Loreto, Indigenous Kichwa people are focusing on cultivating balsa trees used for a material that has been in high demand in the wind energy industry for the last five years.
Despite lawsuit, Casino Group still sells beef from Amazonian Indigenous territory
- A new investigation shows that farms located in the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous Territory in the Brazilian Amazon supplied two JBS meatpacking plants that sell beef to brands of the French supermarket giant.
- In most cases, animals were not transferred directly from ranches in the Indigenous land to JBS, but went through different farms before arriving at slaughterhouses, when it was no longer possible to differentiate between cattle from the Indigenous land and others.
- This maneuver is known as ‘cattle laundering’ and aims to hide any potentially illegal origin of the animals.
- Casino said its suppliers are required to detail the supply route and that it directly rechecks all farms, but it’s up to meatpackers to monitor indirect suppliers; meanwhile, the meatpacker says it has no control over indirect suppliers.
Climate emergency may channel millions in resources toward corn-based ethanol in the Amazon
- An agribusiness magnate from the U.S., who is already the biggest producer of corn-based ethanol in Brazil, plans to leverage “green” investments from governments and banks to meet negative carbon emissions using an unproven method.
- His company is trying to implement in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso a copy of his Midwest Carbon project, an initiative that plans to capture 12 million tons of carbon in ethanol plants and store them in North Dakota, below ground.
- Even though the company alleges that it is rigorously controlling the environmental practices of its corn suppliers in Brazil, an investigation found that the local executives are themselves connected to illegal deforestation in Mato Grosso.
Colombian chef spearheads a food-based bioeconomy in the Colombian Amazon
- Colombian chef Mauricio Velasco Castro, founder of Amazonico restaurant in Mocoa, Putumayo, has turned to the Amazon Rainforest for inspiration and identity; he hopes to help build a bioeconomy through food and sustainable ingredients and native medicinal and edible products.
- Amazonico gets its supplies from 22 small-scale producers from Putumayo, including from Indigenous communities and campesinos.
- The bioeconomy is an economic system based on renewable biological natural resources, and it is an integral part of Colombia’s new national plan created by President Gustavo Petro and approved by Congress in May; Petro has said the bioeconomy in Amazonia will be key to saving the rainforest and raising the region’s living standards.
Agro giants buy grains from farmers fined for using Indigenous land in Brazil
- Bunge, Cargill, COFCO, Amaggi, ADM do Brasil, Viterra and General Mills bought soy and corn in an area where “grain laundering” is admitted by producers and civil servants.
- The illegal crops came from areas on the border of the Amazon Rainforest which had restrictions for production, but the real origin of the grains were concealed through paperwork.
- The revelations come from a joint investigation by the Brazilian news outlets Repórter Brasil and O Joio e o Trigo.
Amazon Rainforest loss could reach new height in just 5 years, study says
- A recent study has found that in the five-year period between 2021 and 2025, the Amazon could lose half the total forest cover it lost in the previous 20 years, amounting to a further loss of 237,058 square kilometers (91,529 square miles).
- From 2001-20, the rainforest lost more than 500,000 km2 (200,000 mi2) of forest cover, an area larger than Spain, mostly because of road development, agricultural expansion and mining.
- Deforestation rates continue to accelerate in almost all nine Amazonian countries, especially in Brazil, Bolivia, Peru and Colombia.
- Implementing efficient public policies and strengthening control and monitoring are essential to reduce rising deforestation rates, but experts warn economic interests often clash with conservation efforts in the Amazon.
Logging permit threatens Quilombola bioeconomic ‘paradise’ in the Amazon
- Loggers have entered the Trombetas River Biological Reserve in Oriximiná, in Brazil’s Pará state, to develop a forest management project that has divided the local Quilombola community.
- The reserve is known for its successful bioeconomy project, but the association representing the six local communities signed a contract with a logging company to explore timber in the area.
- The Quilombola say they weren’t properly consulted about the contract and the Public Ministry of Pará recommended interrupting actions for timber management, but the association says it will not suspend the work without a judicial order.
- The Quilombola territory is part of the mosaic of protected areas between the Amazon River and the border with Suriname and Guyana, one of the largest continuous forest blocks in the world.
Brazil’s Indigenous groups demand a voice in new soybean railway project
- The Ferrogrão railway project was conceived with a view to reducing transportation costs between the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso and Pará, where soybeans are one of the main export products.
- The railway has been met with resistance from the region’s Indigenous peoples, who will be impacted by the socio-environmental risks associated with the project.
- A study by the Federal University of Minas Gerais highlighted that the Ferrogrão railway line will cross several Indigenous territories in the Xingu River Basin, something that could see more than 230,000 hectares (568,000 acres) of rainforest lost to deforestation in Indigenous territories in the state of Mato Grosso by 2035; more than half of this would be in the Xingu Indigenous Park alone.
- After the project was suspended by Brazil’s Supreme Court in 2021, it has since been marked as a priority by the current government and its future will be decided by the Court’s plenary session in May this year.
Deforestation could pose disease threat to Amazon’s white-lipped peccaries
- White-lipped peccaries are vital ecosystem engineers and an important source of food for people living in the Amazon.
- Deforestation has reduced their habitat and, in addition, researchers highlight that disease is an understudied factor in their conservation.
- Scientists say it could represent an additional threat to an already vulnerable species, as continuing deforestation and expanding agricultural frontiers can bring greater contact between domestic animals and wildlife, potentially leading to spillover events.
Bolivia has a soy deforestation problem. It’s worse than previously thought.
- Recently released satellite data from Bolivia shows that soy plantations were responsible for over 900,000 hectares (2.2 million acres) of deforestation between 2001 and 2021.
- Nearly a quarter of the deforestation was caused by Mennonite communities, who purchased the land legally in hopes of expanding their simple, rural lifestyles.
- This better understanding of Mennonite activity in Bolivia comes from a new data set from Global Forest Watch, which combined soy plantation mapping with forest loss imagery to determine soy-driven deforestation.
Lula wants to mirror Amazon’s lessons in all biomes, but challenges await
- A new decree intends to protect all of Brazil’s biomes and promote sustainable development in arguably one of the country’s most ambitious environmental policies to date.
- The mandate establishes action plans for the Amazon Rainforest, Cerrado savanna, Atlantic Forest, semi-arid Caatinga, Pampas grasslands and Pantanal wetlands, based on past strategies in the Amazon that have already proven successful against deforestation.
- Environmentalists have welcomed the decree amid the country’s surging deforestation levels and rising greenhouse emissions during the past four years under Jair Bolsonaro’s rule.
- The decree’s implementation won’t be easy, experts warn, and its success depends on coordinated action across all levels of the government, increased personnel in struggling environmental enforcement agencies and highly tailored plans for each biome.
Violence in Brazil’s Amazon are also crimes against humanity, lawyers tell international court
- Three organizations, including Greenpeace Brazil, filed a case with the International Criminal Court (ICC) pressing for the investigation into a network of politicians, law enforcement and business executives they suspect are responsible for systematic attacks against land defenders.
- They documented over 400 murders, 500 attempted murders, 2,200 death threats, 2,000 assaults and 80 cases of torture that occurred between 2011 and 2022.
- Former Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro is one suspect in these crimes, yet the organizations say the attacks are part of a larger system operating in Brazil, and will likely continue even when he’s out of office.
- If the criminal court choses to go forward with this case, it will be the first time they investigate crimes against humanity committed in the context of environmental destruction.
Deforestation ‘out of control’ in reserve in Brazil’s cattle capital
- Forest destruction has ravaged Triunfo do Xingu, a reserve earmarked for sustainable use that has nonetheless become one of the most deforested slices of the Brazilian Amazon.
- Fires burned swaths of the reserve in recent months and forest clearing has surged, with satellite images showing even the most remote remnants of old-growth rainforest were whittled away last year.
- Advocates say the forest is mainly giving way to cattle pasture, although illegal mining and land grabbing are gaining ground.
- The destruction, facilitated by lax environmental regulation, is placing pressure on nearby protected areas and undermining agroforestry efforts in Triunfo do Xingu, advocates say.
Weakening of agrarian reform program increases violence against settlers in Brazilian Amazon
- Residents of a landless workers’ settlement in Anapu, Pará state, in Brazil’s Amazon region, accuse the federal government of favoring large landowners, land-grabbers and corporations at the expense of poor and landless peasants.
- This year, the settlers have already suffered three attacks by landowners, with houses set on fire and a school destroyed.
- In 2021, Incra, the Brazilian federal agency responsible for addressing the country’s deep inequalities in rural land use and ownership, made an agreement with the mining company Belo Sun, which ceded 2,400 hectares (5,930 acres) of an area reserved for agrarian reform for gold exploration in exchange for equipment and a percentage of mining profits.
- In protest, landless peasants occupied one of the areas included in the agreement; since then, they have been threatened and intimidated by Belo Sun supporters and armed security guards hired by the mining company.
From deforestation to restoration: Policy plots path to Amazon recovery
- Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s new president, took office and promised to halt deforestation and to restore degraded land but plans to regenerate deforested areas remain unclear.
- The Science Panel for the Amazon at the COP27 climate summit provided the scientific basis to guide debates and decisions around the large-scale recovery of deforested and degraded areas.
- The most significant opportunity for large-scale and low-cost restoration is concentrated in public forests, protected areas and Indigenous lands that have suffered recent degradation.
- For areas with high levels of degradation, especially on private lands, productive restoration models capable of providing sustainable economic development are the main bet.
In Brazil’s Amazon, land grabbers scramble to claim disputed Indigenous reserve
- The Apyterewa Indigenous Territory has been under federal protection since 2007, but in recent years has become one of the most deforested reserves in Brazil, as loggers, ranchers and miners have invaded and razed swaths of forest.
- As President Jair Bolsonaro prepares to leave office, land grabbers are rushing to “deforest while there is still time,” advocates say, with forest clearing in Apyterewa on track to hit new highs this year.
- The surge in invasions has aggravated a decades-long tussle for land between Indigenous people and settlers, who first started trickling into Apyterewa in the 1980s and have since built villages, schools and churches within the reserve.
- The Parakanã people say the outsiders, new and old, are polluting their water sources, depleting forest resources, and threatening their traditional way of life.
Mongabay’s top Amazon stories from 2022
- Violence against activists and Indigenous people in the Amazon has made world headlines, with little progress on tackling impunity.
- The victory of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil’s presidential race and a more prominent role in the government for Indigenous representatives have brought more hope around slashing deforestation and preventing the Amazon from reaching a point of no return.
- Infrastructure and mining projects have continued sprouting across the Amazon basin, threatening the livelihoods of Indigenous people and driving more forest loss.
- Deforestation rates in Brazil dropped by about 11% in 2022, but an overview of President Jair Bolsonaro’s term shows the worst forest loss in decades.
Amazon-produced cacao offers climate solutions
- Cacao plantations in the Brazilian state of Pará have helped to recover about 150,000 hectares (370,660 acres) of degraded land in the last 25 years.
- The Brazilian government has supported agroforestry within key commercial crops, such as cacao, to fight rampant deforestation in the Amazon and offset carbon.
- By 2030, another 250,000 cacao trees are expected to be planted in the region, according to some sources, increasing cacao’s currently cultivated area by 25%.
- One hectare of cacao plantation under an agroforestry system can remove 165 tons of carbon from the atmosphere, Brazilian research shows, which could make carbon markets an attractive opportunity for farmers in the Amazon.
How agroforestry can restore degraded lands and provide income in the Amazon
- As Brazil prepares to turn the page on the Bolsonaro government, finding sustainable and economically viable alternatives for the Amazon region remains challenging.
- Advocates tout agroforestry as a sustainable farming alternative to soy monocultures and cattle ranching. It can restore degraded pastures and provide a stable income for small farmers.
- One such project is RECA, a sustainable farming cooperative and an agroforestry pioneer in Brazil’s Amazon, with more than 30 years of experience.
- Yet expertise, financing, scale, science and technology are significant challenges.
To be effective, zero-deforestation pledges need a critical mass, study shows
- The importance of rapidly halting tropical deforestation to achieve net-zero emissions was a key message at this year’s climate summit, but corporate efforts to this end have stalled for decades.
- Cattle, soy and palm oil are the main commodities driving deforestation and destruction of other important ecosystems. Zero-deforestation commitments from the companies that trade in those commodities are seen as an important way to reduce deforestation globally.
- A new study compares the effectiveness of corporate commitments to reduce soy-related deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado, showing that zero-deforestation commitments can reduce deforestation locally, but only if there is widespread adoption and implementation among both small and big soy traders.
- Overall, the study points to the limitations of relying just on supply chain agreements to reduce regional deforestation and protect biodiverse ecosystems, and highlights the need for strong public-private partnerships.
Brazil’s new environmental future under Lula: Q&A with Marina Silva
- Considered for Brazil’s Ministry of the Environment, environmentalist Marina Silva says in an interview with Mongabay that the election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva means a new cycle of prosperity for the country, “when it will be possible to make the transition to a new development model that is capable of fighting inequality with democracy and sustainability.”
- “Part of the agribusiness sector is realizing that this practice by Bolsonaro is bad for business,” the congresswoman-elect said about the possibility of reconciling the environmental agenda and the demands of agribusiness.
- Silva stressed that the current challenges are much greater than those faced when she was a member of Lula’s first administration in 2003: “We are not going to become sustainable in the blink of an eye. It’s a transition.”
Delayed Indigenous ‘Man of the Hole’ burial reveals dispute over his land
- A court ruling ordered Brazil’s Indigenous agency Funai to bury the remains of the Indigenous Tanaru man, known as the “Man of the Hole,” three months after his death, following 26 years of solitude as the last member of his tribe.
- Critics accuse Funai’s president, Marcelo Xavier, of working in favor of local agribusiness interests by deliberately stalling the funeral to help farmers claim the rights to the land.
- The delay of his burial was partly due to a debate over what will happen to the land where the Indigenous man lived, which is covered in Amazon rainforest and is currently protected by a restriction of use ordinance until 2025.
- The Federal Public Ministry and Amazon activists call for the land to be permanently preserved, while local farmers claim they are the owners and demand the restrictions of use be revoked to allow for agricultural expansion.
Growing soy on cattle pasture can eliminate Amazon deforestation in Brazil
- Expanding soy cultivation into underutilized cattle pastureland would help prevent massive deforestation and carbon emissions compared to the current practice of clearing new forest for farmland, a new study says.
- Experts say that Brazil, the world’s No. 1 soy producer and beef exporter, has enough pastureland lying unused that would allow soy production to increase by more than a third without any further deforestation.
- Researchers warn that if Brazil continues with its current method of soy cultivation, it would end up clearing 5.7 million hectares (14 million acres) of Amazon rainforest and Cerrado savanna into cropland over the next 15 years.
- Environmentalists have welcomed intensifying agriculture as a solution to deforestation, but have raised concerns about the potential for increased pesticide use, biodiversity loss, and the expansion of cattle ranching into forested areas.
Bolsonaro loses election but finds big support in Amazon Arc of Deforestation
- In a close runoff, incumbent Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was defeated in his reelection bid against former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
- Bolsonaro, however, won in eight of the 10 Brazilian municipalities with the biggest deforestation rates in the Amazon forest last year.
- Bolsonaro won in the majority of the 256 municipalities in the Arc of Deforestation, which accounts for about 75% of the deforestation in the Amazon, as well as in Novo Progresso, in Pará, where ranchers, loggers and land-grabbers orchestrated a significant burning of deforested areas in 2019.
- Historical, economic, social and religious elements explain the preference for Bolsonaro in a swath of Brazilian territory where people have been encouraged to cut the forest down.
At the mouth of the Amazon, sustainable açaí leaves a sweet taste for communities
- Residents of the Bailique Archipelago, which lies at the mouth of the Amazon River, established a community protocol to promote their traditional açaí cultivation and strengthen their cultural identity.
- In 2016, the açaí collected by Amazonbai, the local cooperative composed of more than 2,000 people, became the world’s first and only açaí production chain to gain Forest Stewardship Council certification.
- A key challenge to this sustainable livelihood is the increasing saltwater intrusion into the islands’ water sources, the result of both climatic factors and human interference in the regional landscape.
Beef is still coming from protected areas in the Amazon, study shows
- According to a new study, 1.1 million cattle were bought directly from protected areas and another 2.2 million spent at least a portion of their lives grazing in protected areas and Indigenous territories.
- Researchers compiled public records on cattle transit, property boundaries and protected area boundaries between 2013 and 2018. The study period ended in 2018 because, “at the start of 2019, this critical information became less available,” the lead author said.
- Under Brazil’s current President Jair Bolsonaro, who was elected at the start of 2019, the country has seen policies weakening various environmental protections and monitoring agencies, and deforestation has reached its highest levels in 15 years.
- Around 70% of deforestation in the Amazon has been linked to cattle ranching. Meat producers have made commitments to stop sourcing from illegally deforested lands, but a lack of information about where cattle are grazing has allowed many companies to escape accountability.
Mongabay probe key as Brazil court rules on palm oil pesticide contamination
- Prosecutors in Brazil say the findings from a Mongabay investigation were key to obtaining a court decision this week to probe the environmental impacts of pesticides used by oil palm plantations on Indigenous communities and the environment in northern Pará state.
- On Oct. 4, the Federal Circuit Court for the First Region in Brasília approved a forensic investigation into pesticide contamination and the socioenvironmental and health impacts in the Turé-Mariquita Indigenous Territory and the production zone of the country’s largest palm oil operation in the Tomé-Açú region.
- The green light to carry out the expert report was finally issued eight years after the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) filed a lawsuit to hold palm oil company Biopalma — acquired by Brasil BioFuels S.A. (BBF) in late 2020 — accountable for environmental impacts.
- A 2017 University of Brasília study, contained in the Mongabay investigation, found traces of three pesticides (two of them typically listed among those used in oil palm cultivation) in the major streams and wells used by the Tembé people in Turé-Mariquita.
European bill passes to ban imports of deforestation-linked commodities
- Imports of 14 types of commodities into the European Union will soon have to be verified for possible association with deforestation in the countries in which they were produced.
- That’s the key provision in a bill passed on Sept. 13 by the European Parliament, which initially targeted soy, beef, palm oil, timber, cocoa, and coffee, but now also includes pork, lamb and goat meat, as well as poultry, corn, rubber, charcoal, and printed paper.
- The bill still needs the approval of the Council of the EU and the national parliaments of the 27 countries in the bloc, but is already considered a historic step against deforestation.
- In Brazil, experts have welcomed the bill as a means of tackling the demand-side pressures driving increasing levels of deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest, while the agribusiness lobby has denounced it as unfair.
Bolsonaro trails in polls, but his base in Congress looks likely to persist
- With Brazil’s presidential election scheduled for Oct. 2, environmental activists have expressed hope that a turning point in favor of nature could be just weeks away if Jair Bolsonaro loses.
- But two-thirds of the current lower house of Congress voted for anti-environmental bills, and experts predict that the profile of the lawmakers will remain right-wing and pro-agribusiness.
- Deforestation in the Amazon rose to its highest levels in 10 years under Bolsonaro, who vowed to open up the rainforest to agriculture and mining.
- However, experts say a greener agenda could be possible depending on who is appointed the next lower and upper house presidents, a decision that will be made early next year.
Crimes against the Amazon reverberate across Brazil, analysis shows
- Crimes associated with illegal logging, mining and other illicit activities in the Brazilian Amazon are being felt in 24 of Brazil’s 27 states, a new report shows.
- Records of more than 300 Federal Police operations between 2016 and 2021 show that crimes such as tax evasion, money laundering, corruption and wildlife trafficking are reverberating far beyond the rainforest.
- Deforestation is at the center of the criminal economy in the Amazon, driving four main illegal activities: logging, mining, occupation of public lands, and environmental violations associated with agriculture.
- Nearly half of the police operations investigated crimes that occurred in protected areas in the Amazon, including 37 Indigenous territories.
Venezuelan Amazon deforestation expands due to lawlessness, mining, fires: Reports
- Multiple recent reports show that deforestation has greatly increased in Venezuela’s Amazonian states of Bolívar and Amazonas, largely due to illegal mining, expanded agriculture and fires.
- Venezuelan protected areas have been especially hard hit, with illegal incursions and major deforestation occurring inside Caura, Canaima and Yapacana national parks.
- Soaring deforestation rates are blamed partly on Colombian guerrillas operating illegally within Venezuela’s borders, an invasion that one report alleges has been supported by the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
- Forest loss has been well confirmed via satellite, while ground truthing has been obtained via firsthand accounts.
Commodity kings Cargill, Bunge buying soy from stolen Indigenous land, report says
- Commodity-trading giants Cargill and Bunge source some of the soy used in products like chicken feed and pet food to land where Indigenous communities have suffered violence and displacement, according to a new report from Earthsight, an organization investigating environmental and social injustices.
- The companies have ties to a 9,700-hectare (24,000-acre) soy farm in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul that operates on the ancestral land of the Guarani Kaiowá, an Indigenous group that has spent the last several decades fighting forced eviction.
- Earthsight has documented supply chain links between soy from the Brasília do Sul farm and chicken retailers like KFC, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Aldi and Iceland, as well as German supermarket chains like Rewe Markt, Netto Marken-Discount, Lidl, Aldi and Edeka.
- Earthsight said Cargill and Bunge need to take a firmer stance on Indigenous rights rather than passing off responsibility to intermediaries or deferring to legal loopholes.
Big banks fund the heavy machinery used for Amazon deforestation, report says
- A new report from investigative outlet Repórter Brasil describes how the demand for heavy machinery like bulldozers, excavators and tractors is accelerating deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
- Heavy machinery is present at most steps of the process of nearly every activity driving deforestation, including cattle ranching, industrial agriculture and mining, among others.
- A lack of oversight by the government, manufacturers and the banks providing loans for the purchase of the machinery means that almost anyone can acquire one for any purpose.
- The report suggests that GPS tracking technologies be implemented for all heavy machinery and that banks carry out more rigorous due diligence measures.
From agribusiness to oil to nuclear power and submarines: welcome to anti-environmental Putin-Bolsonaro alliance (commentary)
- Brazil’s dependence on Russian fertilizers has contributed to Jair Bolsonaro’s friendly relationship with Vladimir Putin as well as environmental impacts in the South American nation.
- In this editorial Nikolas Kozloff, an American academic, author and photojournalist, reviews some of the implications of the growing ties between the two leaders, including deforestation in the Amazon, extractive industries, and infrastructure projects.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Foreign capital powers Brazil’s meatpackers and helps deforest the Amazon
- To conquer the world market, Brazil’s Big Three beef packers — JBS, Marfrig and Minerva — invited in foreign capital. Today, all three are transnationals, with the original Brazilian founders owning only minority shares in their own companies.
- Foreign investors, including asset management companies and pension funds, now own large stakes, which means that ordinary citizens in the United States and elsewhere are helping fund Amazon deforestation through their investments.
- The three Brazilian families behind the Big Three have remarkable rags-to-riches histories, though with the speed of their expansion and dominance greatly assisted by the Brazilian government, keen to produce “National Champions.”
- The companies expanded rapidly abroad, but their presence in the U.S. means they are now subject to greater scrutiny from authorities and NGOs. However, most small-scale investors, including working people, have no awareness they’re investing in the destruction of the Amazon, one of the world’s most crucial carbon sinks.
A new index measures the human impacts on Amazon waters
- Based on the best scientific data available, the unprecedented Amazon Water Impact Index draws together monitoring and research data to identify the most vulnerable areas of the Brazilian Amazon.
- According to the index, 20% of the 11,216 Brazilian Amazon micro basins have an impact considered high, very high or extreme; half of these watersheds are affected by hydroelectric plants.
- The same index points out that 323 of the 385 Indigenous Lands in the Brazilian Amazon face a medium to low impact, which demonstrates the fundamental role of these areas in protecting the aquatic ecosystems of the Amazon.
- The Amazon River Basin covers 7 million square kilometers (2.7 million square miles) and contains 20% of all freshwater on the Earth’s surface; still, little is known about the impacts of increased human activity on aquatic ecosystems.
Brazil bill seeks to redraw Amazon borders in favor of agribusiness
- A new bill before Brazil’s Congress proposes cutting out the state of Mato Grosso from the country’s legally defined Amazon region to allow greater deforestation there for agribusiness.
- Under the bill, known as PL 337, requirements to maintain Amazonian vegetation in the state at 80% of a rural property’s area, and 35% for Cerrado vegetation, would be slashed to just 20% for both.
- The approval of the bill would allow for an increase in deforestation of at least 10 million hectares (25 million acres) — an area the size of South Korea — and exempt farmers from having to restore degraded areas on their properties.
- Environmental law specialists warn that the departure of Mato Grosso from under the administrative umbrella of the Legal Amazon would set off a domino effect encouraging the eight other states in the region to push for similar bills.
‘Giving up’: Amazon is losing its resilience under human pressure, study shows
- The Amazon Rainforest is losing its ability to bounce back from repeated disturbances, according to a new study.
- Researchers found that three-quarters of the Amazon has lost some resilience, or ability to regain biomass after disturbance. This loss of resilience is especially high in regions close to human activity and with less rainfall.
- As the forest is slashed, burned and degraded, it’s left with less vegetation, which means less evapotranspiration, leading to less rain. And less rain leads to further droughts, fires, tree death and forest degradation — a feedback loop of destruction and loss of resilience.
- The lead author describes the findings as “depressing” but also says that “having an early warning of this gives us a chance to do something about it … Rather than focusing on the trajectory the Amazon is on, we can instead try and change it.”
2021 Amazon deforestation map shows devastating impact of ranching, agriculture
- Amazon Conservation’s Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) found that around 1.9 million hectares (4.8 million acres) of the Amazon were lost last year, mostly in Brazil and Bolivia.
- The mapping data shine a light on the different causes of deforestation in each country, including agriculture, cattle ranching and road construction.
- The data also provide some positive takeaways, such as Peru’s successful crackdown on illegal mining, and a contiguous core section of Amazonian forest still acting as a carbon sink.
John Deere and Brazilian bank team up to equip farmers deforesting the Amazon
- Farmers whose properties have been embargoed by environmental authorities in Brazil for deforestation have still been able to access government-subsidized loans to buy John Deere tractors, an investigation has found.
- The five farmers identified in the investigation received a combined 28.6 million reais ($5.4 million) in loans under a program administered by the state-owned Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) and underwritten by John Deere Bank, a wholly owned subsidiary of the U.S. farm equipment manufacturer.
- Under Central Bank rules, farms that have been embargoed for deforestation are barred from accessing credit, but a loophole allows the farm owners to apply on the basis of a different property; in some cases, lender oversight was so lax that the farmers didn’t need to resort to this subterfuge.
- In addition to being embargoed, some of the farmers also had outstanding fines for environmental violations; one of them still owed 18 million reais ($3.4 million), yet went on to receive 11 million reais ($2.1 million) in loans.
Cattle boom in Brazil’s Acre spells doom for Amazon rainforest, activists warn
- Government data show the number of cattle in Acre, a state in the Brazilian Amazon, increased by 8.3% in 2020, putting the state’s herd size at more than 3.8 million, or four times its human population.
- The cattle industry is a key driver of Acre’s economy, and aligns with the state’s aims of promoting and expanding agricultural development within the region.
- However, activists say they’re concerned the increase will lead to further environmental damage in the state, which this year recorded its highest deforestation rate in 18 years.
- Experts say Acre’s cattle growth is currently not sustainable and will lead to further deforestation in the Amazon unless sustainable solutions are encouraged and implemented.
Across Latin America, Mennonites seek out isolation at the expense of forests
- A conservative religious group called Low German Mennonites has been accused of ongoing deforestation in Central and South America and encroaching on Indigenous communities’ land.
- They started migrating to Latin America from Canada more than 100 years ago, after refusing to integrate into modernizing society.
- With a reputation for being successful farmers, the group was granted privileges by Latin American governments that have played a facilitating role in the continuous expansion into previously untouched forest landscapes.
Mongabay reporter sued in what appears to be a pattern of legal intimidation by Peruvian cacao company
- A Peruvian cacao company that sued a Mongabay Latam writer for reporting on its deforestation in the Amazon has also targeted others in what lawyers said appears to be a pattern of intimidation.
- Tamshi, formerly Cacao del Perú Norte SAC, had its lawsuit against Mongabay Latam’s Yvette Sierra Praeli thrown out by a court in November.
- A separate lawsuit against four environment ministry officials, including the one who led the prosecution of the company, has also been dropped, although it may still be appealed.
- In a third lawsuit, environmental activist Lucila Pautrat, who documented farmers’ allegations against Tamshi, was handed a two-year suspended sentence and fine, but is appealing the decision.
In Brazil, an agribusiness haven’s green pivot leaves many skeptical
- The Amacro project was conceived in early 2020 as an agribusiness hub in a heavily deforested part of the Brazilian Amazon, but a year later is being touted as a hub for sustainable business.
- Now renamed the Abunã-Madeira Sustainable Development Area (ZDS), it stretches across 32 municipalities in the states of Amazonas, Acre and Rondônia, which last year accounted for nearly a quarter of the total deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
- The ZDS project aims to attract investments into a wide range of sectors, from agroforestry and fish farming, to tourism and logistics, as well as the agribusiness, while promising to avoid deforestation through technology to help boost agricultural productivity.
- Despite these green claims, prosecutors and nonprofit researchers say the prospect of new investment is already boosting land grabbing and deforestation in the area, and argue the best way to halt deforestation is to create protected areas — something that’s not included in the ZDS project.
Brazil leads Amazon in forest loss this year, Indigenous and protected areas hold out
- Satellite imagery brings us a first look at this year’s deforestation hotspots, areas where forest cover was lost in high densities across the Amazon, amounting to more than 860,000 hectares (2.1 million acres).
- The majority of deforestation (76%) occurred in Brazil and was clustered around roads, according to a recent report from Amazon Conservation’s Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP); many of the areas deforested this year in Brazil have also burned.
- In Colombia, deforestation hotspots this year were in and around numerous protected areas, including Tinigua and Chiribiquete national parks, as well as Indigenous reserves, particularly Yari-Yaguara II and Nukak Maku; in Peru, rice farming and a new Mennonite colony drove recent deforestation.
- Of primary forests loss across the western Amazon between 2017 and 2020, three-quarters were outside protected areas and Indigenous territories, highlighting the importance of these key land use designations for safeguarding the remaining Amazon rainforest.
Amazon, meet Amazon: Tech giant rolls out rainforest carbon offset project
- Tech giant Amazon has announced a nature-based carbon removal project in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest in partnership with The Nature Conservancy (TNC).
- The project will help small farmers produce sustainable agricultural produce through reforestation and regenerative agroforestry programs, in exchange for carbon credits that will go to the internet company.
- Called the Agroforestry and Restoration Accelerator, the initiative is expected to support 3,000 small farmers in Pará state and restore an area the size of Seattle in the first three years, and in the process remove up to 10 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through 2050.
- In addition to addressing climate and social issues, the partners say the project intends to address the shortcomings of the carbon credit market by creating new standards for the industry.
Climate change threatens traditional extractive communities in the Amazon
- Traditional peoples in the Amazon are already experiencing the scientific community’s warnings that rising temperatures will impact those who depend on the forest for their livelihood.
- Brazil nuts, açaí berries, andiroba oil, copaíba oil, rubber, cacao and cupuaçu fruits are some of the products at risk of disappearance or reduced production in the next 30 years.
- In addition to climate change’s environmental impact on these resources, the social impact will likely bring worsening poverty and an exodus of traditional peoples to urban areas.
Grain production depends on ending deforestation, studies show
- Recent scientific studies confirm what Brazilian farmers already feel in practice: the uncontrolled production of agricultural commodities is destroying the productivity and profits of agribusiness itself, a cycle researchers are calling “agro-suicide.”
- Regions such as the southern Amazon and Matopiba (the borderland between the Brazilian states of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia) in the Cerrado savanna are the most affected by lack of rain, prolonged rains and waves of extreme heat.
- Resulting financial losses are expected to reach at least $4.5 billion annually by 2050, according to a conservative estimate; if deforestation continues unchecked, damage could reach $9 billion per year.
- Though grim, the scenario can still be reversed; one recommendation from the study is to adopt a moratorium on soy in the Cerrado, inspired by the Amazon Soy Moratorium.
Brazil punching below its weight in getting forest products to the world
- Brazil may have given its name to the Brazil nut, but it exports less than 6% of the global export market of the nut, while Bolivia supplies 52%.
- That’s one of several key findings from new research that shows that Brazil, home to a third of all tropical forests, is punching well below its own weight when it comes to the value of its exports of forest-derived commodities.
- Experts highlight several key obstacles preventing production and export of these commodities from being scaled up, including logistics, lack of technical expertise and equipment, and costly certification requirements for breaking into markets like the EU.
- Proponents say ramping up production and exports of forest commodities could be the key to achieving economic and social development in the Brazilian Amazon, as well as a way of reviving vast swaths of degraded and abandoned areas.
Why we need the government to curb Amazon deforestation? (commentary)
- Deforestation is rising in the Brazilian Amazon, with last year’s forest loss reaching the high level since 2008.
- Brazilian lawyers Daniela Castro, the founder and CEO of Impacta Advocacy, and Silvia Gonçalves, head of projects at Impacta Advocacy, argue that combatting deforestation in Brazil requires government intervention.
- “Without government action, there won’t be better days for the rainforest,” write Castro and Gonçalves. “The fact is only the government has the resources, institutions and power on a scale capable of halting deforestation.”
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
More than 250 major fires detected in the Amazon this year, despite Brazil’s ban
- There have been 267 major fires detected in the Amazon this year, burning more than 105,000 hectares (260,000 acres) — an area roughly the size of Los Angeles, California.
- More than 75% of these fires blazed in the Brazilian Amazon, in areas where trees have been cut to make way for agriculture, despite a June 27 ban on unauthorized outdoor fires by the Brazilian government.
- The first forest fires of the season have also been detected, those that have escaped pastures and burned standing Amazon rainforest, where fires are not historically naturally occurring.
- A historic drought, rampant deforestation, and lax environmental regulations mean this year is likely to be a bad year for fires, experts say.
As blazes on embargoed Amazon land surge, links to meat industry emerge
- An analysis of fires on land sanctioned for illegal deforestation show the number of major fires has increased during Jair Bolsonaro’s administration.
- Brazil’s largest meatpackers have sourced hundreds of head of cattle from a farmer in Mato Grosso state linked to repeated cases of deforestation resulting in multiple embargoes and subsequent fires.
- Published in cooperation with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, these findings raise serious questions about the effectiveness and enforcement of Brazil’s embargo system and undermine the “deforestation-free” claims of multinational meat companies and their international customers.
Lessons from Brazil’s São Paulo droughts (commentary)
- São Paulo is increasingly facing severe droughts, as is the case in 2021. In 2014 the city came close to having its reservoirs run dry. Brazil’s agriculture and hydropower also depend on reliable rains.
- Anthropogenic climate change is increasing the fluctuations in ocean surface water temperatures, and the frequency is increasing of the combination of warm water in the Atlantic and cold water in the Pacific off the coasts of South America, a combination that leads to droughts in São Paulo.
- The trends in ocean temperatures are expected to worsen these droughts, but what could make them truly catastrophic is the prospect of this variation being combined with the impact of deforestation depriving São Paulo of the water that is recycled by the Amazon forest and transported to southeastern Brazil by the “flying rivers.” The lessons are clear: control global warming and stop deforestation.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
New index measuring rainforest vulnerability to sound alarm on tipping points
- The new Tropical Forest Vulnerability Index (TFVI) will use satellite data to assess the impact of growing threats such as land clearance and rising temperatures on forests.
- Backed by the National Geographic Society and Swiss watchmaker Rolex, TFVI aims to identify forests most at risk, to be prioritized for conservation efforts.
- Researchers combined 40 years of satellite measurements and forest observations covering tropical forests worldwide to come up with the standardized monitoring system.
- In recent years, multiple stressors have pushed forests to a tipping point, causing them to gradually lose their ecological functions, including their capacity to store carbon and recycle water, the study says.
Soy and cattle team up to drive deforestation in South America: Study
- Between 2000 and 2019, the production of soybean in South America has doubled, covering an area larger than the state of California.
- Soybean farms are typically planted in old cattle pastures, and as soy encroaches, pasture is forced into new frontiers, driving deforestation and fires.
- Although soy was found to be largely an indirect driver of deforestation, policies addressing deforestation have to consider multiple commodities at once, such as the relationship between beef and soy.
- Increased commitments by companies to source from “zero-deforestation” supply chains are a promising strategy, but in order to work, the market needs to be more transparent.
Fire season intensifies in the Brazilian Amazon, feeding off deforestation
- Twenty-four major fires have burned in the Brazilian Amazon so far this year, all of them set on land previously deforested in 2020, until this week when the first major blaze was set on land cleared in 2021.
- Experts are expecting this to be a bad year for fires, owing to a historic drought, high levels of deforestation, and a lack of funding for environmental law enforcement.
- President Jair Bolsonaro signed a decree on June 23 to send Brazilian soldiers into the Amazon to curb deforestation (which often precedes fires), but one expert calls this a “smokescreen” that would allow deforestation to continue.
- Deforestation rates have been higher under Bolsonaro than any past president: in 2020, Brazil lost a Central Park-sized area of forest every two hours, and on the day with the highest rate of deforestation, July 31, an estimated 2 million trees were cut down.
Farmers in the Amazon could earn 9 times more and prevent ecosystem collapse
- In this opinion piece, Jonah Wittkamper, Alexander Borges Rose, and Denis Minev argue that agroforestry in the Amazon “can replace cattle, generate new wealth, create jobs and develop new economic zones that insulate pristine forest from deforestation risk.”
- “The opportunity is huge and the needs are urgent,” they write. “If landowners switched from producing soy to a polyculture of fruit and horticultural products, their income would more than triple.”
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Bigger is badder when it comes to climate impact of farms in the Amazon
- A 20-year analysis of satellite data shows significant temperature differences in agricultural lands in southern Amazonia, depending on farm size.
- Extensively deforested commercial farms are up to 3 °C (5.4 °F) warmer than adjacent forests, while on smaller farms this difference is 1.85 °C (3.3 °F).
- Management practices that try to balance productivity with the maintenance of essential ecosystem services, such as the water cycle, will be crucial to preserving the Amazon’s remaining forests, the study’s authors say.
Slash-and-burn clearing nears Indigenous park as Brazil’s fire season ignites
- Xingu Indigenous Park shields one of the last remaining large tracts of old growth rainforest in Brazil’s “arc of deforestation,” and is inhabited by dozens of Indigenous communities.
- The park experienced a jump in deforestation in 2020, quadrupling the amount of primary forest it lost in 2019.
- Most of this deforestation was caused by wildfires, which likely spread from slash-and-burn activity on nearby agricultural fields.
- Satellite data and imagery show agricultural fields and fires expanding towards the park in 2021 despite a prohibition on dry-season burning and a drought the likes of which haven’t been seen in nearly a century.
New areas of primary forest cleared in Brazil’s ‘lawless’ Lábrea
- Satellite imagery reveals several areas of primary rainforest were cleared alongside agricultural fields in Lábrea municipality in the Brazilian Amazon.
- The deforestation occurred in four areas and covers around 2,115 hectares (5,226 acres), all in close proximity to Indigenous and protected lands.
- Lábrea municipality has been called a “crime factory,” where its remote location and lack of law enforcement act as a catalyst for illegal deforestation and land grabbing.
- Forest destruction in the Brazilian Amazon hit a 14-year high for the month of May, amounting to 118,000 hectares (292,000 acres), an area roughly 20 times the size of Manhattan.
The Brazilian Amazon is burning, again
- In recent weeks, nine major fires have been burning in the Brazilian Amazon, heralding an unsettling start to another fire season—which experts say could be a bad one after a particularly dry year.
- The first major fire of the year occurred on May 19, near the border of Serra Ricardo Franco State Park in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil, where all of the nine major fires have occurred averaging around 200 hectares (494 acres) each.
- All of the 2021 fires are on land deforested in 2020, emphasizing the connection between deforestation and fire in the Brazilian Amazon.
- Looking ahead, one expert says we can expect to see patterns similar to last year, with fires in deforested areas early in the season (June through August), with a possible shift to standing forests as the dry season intensifies.
Science refutes United Cacao’s claim it didn’t deforest Peruvian Amazon
- Years of satellite imagery and analysis reveals that United Cacao, a company once publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange, deforested nearly 2,000 hectares (about 5,000 acres) of primary forest in the Peruvian Amazon.
- The evidence refutes the company’s narrative that farmers had degraded the land before it arrived.
- The deforestation, as well as other legal violations, have led to sanctions against a successor to United Cacao’s Peruvian subsidiary, now called Tamshi SAC.
- But Tamshi is now claiming that Mongabay Latam improperly used the term “deforestation” and has sued for defamation.
Settlers invading, deforesting Colombian national parks ‘at an unstoppable speed’
- Colombia’s Tinigua National Natural Park is experiencing one of the highest levels of deforestation of any such protected area in the country, and has lost more than a quarter of its primary forest since 2002.
- Sources say this deforestation is happening due to settlers who are illegally invading and establishing roads, settlements and farms in protected forest – and clearing it in the process.
- Other national parks and Indigenous territories in the Colombian Amazon are also experiencing incursions.
- Sources say they are happening at such a scale that the government has been unable to effectively stop it.
Behind the scenes video unveils water contamination by ‘sustainable’ Amazon palm oil
- Brazil’s official policy states that Amazon palm oil is green, but is that true? An 18-month investigation showed the opposite, with impacts including deforestation and water contamination, and it revealed what appears to be an industry-wide pattern of brazen disregard for Amazon conservation and for the rights of Indigenous people and traditional communities in northern Pará state.
- The Mongabay investigation will be used by federal prosecutors as evidence to hold a palm oil company accountable for water contamination in the Turé-Mariquita Indigenous Reserve.
- Federal prosecutors have pursued Brazil’s leading palm oil exporters in the courts for the past seven years, alleging the companies are contaminating water supplies, poisoning the soil, and harming the livelihoods and health of Indigenous and traditional peoples, charges the companies deny.
- In this behind-the-scenes video, Mongabay’s Contributing Editor in Brazil, Karla Mendes, takes us on her reporting journey as her team tracks how the palm oil industry is changing this Amazonian landscape.
‘Zero illegal deforestation’ – One more Bolsonaro distortion (commentary)
- At U.S. President Joe Biden’s virtual climate summit on Earth Day, 22 April, Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro promised “zero illegal deforestation by 2030.”
- “Zero illegal deforestation” can be achieved in two ways: by stopping deforestation, and by legalizing the deforestation that is taking place. The second path is in full swing.
- A series of laws facilitating “land grabbing” (which in Brazil means large-scale illegal appropriation of government land) is being fast-tracked in the National Congress with support from Bolsonaro.
- Once grabbed land is legalized, the deforestation on it can be “amnestied” and subsequent deforestation legally permitted. The end result is more deforestation. All deforestation, legal or not, causes climate change. This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Criticizing Brazil over Amazon conservation will likely backfire (commentary)
- Although Brazilians share a concern for the Amazon, and even hosted the groundbreaking Earth Summit in 1992, polls show less consensus on who is responsible for Amazon deforestation, who is best addressing this problem, or the role of foreign actors.
- When activists or leaders from abroad single out Brazil and its president as bad actors on the environment, they risk potential backlash from Brazilians who often view such attacks as a double standard.
- The heavy-handed tone that the Biden Administration has adopted may create unfortunate roadblocks to the progress which is possible, argue two authors from the Amazon Environmental Research Institute and the University of São Paulo.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
Bolsonaro abandons enhanced Amazon commitment same day he makes it
- Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro offered up Amazon conservation promises during the April 22 virtual Climate Leaders Summit hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden and attended by heads of state from more than forty nations.
- That same day, Bolsonaro approved Brazil’s 2021 budget that includes a R$240 million ($44 million) annual reduction for the Ministry of the Environment. Conservationists say that the cuts will be utterly devastating for the nation’s deforestation monitoring program.
- The reductions will also impact the monitoring of pollution levels, pesticide contamination (Brazil under Bolsonaro is the biggest user of pesticides in the world), illegal mining, and wildlife trafficking. ICMbio, which oversees 334 of Brazil’s protected areas, also saw cuts.
- While environmentalists were enraged by the slashed ministry budget, the agricultural sector remains largely happy with Bolsonaro whose policies continue to benefit them. However, if Brazil continues along an anti-environmental path, it risks global boycotts of its commodities.
The political economy of the Pan-Amazon (book excerpt)
- Tim Killeen provides an update on the state of the Amazon in his new book “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon Wilderness – Success and Failure in the Fight to save an Ecosystem of Critical Importance to the Planet.”
- The book provides an overview of the topics most relevant to the conservation of the Amazon’s biodiversity, ecosystem services and Indigenous cultures, as well as a description of the conventional and sustainable development models vying for space within the regional economy.
- Mongabay will publish excerpts from the Killeen’s book, which will be released by The White Horse Press in serial format over the course of the next year. In this first installment, we provide a section from Chapter One: The State of The Amazon.
- This post is an except from a book. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Cattle-driven clearing continues in Brazil’s Triunfo do Xingu protected area
- Triunfo do Xingu Environmental Protection Area lies in the ecologically rich Xingu Basin in the Brazilian Amazon and spans some 1.7 million hectares (4.2 million acres) — an area more than half the size of Belgium.
- Despite its protected status, the area has been heavily deforested, losing 476,000 hectares (1.18 million acres) of humid primary forest between 2006 and 2020, according to satellite data from the University of Maryland (UMD), a 32% decrease in total forest cover.
- 2020 saw the highest amount of forest loss since the creation of the protected area, nearly 70,000 hectares (173,000 acres) — an area nearly the size of New York City; preliminary data show clearing of Triunfo do Xingu’s forests has continued into 2021, with “unusually high” levels of deforestation detected the week of March 15.
- Deforestation in the region is largely driven by cattle ranching, and sources say the invasions of Triunfo do Xingu are aided by its remoteness as well as lax enforcement of environmental regulations.
Intimidation of Brazil’s enviro scientists, academics, officials on upswing
- Increasingly, Brazilian environmental researchers, academics and officials appear to be coming under fire for their scientific work or views, sometimes from the Jair Bolsonaro government, but also from anonymous Bolsonaro supporters.
- Researchers and academics have come under attack for their scientific work on agrochemicals, deforestation and other topics, as well as for their socio-environmental views. Attacks have taken the form of anonymous insults and death threats, gag orders, equipment thefts, and even attempted kidnapping.
- A range of intimidation is being experienced by officials, including firings and threats of retaliation for institutional criticism at IBAMA, Brazil’s environment agency, ICMBio, the Chico Mendes Institute of Biodiversity Conservation overseeing Brazil’s national parks, and FUNAI, the Indigenous affairs agency.
- “Whose interests benefit from the denial of the data on deforestation… from criminalizing the action of NGOs and environmentalists? What we are witnessing is a coordinated action to make it easier for agribusiness to advance into Indigenous territories and standing forest,” says one critic.
Beef giant JBS vows to go deforestation-free — 14 years from now
- JBS, a giant company implicated in multiple cases of large-scale forest clearing in Brazil, recently made a commitment to achieve zero deforestation across its global supply chain by 2035. Environmentalists argue this pledge is grossly insufficient.
- In a new Soy and Cattle Deforestation Tracker, JBS scores just a single point out of 100. Its nearest competitors, Minerva and Marfrig, have scores of 46/100 and 40/100 respectively.
- Tagging and tracking systems to ensure transparency along the entire beef supply have long been proposed, but JBS has resisted disclosing its full list of suppliers.
- Under present conditions, Brazil is losing forest cover at the fastest rate in more than a decade, and this deforestation is driven largely by the meatpacking industry.
Can palm oil be grown sustainably? Agroforestry research suggests it can, and without chemicals
- Oil palms are typically grown in large monocultures worldwide, and aside from the deforestation these plantations are typically associated with, water pollution from heavy chemical application is another problem.
- But must oil palms be grown in monocultures with heavy chemical inputs to produce a profitable crop? Mongabay asked a researcher in Brazil about his group’s findings indicating that they do not.
- Using an ecologically friendly agroforestry system, the researchers have demonstrated higher yields on 18 demonstration farms: 180 kg of fresh fruit bunches per plant, compared with 139 kg per plant from monocultures.
- By growing oil palms in an agroforestry system among other useful and profitable crops–like açaí and passionfruit plus timber trees like mahogany and fertilizer trees plus annuals like cassava–farmers have more crops to eat and sell, enjoy greater resilience to palm oil price variations, and can make a competitive profit without using toxic and expensive chemicals.
Brazil prosecutors cite Mongabay probe in new legal battle against palm oil firms
- Prosecutors in Brazil say they will use findings from an investigation by Mongabay as evidence to hold a palm oil company accountable for water contamination in an Indigenous reserve in the Amazon.
- The move comes as prosecutors filed an appeal March 26 against a ruling blocking a forensic investigation into water contamination from pesticide use by Biopalma that has impacted the Tembé people of the Turé-Mariquita Indigenous Reserve in Pará state.
- Mongabay’s 18-month investigation, published March 12, revealed evidence of this pollution as well as similar cases involving two other top Brazilian palm oil companies, pointing to a potentially industry-wide pattern of disregard for Amazon conservation and for the rights of Indigenous people and traditional communities.
- The investigation also revealed the clearing of native forests for oil palm cultivation, as shown through satellite imagery, contradicting claims by the companies and the government that oil palm crops are planted only on already deforested land.
Podcast: Palm oil plantations and their impacts have arrived in the Amazon
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we speak with Mongabay’s contributing editor for Brazil, Karla Mendes, who recently published an investigative report that found the palm oil industry’s growth in the Brazilian Amazon is driving the same deforestation and community conflicts oil palm operations are responsible for in Southeast Asia.
- We also speak with Sandra Damiani, a researcher at the University of Brasília whose study found that both above-ground watercourses and groundwater in the Turé-Mariquita Indigenous Reserve in Brazil’s Pará state were contaminated with pesticides and herbicides used on nearby palm oil plantations.
- Lastly, we speak with Felício Pontes Júnior, a federal prosecutor for the Amazon region who filed a lawsuit seven years against one of Brazil’s biggest palm oil companies, but is still fighting to do the investigation needed to prove who’s responsible for the pollution in the Turé-Mariquita Indigenous Reserve.
BlackRock must commit to Indigenous rights — not just climate change (commentary)
- BlackRock is an investment management firm reportedly with $8 trillion in assets. It is also well documented for its financing of large-scale mining, fossil fuel production and agribusiness projects across Latin America doing harm to Indigenous communities in Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Brazil and elsewhere.
- The company has recently become outspoken about its position to vigorously combat climate change. But even though the United Nations recognizes Indigenous peoples as the best stewards of the environment, guardians of their lands and defenders against climate change, BlackRock remains virtually silent on Indigenous issues.
- If the company’s climate change commitment is to be taken seriously by the world, then BlackRock needs to step up now and adopt an explicit “Forest and Indigenous Rights Policy.”
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Video: Communities struggle against palm oil plantations spreading in Brazilian Amazon
- Palm oil, a crop synonymous with deforestation and conflict in Southeast Asia, is making inroads in the Brazilian Amazon, where the same issues are now playing out. Indigenous and traditional communities say the plantations in their midst are polluting their rivers and lands, and driving fish and game away.
- Federal prosecutors have pursued Brazil’s leading palm oil exporters in the courts for the past seven years–alleging the companies are contaminating water supplies, poisoning the soil, and harming the livelihoods and health of Indigenous and traditional peoples–charges the companies deny.
- This video was produced as part of an 18-month investigation into the palm oil industry in the Brazilian state of Pará.
Brazil must do more to protect its people, forests, and the planet (commentary)
- Amid skyrocketing deforestation and destruction of Brazil’s natural environment, the Bolsonaro government is weakening climate commitments and rolling back domestic environmental protections, driving Brazil’s people and the planet ‘off a cliff.’
- This destruction threatens Indigenous communities, wildlife and the global climate, and it is also unpopular in Brazil, as it threatens the country’s economic standing, with reports emerging that rampant deforestation is blocking Brazil’s accession to the OECD.
- Urgent solutions to this existential threat for irreplaceable biomes include stronger climate targets, restoration of effective environmental legislation, and international pressure on the Bolsonaro government.
- This article is a commentary and the views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Déjà vu as palm oil industry brings deforestation, pollution to Amazon
- Palm oil, a crop synonymous with deforestation and community conflicts in Southeast Asia, is making inroads in the Brazilian Amazon, where the same issues are playing out.
- Indigenous and traditional communities say the plantations in their midst are polluting their water, poisoning their soil, and driving away fish and game.
- Scientists have found high levels of agrochemical residues in these communities — though still within Brazil’s legal limits — while prosecutors are pursuing legal cases against the companies for allegedly violating Indigenous and traditional communities’ rights and damaging the environment.
- Studies based on satellite imagery also disprove the companies’ claims that they only plant on already deforested land.
As Amazon forest-to-savanna tipping point looms, solutions remain elusive
- Leading scientists project that if an additional 3-8% of rainforest cover is lost in the Amazon, it may overshoot a forest-to-degraded-savanna tipping point. That shift could mean mega-drought, forest death, and release of great amounts of stored carbon to the atmosphere from southern, eastern and central Amazonia.
- Despite this warning, Brazilian Amazon deforestation hit an 11-year high in 2020. Government clampdowns on environmental crime greatly decreased deforestation in the past, but Brazil is now facing a political backlash led by President Jair Bolsonaro, resulting in agribusiness and mining expansion and deforestation.
- Market efforts to create incentives have been ineffective. A public-private plan to cut deforestation led by Mato Grosso state has not met its environmental targets, even as agricultural lands increased. Amazonas, Acre and Rondônia — Bolsonaro-aligned states — are pushing for the creation of a new agriculture frontier.
- Indigenous communities, because they’re the best land stewards, should be at the forefront of public policy to conserve the Amazon, say experts, but instead they face poverty and marginalization by the institutions responsible for securing their land rights. International response to the Amazon crisis has also lagged.
Big dream: NGO leads in creating 1,615-mile Amazon-Cerrado river greenbelt
- The Black Jaguar Foundation plans to reforest 1 million hectares (2.4 million acres) along Brazil’s Araguaia and Tocantins rivers in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes. The 2,600 kilometer (1,615 mile) long natural corridor will require the planting of around 1.7 billion trees. Tens-of-thousands have already been planted.
- This natural corridor will be established on private lands, and it will have dual ecological and economic goals, resulting in both land conservation and sustainable agroforestry production. It would cross six Brazilian states (Goiás, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Tocantins, Pará and Maranhão).
- BJF is well funded and well organized, so the greatest barriers to accomplishing the NGO’s goals are many initially resistant rural property owners who need to be sold on the economic benefits of the green corridor. 24,000 privately owned lots are included in the planned green corridor.
- “Brazil has a huge liability in degraded areas, and the BJF [green corridor] initiative is a huge outdoor laboratory for ecosystem restoration in the center of the country, in the agricultural frontier region,” said one researcher.
European public roundly rejects Brazil trade deal unless Amazon protected
- The gigantic trade agreement between the European Union and the Mercosur South American bloc (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay), if ratified, would be the biggest trade deal in history, totaling US $19 trillion.
- However, an extremely poor environmental record by the Mercosur nations, especially Brazil, has become a stumbling block to clinching the agreement. In new polling 75% of respondents in 12 European nations say the EU-Mercosur trade pact should not be ratified if Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazil doesn’t end Amazon deforestation.
- France, the Parliaments of the Netherlands, Austria and Belgium’s Walloon region, have announced they will not endorse the trade pact. The ratification also finds resistance by Ireland and Luxembourg. Portugal’s government appears ready to move forward with ratification without environmental safeguards put in place.
Investigation: Dutch, Japanese pension funds pay for Amazon deforestation
- Two pension funds in the Netherlands and one from Japan have invested a combined half a billion dollars in Brazil’s top three meatpackers.
- These investments in cattle ranching, an industry that’s the main driver of Amazon deforestation, contradict the environmental stances of the respective funds and their national governments.
- The fund managers and other experts say maintaining their stake is a more effective way of pushing for change in the companies than simply dumping the stock.
- But there’s also a growing realization that continued exposure to environmental risks over the long term will incur not just ethical and reputational harm for the funds, but even financial fallout.
Brazil guts agencies, ‘sabotaging environmental protection’ in Amazon: Report
- A new report documents draconian budget cuts to Brazilian environmental monitoring and firefighting of 9.8% in 2020, and 27.4% in 2021 — reductions, analysts say that were inflicted by the Bolsonaro administration in “a clear policy for dismantling national environmental policies.”
- Brazil’s environmental agencies under Bolsonaro have also been subjected to nearly 600 administrative and rules changes, invoked by presidential executive order and resulting in massive environmental deregulation.
- Under Bolsonaro, deforestation has soared, with an increase of 34% in the last two years, even as capacity to punish environmental criminals fell sharply due to funding shortages. Fines imposed for illegal deforestation, instead of rising during this Amazon environmental crime wave, fell by 42% from 2019 to 2020.
- Faced with Bolsonaro’s gutting of environmental agencies and protections, two Indigenous leaders — Kayapo Chief Raoni Metuktire, and Paiter Surui Chief Almir Narayamoga Surui — have asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague to investigate President Bolsonaro for “crimes against humanity.”
Traditional and Indigenous peoples ‘denounce’ planned Amazon railway
- The Ferrovia Paraense (FEPASA) railway if fully completed would run 1,312 kilometers (815 miles) from Santana do Araguaia in southern Pará, along the state’s eastern border, to the port city of Barcarena on the Amazon River. It could carry 80 million tons of mining ores and agribusiness commodities annually.
- In 2019, Pará state signed a memorandum of understanding with the China Communication Construction Company for a R$7 billion (US$1.4 billion) investment to fund the building of 492 kilometers (305 miles) of the railway, from Marabá to Barcarena. Construction is currently expected to start in 2021.
- But that plan could be delayed by resistance from Indigenous and traditional communities who say they’ve yet to be consulted on the project, as required by international law. FEPASA and Ferrogrão (Grainrail) will integrate Pará into Brazil’s vast rail network, greatly aiding export of Amazon commodities to China.
- A letter from the Amazon communities to Pará’s government accused it and its allies of “forcing on us a development model that does not represent us, that is imposing railways,… expelling people from their lands, ending our food security, destroying our people, destroying our cultures,… and killing our forests.”
Soy moratorium averted New Jersey-size loss of Amazon rainforest: Study
- A new study sought to quantify the impact of the Amazon soy moratorium, signed in 2006 by companies accounting for around 90% of the soy sourced from the Brazilian Amazon.
- The companies agreed that they would not purchase soy grown on plots that were recently deforested.
- The research demonstrates that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon between 2006 and 2016 was 35% lower than it would have been without the moratorium, likely keeping 18,000 square kilometers (6,950 square miles) of the Amazon standing.
- Despite the success, observers question whether the ban on soy from deforested areas of the Amazon will prevent the loss of rainforest over the long term.
Illegal mining sparks malaria outbreak in Indigenous territories in Brazil
- Authorities in the Brazilian municipality of Jacareacanga have requested assistance from the Ministry of Health to deal with an outbreak of malaria in Indigenous territories.
- The municipality is home to the Munduruku, Kayabi and Sai Cinza Indigenous territories, which are the targets of illegal gold miners.
- The Jacareacanga mayor’s office has blamed the outbreak on the illegal miners; this region of the Amazon is the only part of Pará state that has seen an increase in malaria cases since last year, according to state public health data.
- Satellite images and other data show that mining is both ongoing and planned inside Indigenous territories and national parks in Jacareacanga, despite Brazil’s Constitution banning all types of mining on Indigenous lands.
As Amazon deforestation hits 12 year high, France rejects Brazilian soy
- As Brazil continues deforesting and burning the Amazon at an alarming rate, France has announced plans to drastically reduce its dependency on Brazilian soy flour and “stop importing deforestation.”
- France currently is the EU’s largest importer of Brazilian soy flour, buying 1.9 million tons annually. “Our target today is [cutting] soybean imports coming from the American continent,” said the French Minister of Agriculture and Food this week.
- While the loss of its soy sales to France is of concern to Brazilian soy producers and commodities companies, agribusiness has expressed greater anxiety over whether Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s continued anti-environmental rhetoric and policies will provoke a largescale international boycott of Brazilian commodities.
- They especially fear the president’s hardline could risk ratification of the Mercosur trade agreement between the EU and South American nations, including Brazil. This week the EU ambassador to Brazil said that the agreement is now in standby, awaiting the country’s concrete actions to combat deforestation and Amazon fires.
French Guiana soy biofuel power plants risk massive Amazon deforestation
- The French government, with the support of President Emmanuel Macron, appears eager to approve legislation that would bypass French environmental law banning large scale deforestation to build several soy-fired biofuel power plants in French Guiana — a French overseas department on the northeast coast of South America.
- Currently, 98% of this region is still covered in Amazon rainforest and mangrove forest. The largest of the proposed biofuel plants — Larivot in Cayenne, the French Guiana capital — would require between 84,000 and 140,000 metric tons of soy per year to generate enough liquid biofuel to power the 120-megawatt plant.
- Growing that much soy would require a large amount of rainforest clearing, totaling between 536 square miles and 892 square miles (nearly three times larger than the land area of New York City). Environmentalists are very concerned over the loss in forest carbon sequestration and harm to French Guiana’s Amazon biodiversity.
- “The fact that France is pushing for policy deviations in French Guiana from European Union sustainability standards is incredibly alarming.… There will be an impact on forests if they change the laws and it could be pretty massive,” said Almuth Ernsting, a biomass researcher with Biofuelwatch, an environmental NGO.
Multiplying Amazon river ports open new Brazil-to-China commodities routes
- Nearly 100 major industrial river ports have been built on the Brazilian Amazon’s major rivers over the past two decades. Many of the projects have been internationally financed and built by commodities companies with little government oversight.
- These ports have transformed the region, opening it to agribusiness and the export of commodities, especially soy, to China and the rest of the world. However, this boom in port infrastructure often came at the expense of the environment and traditional riverine communities.
- Today, more than 40 additional major river ports are planned in the Amazon biome on the Tapajós, Tocantins, Madeira and other rivers, projects again being pursued largely without taking cumulative socioenvironmental impacts into account.
- “What resources do these soy men bring to our city?” asked Manoel Munduruku, an Indigenous leader. “They only bring destruction.”
Satellites, maps and the flow of cattle: Brazilian solutions for reducing deforestation are already in use
- Complete tracking of the cattle supply chain from calving to slaughter would guarantee that the beef produced in the Amazon is untainted by illegal deforestation.
- The largest meatpackers have been promising to track their indirect suppliers since 2009. Now, under pressure from investors, they have set a deadline of 2025.
- The tracing technology and data already exist. But a lack of integration between information systems, concerns over data confidentiality and resistance from the sector are slowing progress.
‘Digital land grab’ deprives traditional LatAm peoples of ancestral lands: Report
- South American nations, including Brazil and Colombia, are increasingly using georeferencing technology for registering land ownership.
- However, if this high-tech digital technique is not backed up by traditional ground truthing surveys, it can be used by landgrabbers and agribusiness companies to fraudulently obtain deeds depriving traditional communities of their collective ancestral lands, according to a new report.
- The georeferenced process is being partly funded by the World Bank, which has provided US $45.5 million for digital registration of private rural properties in Brazil. Georeferencing is allowing the international financial sector to play a key role in converting large tracts of rainforest and savanna into agribusiness lands.
- To prevent this form of land theft, prospective landowners’ claims need to be independently verified via a centralized governmental land registration system organized to resolve land conflicts and to detect and eliminate local and regional corruption.
In Bolivia, more than 25% of major fires this year burned in protected areas
- More than 120 major fires have been detected in Bolivia since March, more than a quarter of them in protected areas, including Noel Kempff Mercado National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and Copaibo Municipal Protected Area, where an area of forest half the size of New York City has burned this year.
- Most of this year’s major blazes, 54%, were detected in savanna in the department of Beni, while more than 38% burned in forests, both in the Amazon rainforest and the dry forests of Chiquitano, according to the nonprofit MAAP.
- This year, there have been more fires detected but they have burned less area compared to last year’s devastating blazes. Nevertheless, the fires have been severe enough for Bolivia’s interim president to declare a state of emergency in mid-September.
- “We have some weeks (maybe more) when more fires might occur and it is difficult to predict the final impact for this year,” researchers from Bolivian nonprofit ACEAA say.
The murky process of licensing Amazonian meat plants
- Decades of growth in cattle ranching have meant that Pará is now the state with the largest herd nationwide. At 20.6 million heads, it has 2.5 cattle for every human inhabitant.
- 14 of the 22 Brazilian meat plants approved to export to China since 2019 are in the Amazon.
Stock indices let Brazil meatpackers shed ties to deforestation, draw investors
- The prominent placement of Brazil’s three biggest meatpackers — JBS, Marfrig and Minerva — on the country’s stock exchange indices has seen them net $121 million in investments.
- These investments are made through funds that track the various stock exchange indices, whose makeup is ostensibly determined by a company’s performance and management.
- These meatpackers, whose operations are closely associated with deforestation and land grabbing in the Amazon, receive investments even through funds geared toward environmentally and socially responsible companies.
BlackRock’s $400m stake in Amazon meatpackers defies sustainability cred
- BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, has $408 million invested, via various funds, in Brazil’s top three meatpackers operating in the Amazon.
- These holdings are at odds with BlackRock’s stated position of pursuing environmentally sustainable investments, given that the meatpackers — JBS, Marfrig and Minerva — are closely associated with deforestation in the Amazon.
- Experts say the sheer size of BlackRock’s stake in these companies could be decisive in forcing the meatpackers to adopt deforestation-free practices.
Amazon meatpacking plants, a COVID-19 hotspot, may be ground zero for next pandemic
- The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that slaughterhouses are among the outbreak hotspots for the disease because of the low temperatures and crowded production lines.
- But slaughterhouses are also ideal locations for the emergence of new viruses due to the contact between humans and the blood and entrails of cattle.
- Nearly a third of cases where diseases spread from animals to human beings occurred because their natural environments were invaded and destroyed, which puts Brazil’s beef industry, centered in the Amazon, at particularly high risk.
- Yet despite the economic fallout from the pandemic, the financial market keeps ignoring this risk and supporting the beef companies most exposed to deforestation in the Amazon.
Brazil green recovery plan could boost economy, add jobs, cut emissions: Report
- If Brazil shifts to a low carbon economy, carbon emissions would be cut by a third while also creating jobs, benefiting economic growth and infrastructure, according to a recent report by the World Resources Institute.
- Brazil’s post-COVID-19 economic recovery plan could provide an opportunity to implement long-term solutions across multiple sectors that could reduce carbon emissions and Amazon deforestation.
- Study authors hope that the economic benefits of the plan will push the current Jair Bolsonaro administration to adopt a green agenda, even if conservation is not a priority.
- “Climate denial is at a peak, but cost-benefit will be the leading decision-maker, whether or not it benefits the environment.… Due to post-COVID-19 economic recovery plans, we have a window of opportunity that will close in a year and a half or less.” — World Resources Institute Climate Policy Director Carolina Genin.
Bleak milestone: 500 major fires detected in Brazilian Amazon this year
- 516 major fires, most of them illegal, covering 376,416 hectares (912,863 acres) were detected between May 28 and August 25, 2020, with the Amazon fire season not even half over, and expected to run at least through September.
- Of those fires, 12% were within intact forests, while the rest were in recently deforested areas where the cut trees were allowed to dry out before being lit on fire to convert the former rainforest to cattle pasture and croplands.
- Most of these fires were illegal, being in direct defiance of a total Amazon fire ban issued by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on July 15, 2020.
- IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, which annually fought Amazon fires in the past, has a greatly diminished role this year, having largely been defunded by the Bolsonaro administration. Fire suppression this year falls to the Brazilian Army, which has little experience controlling Amazon blazes.
Can we predict where Amazon fires will occur? And to what end?
- If it was possible to accurately forecast where Amazon fires were most likely to occur each year, it should theoretically be far easier to prevent and control those fires.
- Amazon fires are currently predicted in two ways: first, based on deforestation, much of it illegal, that occurs in the wet months before the annual fire season; it is these deforested areas that are most often set on fire in the dry months of July through September.
- Second, it’s also possible to predict the approximate severity and Amazon region in which fires may occur based on climate and drought forecasts for the biome, often based on ocean temperatures.
- But being able to predict where Amazon fires might occur is only a first step. A strong, proactive government response is also needed to prevent and control fires, and in order to apprehend and prosecute those who set them ablaze in the Amazon.
More than 260 major, mostly illegal Amazon fires detected since late May
- The Amazon fire season is building momentum, with 227 fires covering nearly 128,000 hectares, reported between May 28 and August 10. By today, that number rose to 266 fires.
- More than 220 of the May 28 to June 10 fires occurred in Brazil, with just six in Bolivia, and one in Peru. 95% of the Brazilian fires were illegal and in violation of the nation’s 120-day ban on fires. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has called the 2020 reports of deforestation and fires a “lie.”
- Most Amazon blazes are set, with land grabbers, ranchers and farmers using fire as a deforestation tool, and as a means of converting rainforest to pasture and croplands.
- Fourteen of the Brazilian fires were within protected areas. The most heavily impacted of these were Jamanxim and Altamira national forests in Pará state — areas long notorious for criminal land grabbing.
All talk, no walk: ‘Green’ financiers still support Amazon beef industry
- Regulatory initiatives to promote responsible investment are falling short, even in Europe, where the most rigid rules haven’t been able to prevent investors continuing to pump money into the Brazilian beef industry.
- In the U.S., similarly, financial giants like BlackRock tout their green investment credentials while still investing hundreds of millions of dollars in the top three meatpackers buying cattle from the Amazon.
- In Brazil, investment guides, manuals and recommendations by various market groups, along with rules issued by the central bank, have had little effect on the flow of investments into meatpackers JBS, Marfrig and Minerva.
Paper maze and lack of transparency cloak investment in companies involved in Amazon deforestation
- Lack of transparency prevents individual investors from knowing where their money is going to and allows majors investors to cloak their contributions to meatpackers who operate in the Amazon.
- Despite a Brazilian Central Bank law, brokers ignore environmental risk assessment when suggesting clients to invest in meatpackers.
- Meatpacking and retail companies use dozens of subsidiaries and even tax havens to hide the origins of their investments.
Deforestation in the Amazon is drying up the rest of Brazil: Report
- The center-west, south and part of the southeast regions of Brazil have seen rainfall well below average in recent years.
- Agriculture is the first sector to feel the effects of the drought, with drastic losses in production. Water supply and power generation have also been impacted.
- Agribusiness suffers the consequences of drought but also causes it: Deforestation of the Amazon to clear land for livestock, farming and logging affects the rainfall regime in Brazil and other Latin American countries.
- “South America is drying up as a result of the combined effects of deforestation and climate change”, says scientist Antonio Donato Nobre.
Scientists launch ambitious conservation project to save the Amazon
- The Science Panel for the Amazon (SPA), an ambitious cooperative project to bring together the existing scientific research on the Amazon biome, has been launched with the support of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
- Modeled on the authoritative UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, the first Amazon report is planned for release in April 2021; that report will include an extensive section on Amazon conservation solutions and policy suggestions backed up by research findings.
- The Science Panel for the Amazon consists of 150 experts — including climate, ecological, and social scientists; economists; indigenous leaders and political strategists — primarily from the Amazon countries
- According to Carlos Nobre, one of the leading scientists on the project, the SPA’s reports will aim not only to curb deforestation, but to propose an ongoing economically feasible program to conserve the forest while advancing human development goals for the region, working in tandem with, and in support of, ecological systems.
A Brazilian forest community shows certified timber really does work
- In Pará, the Brazilian state with the highest deforestation rate, communities inside Tapajós National Forest have for the past 15 years run one of the most successful native timber management projects.
- Eighteen of the 24 communities in the conservation area are part of the project, which involves an average of 130 people. Forest management is their main source of income.
- In 2013, the communities earned FSC certification.
- Today, their products are sold around the world, thanks to partnerships with renowned designers to produce quality sustainable furniture and decorative objects.
Forest restoration, not just halting deforestation, vital to Amazon
- The Brazilian state of Maranhão has lost more than three-quarters of its original forest cover and the remaining old-growth forest is severely threatened, with the “Amazon forest [in the state’s west] on the edge of collapse,” say researchers. This threat heightens the importance of conserving secondary forest in the state.
- But new zoning of Legal Amazonia in Maranhão’s west passed in May will reduce the amount of standing forest farmers must preserve, which could lead to largescale legal deforestation of secondary forests and reward previous illegal deforestation.
- The State Forest Policy currently being debated for passage by the Maranhão parliament could implement safeguards to protect secondary forests (though likely won’t). Without those safeguards, warn researchers, these forests that provide important ecological services and economic benefits could further disappear.
- Scientists say that agroforestry and forest restoration should be prioritized by the Brazilian national and state governments in order to generate sustainable livelihoods and protect secondary forests, aiding in climate change mitigation, water and soil conservation, and providing sustainable livelihoods.
Where there’s cattle ranching and soybean farming, there’s fire, study finds
- Most of the fires in the Amazon rainforest last year were associated with industrial agriculture, according to a study cross-referencing NASA satellite data with corporate supply chains.
- Researchers transposed the satellite imagery of fire alerts with the locations of the largest meatpacking plants and soybean silos in the region.
- Of the 981,000 fire alerts that occurred in Brazil between July and October last year, half were in meatpackers JBS and Marfrig’s “potential buy zones” and in the areas surrounding Bunge and Cargill’s soybean silos.
- The study doesn’t aim to make a direct link between the companies and the fires, but rather to show the proximity of the fires within the regions in which they work.
International investors urge Brazil to take real action to stop deforestation
- Jan Erik Saugestad, executive vice president of Norway’s Storebrand Asset Management, who has led an international pressure campaign against deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, says the government must back up its promises with action to reverse the rising trend.
- In an exclusive interview, he describes his recent meeting with Vice President Hamilton Mourão, where there were initial commitments made to reduce deforestation rates and respect the rights of Indigenous peoples and human rights.
- Saugestad says investors need evidence that the Brazilian government and companies, particularly in the beef industry, will follow up on these commitments with meaningful action.
- Saugestad also says climate change has already caused damage to some economic sectors, and adds that “we are only seeing the beginning of some of these risks.”
Only a few ‘rotten apples’ causing most illegal Brazil deforestation: Study
- It is well known that agribusiness — especially cattle and soy production — is the major driver of illegal deforestation in Brazil, which has seen soaring rates of forest destruction since the election of Jair Bolsonaro. Many of those agricultural commodities end up being exported to the European Union.
- But little has been done to curb the problem, partly due to lack of government will, and partly due to the fact that the precise amount of illegal deforestation linked to exported meat and soy has never been identified, while ranches and plantations and their owners mostly responsible are difficult to pinpoint.
- Now a new potentially game changing study finds that while around 20% of all agricultural exports from Brazil to the EU appear to come from illegally deforested areas in the Amazon rainforest and Cerrado savanna, only about 2% of producers are responsible for the majority of that illegal deforestation.
- The study methods have the potential to advance supply chain traceability, showing that it is now possible to trace agricultural products from illegal deforested areas all the way to foreign consumers, making it far easier for nations and companies to curb deforestation — if they have the will.
Brazilian meatpacker expands with World Bank funding but fails to reduce impacts in the Amazon
- In 2013, the World Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation, injected $85 million into Minerva.
- The money was for expansion of the meatpacker’s operations in Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Colombia, granted on the condition that an environmental and social action plan be implemented in all those countries.
- The IFC understood that Minerva’s activities represented environmental and social risks, including deforestation, child labor, forced labor and land conflicts.
- Seven years later, the company has become Latin America’s leading beef exporter, but continues to face criticism over the uncertain origin of its products.
Prosecutors target Brazil’s environment minister over dismantling of protections
- On June 6, federal prosecutors in Brazil filed a lawsuit seeking the dismissal of the environment minister, Ricardo Salles, alleging “countless initiatives that violate the duty to protect the environment.”
- Since he took office at the start of 2019 under President Jair Bolsonaro, Salles has worked to weaken the country’s main federal environmental agencies, IBAMA and ICMBio, including slashing the number of regional positions and offices and weakening control of protected areas.
- He has also appointed police officials to key roles in supervisory agencies, frustrating experts who say those positions should go to experts who understand the issues.
- Staff report that a gag order has been in force under Salles, and that they now work in a climate of persecution and threats, both open and veiled.
Brazil bows to pressure from business, decrees 120-day Amazon fire ban
- 38 transnational companies in the agricultural, industrial, mining and service sectors, along with four major business associations, sent a letter Monday to Brazil VP Hamilton Mourão, president of the Amazon Council, asking him to address “environmental irregularities and crime in the Amazon and other Brazilian biomes.”
- The letter — backed by Amaggi, Suzano, Vale, Bradesco, Alcoa, Bayer, Shell, Siemens, among others — comes just weeks before this year’s Amazon fire season begins, and as criticism of rapid Amazon deforestation under Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro intensifies in the European Union and threatens the EU-Mercusor trade agreement.
- The administration — long resistant to all efforts to redirect its Amazon development and environmental policies — responded today announcing a decree for a 120-day ban on fires in the Amazon. The Army has also been deployed to the region to guard against a replay of last year’s wildfires. Analysts say this is not near enough to curb rampant deforestation.
- The business letter came just weeks after 32 international financial institutions that manage US$4.5 trillion in assets told Brazil that if it didn’t curb deforestation they would stop investing in Brazil. The problem, say critics, is Bolsonaro has set new policies that greatly undermine past socio-environmental safeguards, policies which need to be reversed.
World’s biggest trade deal in trouble over EU anger at Brazil deforestation
- The trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay), is the biggest trade treaty ever negotiated. Signed a year ago, the US$19 trillion deal’s ratification could fail due to Brazil’s refusal to respond.
- At the end of June, French President Emmanuel Macron declared that his nation will not make “any trade agreement with countries that do not respect the Paris [Climate] Agreement,” a direct reference to the administration of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro who has pursued an aggressive policy to develop the Amazon.
- The Dutch parliament, Austria, Belgium, Ireland and Luxembourg, plus some EU parliamentarians, and NGOs are opposed to the deal, saying it brings unfair competition to EU farmers and accelerates Amazon deforestation. French and Brazilian business interests and diplomats meet this week to try and settle differences.
- Brazil’s Bolsonaro has so far been unmoved by all these objections. While the government plans to launch a PR campaign to convince the EU to ratify the trade agreement, it continues pressing forward with plans to allow industrial mining and agribusiness intrusion into Amazon indigenous reserves and conserved areas.
In the Amazon, a farmer practices the future of sustainable cattle ranching
- A cattle farmer in Tefé, Brazil, has turned his ranch into a new standard for ranching in the forest — one that’s more profitable and more productive, while using less land.
- This type of farming eliminates the need for clearing new areas of forest for new pasture, a practice that has made cattle ranching one of the major drivers of deforestation in Brazil.
- Under the rational grazing system, cattle are grazed in a fenced-off plot of pasture, then rotated to another plot to allow the soil and vegetation in the previous plot to recover.
- Using land that has already been degraded and abandoned is one solution recommended for raising cattle in the Amazon region; there are an estimated 50 million hectares (125 million acres) of such land in Brazil that could be used for this purposed.
Green alert: How indigenous people are experiencing climate change in the Amazon
- Late rainfall, intense drought, dry riverbeds, more forest fires, less food available — indigenous communities across the Brazilian Amazon suffer social transformations due to climate change.
- Indigenous people believe that climate change has even affected their physical health: previously controlled diseases like measles and yellow fever, they say, have inexplicably reappeared in the rainforest, and even indigenous women’s menstrual cycles are beginning at an earlier age.
- Indigenous people have found many ways to take action and lessen the harm. These approaches include selecting and growing seeds that are more resistant to drought and heat, investing in frontline firefighters and even a smartphone app that offers information about climatic variations.
Brazil minister advises using COVID-19 to distract from Amazon deregulation
- In a Brazilian cabinet meeting Environment Minister Ricardo Salles was caught on video declaring that the COVID-19 pandemic which has killed more than 23,000 of his fellow citizens offers a distraction during which the government can “run the cattle herd” through the Amazon, “changing all the rules and simplifying standards.”
- The Brazilian and international response was critical and swift, with one European Union parliamentarian recommending that the largest trade treaty every negotiated, between the South American nations of Mercusor and the EU, not be signed as punishment for Brazil’s radical anti-environmental policies.
- Salles statements were “the inconceivably blatant confirmation that the Bolsonaro government is dismantling, step-by-step, the protection regulations of the Amazon, while the world fights the Coronavirus,” the member of the EU Parliament said.
- The government’s environmental deregulation policies are yielding results. Today the MapBiomas Alert project released its first Annual Deforestation Report on all Brazilian biomes. It found that 99% of all deforestation in Brazil in 2019 was illegal — a total of 12,187 square kilometers (4,705 square miles) of native vegetation lost.
Brazilian taxpayers subsidizing Amazon-clearing cattle ranches, study shows
- A new study shows taxpayer money is helping to prop up the beef industry in Brazil, one of the primary drivers of deforestation in the country.
- For every dollar of tax revenue collected from the industry, only 20 cents effectively goes to society — the rest goes back to producers in the form of incentives, easy credit, and even debt forgiveness.
- The carbon footprint of beef production in Brazil’s nine Amazonian states is six times higher on average than other states in the nation when accounting for the impact of deforestation to clear land for pasture.
- The study also highlights integrated crop farming-cattle raising systems, where the land is used alternately for cropping and for pasture, as resulting in negative carbon emissions — but notes that only 4% of pastureland in the Amazon uses this integrated method.
Indigenous COVID-19 cases top 500, danger mapped in Brazil agricultural hub
- 537 COVID-19 cases and 102 deaths are being reported by 38 indigenous groups in Brazil. Most of the cases are in the remote Brazilian Amazon, where communities are located far from medical assistance. Experts, citing the vulnerability of indigenous peoples to outside disease, worry the pandemic could result in a many more deaths.
- In response to the pandemic, indigenous groups in Mato Grosso state have partnered with an NGO to produce a daily updated map monitoring COVID-19 outbreaks in urban areas near indigenous villages. The website is meant to keep indigenous people informed, and put pressure on national and international groups to respond.
- Amid the pandemic, indigenous land rights in Mato Grosso are increasingly threatened by federal and state government policy shifts that critics say would encourage and legitimize land grabbing, illegal logging and mining inside indigenous territories.
- Particularly impacted by the policy changes, should they go into effect, are isolated indigenous groups, including the Kawahiva and Piripkura peoples who roam as yet federally unrecognized indigenous reserves near the city of Colniza, Mato Grosso.
Soy made the Cerrado a breadbasket; climate change may end that
- The Brazilian Cerrado is a vast tropical savanna covering over 20% of the nation’s landmass. More than half the Cerrado’s native vegetation — much of it biodiverse dry forest — has been converted to agribusiness, turning it into a breadbasket for Brazil and a key source of soy for China, the EU and other international markets.
- Brazilian soy cultivation is set to expand by 12 million hectares between 2021 and 2050, with the vast majority of that expansion happening in the Cerrado and especially on its agricultural frontier — a four-state region known as Matopiba.
- However, the Matopiba region (consisting of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia states) is more vulnerable to climate change than other parts of Brazil. Researchers say global warming on the savanna is also worsened by the conversion of native vegetation to croplands and pastures.
- Extensive conversion of native vegetation (which holds moisture in roots deep underground) into a soy monocrop (which stores little water) is becoming a major problem, as little Cerrado soy is currently irrigated. Scientists argue that the conservation of native vegetation must be actively pursued to save the Cerrado agricultural frontier.
As bioethanol demand rises, biodiversity will fall in Cerrado, study says
- An area half the size of Switzerland in Brazil’s savanna-like Cerrado biome could see its biodiversity plummet as sugarcane farms expand to meet global demand for bioethanol, a new study says.
- Researchers calculated that some parts of the Cerrado could see up to 100% loss of mammalian species richness; endangered animals like the maned wolf will be the most affected.
- The Atlantic Forest and the Pantanal wetlands will also be affected, largely a result of growers of other crops moving into those areas as sugarcane farms take over their current areas.
- The study authors say there’s still a chance to mitigate those impacts by increasing agricultural productivity, protecting natural areas, and developing second-generation bioethanol made from a mix of sugarcane and eucalyptus.
In famed Chico Mendes reserve, Brazil nut harvesters fight to save the forest
- The Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve was named in honor of the rubber tapper who was assassinated for pushing back against the deforestation of this part of Brazil’s Acre state for cattle pastures.
- Today, the reserve’s inhabitants continue the long tradition of sustainable forest use, albeit harvesting Brazil nuts rather than tapping rubber, in keeping up with changing market demands.
- However, the Brazil nut industry remains largely informal and unregulated, and is seasonal, which forces many extractivists to turn to cattle ranching during the rest of the year to supplement their income.
- Clearing forest for livestock pasture is the main driver of deforestation in the reserve, which so far this year has recorded the highest rate of forest loss of any protected area in Brazil.
Brazilian indigenous chiefs act to halt illegal logging in historical landmark area
- A valuable Atlantic Forest reserve and the historic setting of the discovery of Brazil, the land of the Pataxó is suffering from the illegal logging of fine woods used to produce handicrafts. Indigenous people are also allegedly involved in the crimes.
- The pieces include the gamelas, famous bowls that are sold to tourists throughout the south of Bahia and transported to Brazil’s big cities by truck. In Monte Pascoal National Park, two of the four trails used by visitors have been shut down out of fear of the presence of invaders.
- Cattle ranches, eucalyptus farms and coffee, papaya and black pepper crops are the targets of other complaints from the Pataxó. Their lands are suffering from the irregular spraying of pesticides and the damming of waterways.
- On the other hand, indigenous involvement in conserving and restoring the forest has grown in recent years. The Pataxó have also started trying out more sustainable economic activities, such as the production of native seedlings and the breeding of small animals.
Amazonian leader takes Indigenous pepper to the Brazilian market and teaches how to live a good life
- André Baniwa is an Indigenous leader in the Upper Rio Negro region of the state of Amazonas, and spoke with Mongabay about school education, generation of income, Indigenous people in public life and his people’s concept of “good living” based in interculturality.
- One of his victories is the large-scale production of the Jiquitaia Baniwa Pepper, used traditionally in his culture and which made it to supermarket shelves in São Paulo this year. It was the first Indigenous brand to be released in Brazil.
- André Baniwa has been Vice Mayor of São Gabriel da Cachoeira, the most Indigenous city in Brazil, and helped to create a community school that was recognized in 2016 as a standard for creativity and innovation by the Brazilian Ministry of Education. “To me, schooling is a weapon for battle. A way of defending yourself.”
Brazil sets record for highly hazardous pesticide consumption: Report
- An NGO report finds that Brazil is the largest annual buyer of Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs), a technical designation by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. HHPs contain active ingredients with extremely acute toxicity and having chronic negative impacts on human health and the environment.
- The report also found that high HHP sales are not only seen in Brazil but also in other low and middle income nations, while sales to many high income nations, especially in Western Europe, are far lower. The trend is seen in sales by Croplife International trade association corporate members Bayer, BASF, Corteva, FMC, and Syngenta.
- A pesticide industry representative claims that this disparity in sales between high and low income nations is due to variability in “farming conditions” between nations and regions. However, environmentalists say that the disparity is due to far weaker pesticide regulations in low income nations as compared to high income nations.
- HHP use will likely continue rising in Brazil. In 2019, the Jair Bolsonaro administration approved 474 new pesticides for use — the highest number in 14 years. Pesticide imports to Brazil also broke an all-time record, with almost 335,000 tons of pesticides purchased in 2019, an increase of 16% compared to 2018.
Amazon Tipping Point puts Brazil’s agribusiness, energy sector at risk: Top scientists
- Scientists are sounding the alarm: the Brazilian Amazon is dangerously close to, or may already be hitting, a disastrous rainforest-to-savanna tipping point, with heightened drought driven by regional and global climate change, rapidly rising deforestation and more numerous and intense wild fires.
- Overshooting the tipping point would not only be cataclysmic to Amazon biodiversity and release massive amounts of forest carbon destabilizing the planet’s climate further, it could also devastate Brazil’s economy by depriving agribusiness and hydroelectric energy production of water.
- Signs of deepening drought are already evident, as are serious repercussions. The $9.5 billion Belo Monte mega-dam for example, is already seeing greatly reduced seasonal flows in the Xingu River, a trend expected to worsen, potentially making the dam economically unviable, while also threatening the proposed Belo Sun goldmine.
- Reduced rainfall and a shorter growing season are also putting Brazilian agribusiness at risk. Even as scientists rush to develop heat and drought-resistant crops, many doubt new cultivars will keep pace with a changing climate. The Bolsonaro government is ignoring the economic threat posed by the tipping point
Brazilian meat giant JBS expands its reach in China
- Brazilian meatpacker JBS has agreed to supply WH Group, a Hong Kong-based meat processor with access to retail outlets across China, with beef, pork and poultry products worth around $687 million a year beginning in 2020.
- Investigations have shown that JBS sources some of its beef from producers who have been fined for illegal deforestation in the Amazon.
- The push for cattle pasture drives most of the deforestation in the Amazon, while soybean plantations to supply pig and chicken feed have replaced large tracts of the wooded savannas of the Cerrado.
Making a thriller out of Belo Monte hydro dam: Q&A with filmmaker Sabrina McCormick
- The construction of the controversial Belo Monte hydroelectric dam in the Brazilian Amazon is the narrative engine that drives Sequestrada, the first full-length film by U.S. cinematographer and sociologist Sabrina McCormick.
- The film, which came out in December on various streaming platforms, tells the story of Kamudjara, an indigenous girl, amid the expectations about the profound social and environmental changes that the construction will bring.
- In this interview with Mongabay, the director speaks about her creative process, her experience filming in the Amazon and perceptions about the social and cultural aspects, as well as the indigenous people’s sense of belonging to the forest.
- A former climate and environmental adviser to the Obama administration, McCormick also stresses the importance of blocking the advance of power generation models based on projects like Belo Monte.
Bolsonaro sends Congress bill to open indigenous lands to mining, fossil fuels
- President Jair Bolsonaro has long pledged to open Brazil’s indigenous reserves in the Amazon and elsewhere to commercial mining, oil and gas exploration, cattle ranching and agribusiness, new hydroelectric dam projects, and tourism. This week he sent a bill to Congress that would do just that.
- And while the legislation would allow consultation with impacted indigenous populations, they would lack the power of veto, except in cases of “garimpo” or wildcat mining. Though the bancada ruralista agribusiness lobby is strong in Congress, it remains to be seen whether the bill will be approved.
- The legislation would also allow the use of GM, genetically modified, seeds in agricultural projects, a practice previously banned because of the danger of contaminating native seeds. Royalties would be paid to indigenous communities for the economic activities allowed in their reserves and communities.
- Bolsonaro called his project a “dream” but it has already met with withering criticism from indigenous organizations who see it as a nightmare. Apib, the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples, called it a ‘death project’ which would, under the mask of false good intentions, effectively authorize the invasion of their lands
Escalating firestorms could turn Amazon from carbon sink to source: Study
- A new study finds that the Brazilian Amazon could be moving from being a carbon storehouse to a carbon source — putting the regional and global climate at great risk. Intensifying wildfires could contribute to that shift happening by mid-century.
- Researchers used models to show that an increasingly hot, dry Amazon climate, coupled with deforestation, could trigger wildfires burning up to 16% of the rainforest in Brazil’s Southern Amazon by 2050, releasing up to 17 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide.
- The team’s models indicated that Amazon fires will likely continue intensifying before 2030, due to more frequent heat and drought conditions caused by global warming, and as rampant deforestation due to agribusiness expansion dries out the understory and creates more flammable forest edges.
- Of great concern, the study also found that over time, fires won’t just impact edge areas, but intact forest, deep inside indigenous reserves and other conserved areas. Reduced sources of fire ignition and fire suppression could decrease the likelihood of burning, especially if accompanied by a decrease in global carbon emissions.
Use it, don’t lose it: Q&A with Amazon eco scientist Marcelino Guedes
- In an exclusive interview with Mongabay, Marcelino Guedes, a researcher at Brazil’s Amapá Federal University, talks about how important the management of traditional knowledge is for strengthening the forest economy in Brazil to overcome the paradigm that sees standing forest as an enemy of development.
- “Human practices can be managed to become the basis for conservation in Amazonia,” he says. Countering the idea that forests must be maintained in their virgin state, he says the rational use of a forest’s resources is the best way to create an effective conservation dynamic, considering the many pressures the region is undergoing.
- Guedes cites the Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis, which holds that small changes to the environment are crucial for increasing biodiversity. These disturbances can be natural, as in the case of a storm, or caused by humans, which is the case of the indigenous peoples of Amazonia, who have, over the last 5,000 years, been modifying and enriching the landscape through itinerant agriculture and dispersal of native species.
NGOs demand inquiry into Environment Minister aid to Amazon land grabbers
- 25 environmental and indigenous organizations have made an official complaint to the Brazilian Attorney General’s Office requesting an investigation for abuse of power and misconduct in office by Environment Minister Ricardo Salles and Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) head, Homero Cerqueira.
- It is alleged that Salles and Cerqueira met with convicted criminals including known Amazon land grabbers, and that both officials pledged to end inspections inside the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve (Resex), a protected area in Acre state under heavy pressure from illegal deforesters. ICMBio oversees Brazil’s parks.
- Last week President Jair Bolsonaro established the Amazon Council, putting the nation’s Vice President at its head, and subordinating Salles and the Environment Ministry to the new council. Some analysts speculate that Salles has fallen from favor due to his reckless speech and actions, though others disagree.
- Some speculate the new council is a merely a public relations maneuver meant to show international and national critics that Bolsonaro cares about the Amazon. Few expect the council to zealously press forward with conservation efforts, while others see it as a means of bypassing the Environment Ministry.
Impending Amazon tipping point puts biome and world at risk, scientists warn
- Climate models coupled with real world biome changes are causing prominent scientists to forecast that, unless action is taken immediately, 50 to 70% of the Amazon will be transformed from rainforest into savanna in less than 50 years.
- That ecological disaster would trigger a vast release of carbon stored in vegetation, likely leading to a regional and planetary climate catastrophe. The Amazon rainforest-to-savanna tipping point is being triggered by rapidly escalating deforestation, regional and global climate change, and increasing Amazon wildfires — all of which are making the region dryer.
- While models produced the first evidence of the tipping point, events on the ground are now adding to grave concern. The Amazon has grown hotter and dryer in recent decades, and rainforest that was once fireproof now readily burns. Plant species adapted to a wet climate are dying, as drought-resistant species flourish. Deforestation is escalating rapidly.
- Scientists say the tipping point could be reversed with strong environmental policies. However, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is moving in the opposite direction, with plans to develop the Amazon, including the opening of indigenous reserves to industrial mining and agribusiness, and the building of roads, dams and other infrastructure.
Brazil’s Bolsonaro creates Amazon Council and Environmental Police force
- Brazil has formed a new Amazon Council headed by Vice President Hamilton Mourão, a retired general and supporter of Amazon mining development. The council will oversee “the activities of all the ministries involved in the protection, defense and development and sustainable development of the Amazon.”
- A new Environmental Police force is also being created made up of military police from state forces, which will have the potential to put thousands of agents into the field for Amazon operations.
- Meanwhile, Bolsonaro slashed the budget for IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental enforcement agency, cutting it by 25% as compared to 2019. IBAMA has been recognized internationally for its key role in enforcing Brazil’s laws against illegal loggers and land grabbers, for reducing deforestation and fighting Amazon fires.
- Critics are concerned over Bolsonaro’s militarization of Amazon environmental, development, and security administration, seeing it as a throwback to the days of Brazil’s military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985, when new highways and other infrastructure projects greatly benefited land grabbers and wealthy landowners.
Catastrophic Amazon tipping point less than 30 years away: study
- The Amazon rainforest generates half its own rainfall, but deforestation threatens to disrupt this cycle, shifting large parts of this ancient forest to dry, savanna habitat. Passing such a “tipping point” would have disastrous knock-on effects for climate and weather patterns regionally and globally.
- A recent study modelling the impact of proposed roads, hydropower and mining developments in the Amazon basin suggests that 21-43 percent of the Amazon’s original extent will be lost by 2050, putting it close to, or beyond, the tipping point for a biome shift in large parts of the region.
- Although development is not currently proceeding at the rapid rate predicted under various ambitious government initiatives, experts say that, even with no new Amazon infrastructure, continued deforestation could drive the biome to the tipping point in the next 15–30 years.
- A quick transition to zero deforestation is the only way to avert catastrophic change to the Amazon, say experts. But conservationists fear the political will is lacking as the Bolsonaro administration continues to slash protections. Backing indigenous land stewards could offer a solution.
Belo Monte boondoggle: Brazil’s biggest, costliest dam may be unviable
- The controversial Belo Monte mega-dam in Pará state has done significant socio environmental harm to the Xingu River and the indigenous and traditional people living beside it. Now it appears the dam may not be able to produce the electricity totals promised by its builders — an eventuality critics had long warned about.
- Project designers appear to have seriously misestimated the Xingu River’s flow rates and fluctuations between wet and dry seasons, while also not accounting for reductions in flow due to deforestation caused by rapidly expanding cattle ranches and soy plantations far upriver in Mato Grosso state.
- Climate change-induced droughts are also decreasing Xingu River flows and generating capacity. In 2013, an important Brazilian Panel on Climate Change report warned that global warming could drop water levels all across the Amazon basin, putting hydropower in serious jeopardy.
- As deforestation due to agribusiness and mining spreads across the basin, now driven by the development-friendly policies of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, the future for Amazon hydroelectric dams, their generating capacity and investment potential looks increasingly bleak.
Conflict in the Chico Mendes Reserve threatens this pioneering Amazonian project
- Farmers and irregular occupants in the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve in Acre are enjoying newfound political power and pressuring for the reduction of the first protected area of its kind in Brazil as it approaches its 30th anniversary in March.
- A bill in the Federal House of Representatives proposes that areas used for irregular cattle farming be removed from its perimeter, effectively legalizing the activity. Resident associations oppose the move.
- The reserve, or Resex, is a model of territorial occupation that aligns the work and income of traditional populations with keeping the forest intact. Environmentalists fear intervention will make room for changes in other areas.
- The conflict has revived the confrontation tactics from the era of the military dictatorship, when the rubber tappers emerged victorious but suffered the death of leaders like Chico Mendes, for whom the reserve is named.
Bolsonaro’s Brazil: 2019 brings death by 1,000 cuts to Amazon — part one
- While the media focused in 2019 on Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s incendiary remarks, or on the Amazon fires, he has quietly instituted new policies likely to aid land grabbers and do great harm to Amazon forests, indigenous and traditional peoples. “Death by 1,000 Cuts” parts 1 and 2 reviews those policies.
- Executive decree MP 910 issued December 11 legalizes large-scale land grabbing. The large-owner loophole built into the new decree allows land speculators to register large swathes of public lands that they grabbed before December 2018, using the illegal deforestation they accomplished as proof of their “occupation.”
- MP 910 could transfer 40-60 million hectares of public land to private owners who would then be authorized to legally deforest a fifth of that land, about 10 million hectares, experts say. MP 910 is likely to trigger high rates of conflict and deforestation. Congress must approve MP 910 in 120 days to make it permanent.
- The agriculture ministry also chose to make secret part of its ranching database, thwarting Visipec, an NGO-designed tool for tracking cattle raised on calving ranches where major deforestation occurs. Other administrative measures benefit big agribusiness over small family farms, and muzzle civil society voices.
Amazon’s Mura indigenous group demands input over giant mining project
- In 2013, Potássio do Brasil, a subsidiary of the Canadian merchant bank, Forbes & Manhattan, began drilling exploratory wells for a giant potassium mine — a highly profitable venture that would allow transport of potash along the Amazon and Madeira rivers. Potash is a vital fertilizer for Brazil’s rapidly growing soy agribusiness industry.
- One big problem: the company was reportedly drilling inside the Jauary Indigenous Reserve and directly adjacent to other indigenous reserves and communities. Indigenous people said that the ancestral lands being drilled, though sometimes not demarcated as being within their reserves, were vital for hunting and other livelihoods.
- The mine was licensed in 2015. However, legal irregularities resulted in the project stalling. Finally, a court settlement was reached in which the Mura communities would be given the legal right of consultation — a democratic process of self-determination guaranteed under international law rarely practiced in the remote Brazilian Amazon.
- How the Mura will vote — and whether that vote will be respected by municipal, state and federal governments; agribusiness; a transnational mining giant; and international investors — remains to be seen. However, analysts agree that the result could have far reaching consequences for rural traditional settlements across the Amazon.
Mega-mining project slated for Brazilian Amazon sparks controversy
- Potássio do Brasil, a mining company; Autazes municipal authorities; the federal and Amazonas state governments; and large-scale soy growers all want one thing: to open a potash mine in the town of Autazes that would supply soy producers with Brazilian fertilizer, so as not to buy and pay for imported potash. All stand to profit.
- There’s just one major roadblock: the potassium deposits are on indigenous land, and the mining company started off on the wrong foot in 2013 by digging exploratory wells in secret, without getting indigenous permission to dig on their land.
- Years of acrimonious conflict and legal battles followed. The municipality of Autazes includes 12,000 Mura Indians among its citizens, most of whom live in one of the 20 indigenous reserves that have been officially demarcated or are in the process of being demarcated. They fear the potash mine’s social and environmental repercussions.
- They have successfully stalled the US$2.5 billion mining project up to now. But under the government of Jair Bolsonaro, the possibility that the potash mine could go forward without indigenous consultation — as required by international law — is becoming a looming possibility.
Antonio Donato Nobre: “The forest is sick and losing its carbon-sequestration capacity”
- A researcher at the INPE Center of Land System Science, Antonio Donato Nobre, describes the state of degradation threatening the future of the Amazon rainforest in an exclusive interview with Mongabay.
- Nobre fears the forest is nearing what he describes as a “tipping point,” after which it will no longer be able to regenerate on its own, thus embarking on the path to desertification. “This is not about protecting the forest simply to please environmentalists. The living forest is essential for the survival of human civilization,” he says.
- In order to reverse the current state of destruction, Nobre proposes the development of a forest economy – capable, in his opinion, of generating nearly 20 times as much revenue as extensive cattle ranching. As an example, he cites the project Amazônia 4.0, which defends the use of technology for the sustainable exploration of biodiversity.
Brazil on the precipice: from environmental leader to despoiler (2010-2020)
- Brazil’s 21st century environmental record is most easily visualized via Amazon deforestation: poor regulation and lawlessness led to peak deforestation in 2004, with 27,772 square kilometers cleared. Better laws and enforcement, and a soy moratorium led to a dramatic decline to 4,571 square kilometers in 2012.
- Since then, first under Workers’ Party President Dilma Rousseff, then under Michel Temer, deforestation rates began to rise. The rate saw its biggest jump this year under President Jair Bolsonaro, with a loss of 9,762 square kilometers — the worst deforestation since 2008.
- From 2011-2016, the Amazon saw numerous hydroelectric project controversies, including the construction of the Belo Monte mega-dam, two huge hydroelectric projects on the Madeira River, plus multiple dams on the Teles Pires River. The Lava Jato corruption scandal and an economic downturn curbed dam building.
- Brazil’s ruralist agribusiness interests consolidated power, first under Temer, and more so under Bolsonaro, launching multiple attacks on indigenous and traditional land rights. Bolsonaro’s anti-environmental and anti-indigenous policies are a mark of his administration, a trend expected to continue in 2020.
‘The tipping point is here, it is now,’ top Amazon scientists warn
- In the past, climate modelling has indicated an approaching Amazon tipping point when global climate change, combined with increasing deforestation, could result in a rapid Amazon shift from rainforest to degraded savanna and shrubland, releasing massive amounts of carbon to the atmosphere when the world can least afford it.
- Now, scientists Carlos Nobre and Thomas Lovejoy report that researchers are seeing evidence in both the atmosphere and on the ground that this tipping point has been reached and will worsen if no action is taken immediately to reverse the situation.
- They reference a NASA satellite study revealing an increasingly dry Amazon over time, which space agency scientists say is one of “the first indications of positive climate feedback mechanisms.” A 2018 study found that Amazon tree species adapted to wet climates were dying at record rates while dry-adapted trees thrived.
- It is urgent, the scientists say, that Brazil move away from unsustainable agribusiness monocultures of cattle, soy, and sugarcane, while launching a major reforestation project on already degraded lands in the southern and eastern Amazon, actions that could help Brazil keep its Paris Climate Agreement commitment.
COP25: Brazil’s official presence diverges widely from its public persona
- Brazil’s government presence was much shrunken at COP25, as compared to past climate conferences, and its delegation even opted out of hosting a presentation space — this despite the country’s being South America’s biggest economy and among the world’s top ten greenhouse gas emitters.
- The administration of President Jair Bolsonaro is controversial for its anti-environmental and anti-indigenous stance. Its policies have prompted resistance by Amazon indigenous and traditional rural populations.
- Environment Minister Ricardo Salles represented one face of Brazil at COP25, speaking publicly twice at the summit, and focusing mostly on agribusiness and economic development opportunities in Amazonia.
- Indigenous peoples and other activists showed a very different face at COP25, emphasizing government failures to protect the environment as well as indigenous and traditional peoples living in the Amazon.
Brazil sugarcane growth can meet biofuel need and not drive deforestation: study
- Sugarcane crop production in Brazil may need to expand by up to 5 million hectares by 2030 to meet a rising demand for ethanol biofuels, according to computer models that compared the impact of different economic, social, and policy scenarios on increased ethanol production.
- The recent study found that sugarcane ethanol demand by 2030 would increase by between 17.5 and 34.4 million metric tonnes. This demand could be met without new deforestation by intensifying ranching practices and converting existing Brazilian cattle pastures to sugarcane.
- However, in a move that surprised many experts, President Jair Bolsonaro this month revoked a decree limiting sugarcane cultivation in the Amazon and Pantanal biomes, leaving the decision about how to meet rising ethanol demand in the hands of the sugarcane industry.
- Experts say that even with the end of state regulation, sugarcane expansion into the Amazon and Pantanal is unlikely due to poor agricultural conditions and lack of infrastructure there, along with the industry’s need to maintain its positive environmental reputation in international markets.
Sugarcane threatens Amazon forest and world climate; Brazilian ethanol is not clean (commentary)
- On November 6, 2019, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro signed an administrative decree abolishing the environmental zoning of sugarcane which has until now restrained the advance of this crop — largely used to produce ethanol — into the Amazon rainforest and Pantanal wetlands.
- Sugarcane expansion into these two ecologically sensitive biomes will generate unprecedented impacts — including deforestation and carbon emissions adding to climate change — meaning that Brazilian biofuels can no longer be claimed to be environmentally “clean.”
- In 2018, the European Union imported more than 43 million liters of Brazilian cane ethanol. As with all commodities, importing countries need to assess the environmental impact that the production of these commodities have on the global climate via the destruction of Amazon and Pantanal native vegetation.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Deforestation preceded fires in ‘massive’ area of Amazon in 2019
- Deforestation watchdog Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project found that 4,500 square kilometers (1,740 square miles) of the Brazilian Amazon was deforested between 2017 and 2019 and then burned.
- The team’s analysis revealed that 65 percent of that deforestation occurred in 2019 alone.
- The research points to the need for policymakers to address deforestation as well as fires.
In surprise move, Brazil has removed restrictions on Amazon sugarcane production
- Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has signed a decree revoking a zoning regulation for the sugarcane industry, effectively allowing for cultivation of the crop in the Amazon and other areas of primary forest.
- The measure is controversial because it wasn’t requested by the industry, which, under the previous regulation, was permitted to expand onto degraded land and cattle pasture covering six times the area currently planted with sugarcane.
- The government has justified the move as necessary to boost the ethanol industry in Amazonian states, but experts warn the end of the zoning restriction could present an obstacle to ethanol exports to the European Union, damaging the biofuel sector.
- To date, the sugarcane industry has remained dissociated from the deforestation linked to the cattle and soy industries. Environmentalists say this new decree could end that exception, while also sending the message that the government sees no value in protecting standing forests.
Fires and greenhouse gases fuel drying of the Amazon
- New research reveals that fires in the Amazon rainforest, used primarily to clear land for agriculture and ranching, are contributing to drier conditions caused by the emissions of climate-warming gases into the atmosphere.
- Fires release “black carbon,” which absorbs energy and causes temperatures to rise, as well as blocking the formation of clouds, creating drier conditions.
- The researchers caution that the rising demand for water combined with scarcer supplies could threaten the forest’s survival.
Enforce Brazilian laws to curb criminal Amazon deforestation: study
- Recent research finds that a failure to track environmental infractions and to enforce environmental laws and regulations is aiding and abetting ever escalating rates of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado.
- Researchers studied the failings of three environmental initiatives: the TAC da Carne, blocking cattle sales raised in deforestation embargoed areas; the Amazon Soy Moratorium, stopping sales of soy grown on deforested lands; and DOF timber permitting, which allows logging only in approved areas.
- The study found that timber, soy and cattle producers often subvert Brazil’s environmental laws by illegally “laundering” harvested logs, beef and soy to conceal illegal deforestation. These practices have been largely helped by the weak governance of the Jair Bolsonaro administration.
- The scientists recommend the closing of illegal soy, cattle and logging laundering loopholes via the strengthening of Brazilian environmental agencies, the improvement of monitoring technologies, better integration of policies and systems, and putting market pressure on producers.
China, EU are importing soybeans from unregistered Brazil farms: report
- Considered one of the main drivers of deforestation in the country, soybean is Brazil’s main commodity, with exports valued at more than $33 billion in 2018.
- Padding this figure, however, are soybean crops grown on unregistered farms skirting environmental regulations.
- Twelve percent of soybean farms in the Amazon rainforest and Cerrado savanna lack land registration, but two-thirds of crops from the municipalities with the most blind spots are exported, mostly to China (39 percent) and Europe (12 percent), with 33 percent going to the domestic market.
- U.S. commodities traders ADM, Bunge and Cargill are the biggest exporters of crops from these areas, along with Brazil’s Amaggi, the world’s biggest private soybean producer.
Indigenous communities ‘robbed’ as land grabbers lay waste to Brazilian rainforest
- Terra Indígena Ituna/Itatá in northern Brazil is home to several groups of uncontacted peoples who are dependent on the surrounding forest for survival.
- But outsiders have been increasingly moving in and clearing land for agriculture and mining. Brazilian authorities estimate that about 10 percent of the territory has been illegally invaded and destroyed this year alone, and satellite data show deforestation is still ramping up. Because of the scale of these incursions, Ituna/Itatá is now believed to be the most deforested indigenous territory in Brazil.
- While assaults on indigenous territories in Brazil have been happening for decades, activists say the sharp rise in deforestation and land-grabbing in Ituna/Itatá this year has been closely linked to the country’s controversial new president Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro has also launched an open attack on Funai, the government agency tasked with protecting indigenous interests in Brazil. The president signed a decree curbing Funai’s powers earlier this year, dealing a further blow to an agency already weakened by the previous government’s move to slash its funding in half.
- Ibama, Brazil’s environment agency, has responded to the assault on Ituna/Itatá with at least five operations in the area in 2018 and 2019. Yet the long-term impact appears to be limited: just weeks after the latest crackdown, activists and local sources report that land-grabbers have gone back to clearing the forest.
As Bolsonaro meets with Xi, China silent on Brazil environmental crisis
- China is Brazil’s biggest trading partner, so it is uniquely positioned to influence the Brazilian agribusiness sector and to help limit the drastic reductions in environmental protections being carried out by the Jair Bolsonaro administration.
- However, when Brazil’s Bolsonaro visited with China General Secretary Xi Jinping last week, the environment appeared to hold no place in their high-level talks which centered on trade and commerce agreements.
- Bolsonaro has caused international concern over his anti-environmental policies with the EU and with international investors. Germany and Norway, in particular, have slashed their aid to Brazil for its deforestation programs.
- Some conservationists hope that China, which has recently become vocal on the topics of sustainability and climate change, will move to brake Bolsonaro’s anti-environmental policy excesses, but other analysts believe China will maintain its primary focus on Brazilian trade.
‘Witnessing extinction in the flames’ as the Amazon burns for agribusiness
- The vast and biodiverse Triunfo do Xingu protected area in the Brazilian Amazon lost 22 percent of its forest cover between 2007 and 2018, with figures this year indicating the rate of deforestation is accelerating.
- The surge in deforestation, driven largely by cattle ranching, is part of a wider trend of encroachment into protected areas across the Brazilian Amazon under the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro, according to conservationists.
- With the widespread clearing slicing up the larger protected area into smaller fragments of forest, human rights advocates worry that it will become increasingly difficult for forest-dependent indigenous communities to survive within it.
- The deforestation is likely to have a far-reaching impact on the biodiversity of the region, which is home to countless species of plants and animals not adapted to living in areas with higher temperatures and less vegetation.
Vatican calls landmark meeting to conserve Amazon, protect indigenous peoples
- From October 6-27 Catholic Church bishops from nine Amazon nations, indigenous leaders and environmental activists will convene in Rome at the Vatican to develop a unified strategy for preserving the Amazon rainforest and protecting the region’s indigenous peoples.
- The event is an outgrowth of Pope Francis’ 2015 teaching document known as Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home — an indictment of capitalism’s excesses, global extraction industries, industrial agribusiness, and our consumer society, which the pope mostly holds responsible for climate change, deforestation and endangerment of indigenous cultures.
- The Vatican meeting to discuss the Amazon is seen as a direct threat to national sovereignty by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, whose spokesperson earlier this year said of the Amazon synod that “it’s worrying and we want to neutralize it.”
- In a conference call this week, a few of those who will participate in the Amazon synod took a more positive view, saying that: “People are afraid that they’re going to have to change their own interests. But change has to come and the time is now.”
Brazil land reform head fired amid push to legalize cleared Amazon land
- Far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has fired army general João Carlos de Jesus Corrêa as the head of the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), a position he held since February of this year.
- Critics say the move yields to pressure from the powerful farm lobby to push legalization of cleared land in the Amazon, which could lead to increased deforestation in the region.
- According to news reports, Corrêa’s removal is tied to disagreements regarding the Bolsonaro administration’s plan to ease the process to regularize about 750,000 land deeds through the end of the year.
Brazilian beef industry plays outsized role in tropical carbon emissions: report
- Roughly 2.6 gigatons of carbon dioxide were released annually between 2010 and 2014 due to growth in tropical agriculture and tree plantations, say researchers; 40 percent of those deforestation-related emissions stem from Brazil and Indonesia, with oilseeds — especially palm oil and soy — accounting for most emissions in Indonesia.
- The research shows that cattle ranching in Brazil is the leading driver of deforestation emissions across Latin America. Brazilian meatpacking giant JBS presents the highest deforestation risk of the nation’s leading companies, followed by other major firms including Minerva and Marfrig. Most beef raised in Brazil is consumed domestically.
- The deforestation problem arises because monitoring linked to ranches is only done with the final slaughterhouse supplier, while most forest loss is taking place at the ranch where the animals originate, or at other ranches to which animals are sold, before being “laundered” at a last ranch.
- The solution: barcode tag animals from birth, so livestock can be traced from source, through multiple sales, to the slaughterhouse, tracking deforestation along the way. But political will has been lacking, say analysts, under past administration and especially under President Jair Bolsonaro.
Prompted by Amazon fires, 230 investors warn firms linked to deforestation
- Prompted by the Amazon fires in Brazil and Bolivia, 230 global investors with $16.2 trillion in assets have issued a strongly worded statement warning hundreds of unnamed companies to either meet their commodities supply chain deforestation commitments or risk economic consequences.
- The statement was published by Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), an international network of investors and Ceres, a U.S. non-profit which works with investors to promote sustainability.
- Among the 230 signatories are CalPERS (the California Public Employees’ Retirement System), which manages the largest public pension fund in the United States, and some more unexpected firms, such as China Asset Management.
- Elsewhere, consumer pressure has led the VF Corporation, a US apparel and footwear firm which owns Timberland and The North Face brands, to announce it has stopped buying Brazilian leather. It remains to be seen whether a global Brazilian boycott linked to deforestation will develop.
World’s biggest meatpackers buying cattle from deforesters in Amazon
- JBS, Marfrig and Frigol, among the world’s biggest meat producers, have been buying cattle from ranches associated with illegal deforestation and slave labor, an investigation by Repórter Brasil has found.
- The ranches in question are located in southern Pará state, the epicenter of the fires currently ravaging the Amazon, providing further evidence of the link between deforestation for cattle pasture and forest fires.
- The three companies say the information that would have flagged the ranches as problematic were not publicly available at the time they made their purchase, and point to their commitments to not source from ranches linked to environmental crimes.
- But a lack of animal traceability allows ranchers to use legalized farms to conceal sales of cattle raised in illegal areas through false declarations of origin, in a practice known as “cattle washing.”
Expand or Intensify? Balancing biodiversity and rising food needs: study
- A recent study shows that for a given rise in food production, the impact of cropland expansion on biodiversity is many times greater than that for cropland intensification. This is because expansion can be expected to occur in those regions with the highest existing levels of biodiversity, mainly in Central and South America, a new study finds.
- Researchers estimated crop expansion and intensification potential for 17 major agricultural crops using socio-economic data as well as data on biophysical constraints. This information was overlaid with spatial data on biodiversity, specifically endemism richness to determine how each strategy would impact biodiversity in different locales.
- Worldwide, there is a major gap between the amount farms are producing and potential yields that could be achieved if plants were grown in an optimal way on minimal land. Closing this yield gap by 28 percent through land use intensification would increase production equal to expanding cropland area by 730 million hectares.
- In the future, we need to not only protect biodiversity on uncultivated wildlands, but also make the very most economically and ecologically of our existing croplands, encouraging biodiversity there as well, while maximizing food production.
Brazilian Amazon fires scientifically linked to 2019 deforestation: report
- A scientific report released today by the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) reveals critical overlap between deforestation and fire alerts. Mongabay had exclusive access to the report ahead of release.
- At least 125,000 hectares (310,000 acres) of the Brazilian Amazon — the equivalent to 172,000 soccer fields — were cleared through 2019 and then burned in August. The findings offer a base map overlapping 2019 deforestation and fire hotspots, and include 16 high-resolution time lapse videos unveiling newly cleared agricultural lands linked to fire occurrences.
- MAAP’s findings show that the dramatic photos that garnered worldwide attention of smoky fires sweeping the Brazilian Amazon in August do not correspond with burning rainforest, but instead coincide with areas intentionally deforested this year, with the cleared land then set ablaze to finish the agricultural conversion process.
- Although the report didn’t detect major forest fires in Brazil to date, the risk still exists, as the dry season deepens, given that many fire occurrences were detected on agriculture-forest boundaries. The study doesn’t say how much of the 125,000 hectares cleared in the first 8 months of 2019 were illegally deforested.
State governors support Bolsonaro’s Amazon mining, agribusiness plans
- In a meeting with nine Amazon state governors called by Jair Bolsonaro to discuss the region’s wildfires, the president pushed the states to back his policies which seek to bring major mining and agribusiness operations onto indigenous lands. Doing so would be a direct violation of the 1988 Constitution.
- Backing Bolsonaro were the governors of Acre, Roraima, Tocantins, Rondônia, Amazonas, Mato Grosso and Amapá states. Only the Pará and Maranhão governors opposed opening more forest areas to development and favored upholding current indigenous land use rights.
- Most of the state governors agreed with Bolsonaro that indigenous groups hold control over too much Brazilian land that could be mined or turned over to agribusiness, greatly profiting the nation, while also bringing indigenous people into mainstream Brazilian society.
- The federal Congress is presently crafting legislation that could open indigenous lands to mining and industrial agribusiness. It is also preparing to vote on a bill that seems likely to pass and would allocate R$ 1 billion (US$ 240 million) to combat deforestation and fires in the Amazon and carry out land regularization.
Giant Norway pension fund weighs Brazil divestment over Amazon deforestation
- KLP, Norway’s largest pension fund, with over US$80 billion in assets, is saying it may divest from transnational commodities traders operating in Brazil such as Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Bunge and Cargill, if they work with producers who contribute to deforestation. KLP has $50 million in shares and loans with the firms.
- KLP is also reaching out to other investors to lobby them to use their financial influence to curb Amazon deforestation via supply chains. On August 28, Nordea, the largest asset management group in the Nordic region announced a temporary quarantine on Brazilian government bonds in response to this year’s Amazon fires.
- International investment firms play a pivotal role in preserving or deforesting the Amazon. A new report found that mega-investment house BlackRock ranks among the top three shareholders in 25 of the largest public “deforestation-risk” companies, firms dealing in soy, beef, palm oil, pulp and paper, rubber and timber.
- The Amazon deforestation process is complex. But it often proceeds by the following steps: land speculators invade the rainforest, illegally cut down and sell the most valuable timber, then set fire to the rest; they then can sell the land for 100-200 times its previous worth to cattle ranchers, who may eventually sell it to soy growers.
Misinformation and blame spread concerning sources of Amazon fires
- With the global spotlight on Brazil’s Amazon fires, those in and out of government are playing a blame game, pointing fingers and often using unsubstantiated claims to target those they say set the blazes.
- Pres. Jair Bolsonaro, without evidence, has blamed NGOs disgruntled at losing international Amazon funding. He also accused state governors for not fighting the fires. One ruralist even blamed ICMBio (Brazil’s national park service) for setting the blazes, though she has since been charged with setting fires in a protected area.
- Conservationists put the blame squarely on Bolsonaro and his deregulation and defunding of government institutions, including IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental enforcement agency, which used to regularly fight fires and arrest perpetrators.
- IBAMA claims that, though warned days in advance of “A Day of Fire” in Pará state, it received no law enforcement backup from federal or state authorities. This allowed ruralists (radical agricultural advocates) in Altamira and Novo Progresso to set hundreds of fires on August 10-11, with little fear of fines or prosecution.
Bolsonaro expresses ‘love’ for Amazon as it burns, offers no policy shift
- The number of fires in the Amazon biome topped 41,858 in 2019 as of August 24 (up from 22,000 this time last year). Scientists are especially concerned about wildfires raging inside protected areas, such as Jamanxim National Forest in Pará state and Mato Grosso’s Serra de Ricardo Franco Park.
- While the Bolsonaro government blames hot weather for the Amazon blazes, others disagree. They point to the link between fires and their use to illegally clear rainforest by land speculators, who — emboldened by Bolsonaro’s lax enforcement policies —sell cleared land for 100-200 times more money than it would sell for with trees covering it.
- Preliminary data shows deforestation rising under Bolsonaro. The rate in June 2019 was 88 percent higher than in June 2018; deforestation soared by 278 percent in July 2019 as compared with July 2018. The rise, analysts say, is due in part to the dismantling of IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental enforcement agency.
- Bolsonaro has pledged to bring in the army to fight the Amazon blazes and deployed the first units over the weekend, while on Monday the G7 nations promised an emergency $20 million in aid to help Amazon countries fight wildfires and launch a long-term global initiative to protect the rainforest.
Norway freezes support for Amazon Fund; EU/Brazil trade deal at risk?
- On Thursday, Norway announced a freeze on US$33.2 million, Amazon Fund donations slated for projects aimed at curbing deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. The REDD+ Amazon Fund was launched in 2008, and was expected to continue indefinitely.
- However, the anti-environmental policies of Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro have put the Fund’s future in grave doubt. Norway’s freeze came as the direct result of the Bolsonaro administration’s unilateral action to drastically alter the rules for administering the fund, even as monthly deforestation rates shot up in Brazil.
- Bolsonaro seems not to care about the loss of funding. However, some analysts warn that Norway’s decision could lead to a refusal by the European Union to ratify the recently concluded EU/Mercosur Latin American trading bloc agreement. Brazil’s troubled economy badly needs the pact to be activated.
- Other Bolsonaro critics have raised the prospect that the Amazon Fund freeze could be a first step toward a global consumer boycott of Brazilian commodities. Meanwhile, state governments in Brazil are scrambling to step up and accept deforestation reduction funding from international donors.
Bolsonaro administration approves 290 new pesticide products for use
- In just seven months, the Bolsonaro government has approved 290 new pesticide products for use, at the rate of nearly 1.4 per day. Some of the approved chemicals are banned in the EU, US, and elsewhere. Brazil is one of the largest users of pesticides in the world, with utilization on its vast soy crop especially intensive.
- Most of the pesticides approved are not new individual chemicals, but toxic cocktails that combine a variety of pesticides blended for various uses. However, these combinations have rarely been tested to determine their interactions or impacts on human health or nature.
- In addition to the new products, a new regulatory framework to assess pesticide health risks was established in July that will reduce restrictiveness of toxicological classifications. Under Bolsonaro, 1,942 registered pesticides were quickly reevaluated, with the number considered extremely toxic dropped from 702 to just 43.
- Pesticide poisoning is common in Brazil, and on the rise. The full impacts of chemical toxins on wildlife, plants, waterways and ecosystems are not known. Agribusiness typically sprays from the air, a process that if not conducted properly can result in wind drift of toxins into natural areas and human communities.
Brazilian Amazon deforestation surge is real despite Bolsonaro’s denial (commentary)
- June 2019 saw an 88 percent increase in Amazon deforestation over the same month in 2018. In the first half of July 2019, deforestation was 68 percent above that for the entire month of July 2018, according to INPE, Brazil’s federal monitoring agency.
- However, far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who took office in January, is denying the accuracy of his own government statistics, calling INPE’s data “lies.”
- Like US President Trump, Bolsonaro has a history of denying scientific data and facts when they conflict with his ideology and policies, including the need for action to combat the escalating climate crisis.
- The conservation outlook for the rest of Bolsonaro’s four-year term is grim; he has in just six months dismantled Brazil’s environmental agencies, deforestation program and environmental licensing system. This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Small-scale farming is a big threat to biodiversity in the western Amazon: Study
- Smallholder farming poses a significant threat to biodiversity in the western Amazonian forests of northeastern Peru, one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, a study led by researchers at Princeton University has found.
- Small-scale agricultural operations are generally considered to be much less harmful to wildlife than the wholesale clearance and conversion of forests to pasture or cropland, but the study, published in the journal Conservation Biology in May, shows that small-scale farmers’ activities are having a substantially negative impact on wildlife and plant life all the same.
- Plans to build more roads in the northern Peru could exacerbate the situation, but the researchers say their findings have important implications for conservation policy in the western Amazon region and could help point a way towards mitigating the impact of future development.
New initiative aims to jump-start stalled drive toward zero deforestation
- Over the past decade there has been a rise in corporate zero-deforestation commitments, but very few companies have shown progress in meeting their goals of reducing deforestation in their supply chains by 2020.
- The Accountability Framework Initiative, launched by a group of 14 civil society organizations, is the latest tool to help companies make progress, and hold them accountable, on their zero-deforestation commitments.
- The Accountability Framework Initiative is expected to be especially important for markets like Europe, where demand for crops like soy has been linked to rising deforestation in places like the Brazilian Cerrado.
Amazon rural development and conservation: a path to sustainability?
- Oil palm production in Brazil continues to be conducted on a small scale as compared to the nation’s vast soy plantations. Total oil palm cultivation was just 50,000 hectares in 2010. Today, that total has risen to 236,000 hectares, 85 percent of which is in Pará state.
- While environmentalists fear escalated oil palm production could lead to greater deforestation, Brazil possesses 200 million hectares (772,204 square miles) of deforested, degraded lands, three quarters of which is utilized as pasture, most of it with low productivity that could be converted to oil palm.
- The Rurality Project offers an example of sustainable oil palm production through its recruitment of small-scale growers to boost local economies. But, the bulk of Amazon palm oil is produced on large plantations managed by big firms, like Biopalma, many of which have poor socioenvironmental records.
- If oil palm is to become a large-scale reality in Brazil, without major deforestation, growth will need to be backed by strong regulation and enforcement. But critics say the Bolsonaro government is backing weak regulation that encourages land speculation and deforestation.
Amazon infrastructure puts 68% of indigenous lands / protected areas at risk: report
- 68 percent of the indigenous lands and protected natural areas in the nine nations encompassing the Amazon region are under pressure from roads, mining, dams, oil drilling, forest fires and deforestation, according to a new report by RAISG, the Amazonian Geo-referenced Socio-Environmental Information Network.
- Of the 6,345 indigenous territories located within the nine Amazonian countries surveyed, 2,042 (32 percent) are threatened or pressured by two types of infrastructure activities, while 2,584 (41 percent) are threatened or pressured by at least one. Only 8 percent of the total are not threatened or pressured at all.
- In the case of the 692 protected natural areas in the Amazon region, 193 (28 percent) suffer three kinds of threat or pressure, and 188 (27 percent) suffer threats or pressure from two activities.
- “These are alarming numbers: 43 percent of the protected natural areas and 19 percent of the indigenous lands are under three or more types of pressure or threat,” said Júlia Jacomini, a researcher with the ISA, Instituto Socioambiental, an NGO and RAISG partner.
Brazil’s Bolsonaro presses anti-indigenous agenda; resistance surges
- As President Jair Bolsonaro tries to steamroll his indigenous and environmental policies into law, more than 340 international and Brazilian NGOs are urging the European Union to show its disapproval by pulling out of a nearly complete landmark trade agreement between the EU and Mercosur (South America’s trade bloc).
- A similar plea made in May by 600 European scientists and 300 indigenous groups called on the EU to demand that Brazil respect environmental and human rights standards as a precondition for concluding the Mercosur trade negotiations. It seems very unlikely that these protests will derail the trade agreement.
- Despite being blocked by the Brazilian Congress and by the nation’s Supreme Court, Bolsonaro continues demanding that responsibility for demarcating indigenous lands be taken away from FUNAI, Brazil’s indigenous affairs agency, and be handed over to the Ministry of Agriculture.
- In another move, Brazil’s Environment Minister says he plans to overhaul rules used to select deforestation projects for the Amazon Fund, money provided to Brazil annually largely by Norway and Germany. Both nations deny being consulted about the rule change that could end many NGOs receiving grants.
Brazil’s Roraima state at mercy of 2019 wildfires as federal funds dry up
- Brazil, and particularly the Amazonian state of Roraima, have seen large numbers of forest fires so far this year. From January through May, Brazil recorded 17,913 blazes nationwide, with 11,804 occurring in the nine Amazonian states. Only 2016 saw more harm in the Brazilian Amazon, when 13,663 wildfires burned over the same period.
- From January to May, Roraima registered 4,600 fires, the most numerous of any state for that period (Roraima saw just 1,970 fires during all of last year). The previous annual record for a Brazilian state was set by Mato Grosso, which suffered 4,927 forest fires in all of 2016.
- The uptick in fires is being blamed on a number of factors, including worsening Amazon drought brought by climate change, land theft and illegal deforestation (fire is typically used as a tool to clear rainforest in preparation for use by cattle ranchers and large-scale agribusiness).
- Another contributing factor: federal deforestation and firefighting policies. Since March, the Bolsonaro government has cut $7.3 million slated for fire prevention and environmental inspections to Ibama and ICMBio, Brazil’s two federal environmental agencies.
Mongabay investigative series helps confirm global insect decline
- In a newly published four-part series, Mongabay takes a deep dive into the science behind the so-called “Insect Apocalypse,” recently reported in the mainstream media.
- To create the series, Mongabay interviewed 24 entomologists and other scientists on six continents and working in 12 nations, producing what is possibly the most in-depth reporting published to date by any news media outlet on the looming insect abundance crisis.
- While major peer-reviewed studies are few (with evidence resting primarily so far on findings in Germany and Puerto Rico), there is near consensus among the two dozen researchers surveyed: Insects are likely in serious global decline.
- The series is in four parts: an introduction and critical review of existing peer-reviewed data; a look at temperate insect declines; a survey of tropical declines; and solutions to the problem. Researchers agree: Conserving insects — imperative to preserving the world’s ecosystem services — is vital to humanity.
The Great Insect Dying: How to save insects and ourselves
- The entomologists interviewed for this Mongabay series agreed on three major causes for the ongoing and escalating collapse of global insect populations: habitat loss (especially due to agribusiness expansion), climate change and pesticide use. Some added a fourth cause: human overpopulation.
- Solutions to these problems exist, most agreed, but political commitment, major institutional funding and a large-scale vision are lacking. To combat habitat loss, researchers urge preservation of biodiversity hotspots such as primary rainforest, regeneration of damaged ecosystems, and nature-friendly agriculture.
- Combatting climate change, scientists agree, requires deep carbon emission cuts along with the establishment of secure, very large conserved areas and corridors encompassing a wide variety of temperate and tropical ecosystems, sometimes designed with preserving specific insect populations in mind.
- Pesticide use solutions include bans of some toxins and pesticide seed coatings, the education of farmers by scientists rather than by pesticide companies, and importantly, a rethinking of agribusiness practices. The Netherlands’ Delta Plan for Biodiversity Recovery includes some of these elements.
Brazil guts environmental agencies, clears way for unchecked deforestation
- The Bolsonaro administration has launched policies that undermine IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, and ICMBio (The Chico Mendes Institute) which protects the nation’s federal conservation units, by effectively dismantling environmental law enforcement and allowing deforestation to proceed unchecked.
- Fines imposed for illegal deforestation between Jan. 1 and May 15 this year were down 34 percent from the same period in 2018, the largest percentage drop ever recorded. It was also smallest number of fines ever imposed (850), compared to 1,290 in the same period last year.
- Government seizures of illegally harvested timber fell even more precipitously, with just 40 cubic meters (1,410 cubic feet), equal to 10 large trees, confiscated in the first four months of 2019. By contrast, 25,000 cubic meters (883,000 cubic feet) of illegal timber were seized in 2018. IBAMA is now required to announce in advance the time and location of all its planned raids on illegal loggers.
- Bolsonaro has defanged deforestation enforcement further by firing or not replacing top environmental officials. This includes 21 out of 27 IBAMA state superintendents responsible for imposing most of the deforestation fines. Also, 47 of Brazil’s conservation units now lack directors, leaving a combined area greater than the size of England without conservation leadership.
The Great Insect Dying: The tropics in trouble and some hope
- Insect species are most diverse in the tropics, but are largely unresearched, with many species not described by science. But entomologists believe abundance is being impacted by climate change, habitat destruction and the introduction of industrial agribusiness with its heavy pesticide use.
- A 2018 repeat of a 1976 study in Puerto Rico, which measured the total biomass of a rainforest’s arthropods, found that in the intervening decades populations collapsed. Sticky traps caught up to 60-fold fewer insects than 37 years prior, while ground netting caught 8 times fewer insects than in 1976.
- The same researchers also looked at insect abundance in a tropical forest in Western Mexico. There, biomass abundance fell eightfold in sticky traps from 1981 to 2014. Researchers from Southeast Asia, Australia, Oceania and Africa all expressed concern to Mongabay over possible insect abundance declines.
- In response to feared tropical declines, new insect surveys are being launched, including the Arthropod Initiative and Global Malaise Trap Program. But all of these new initiatives suffer the same dire problem: a dearth of funding and lack of interest from foundations, conservation groups and governments.
Former Brazilian enviro ministers blast Bolsonaro environmental assaults
- A new manifesto by eight of Brazil’s past environment ministers has accused the rightist Bolsonaro administration of “a series of unprecedented actions that are destroying the capacity of the environment ministry to formulate and carry out public policies.”
- The ministers warn that Bolsonaro’s draconian environmental policies, including the weakening of environmental licensing, plus sweeping illegal deforestation amnesties, could cause great economic harm to Brazil, possibly endangering trade agreements with the European Union.
- Brazil this month threatened to overhaul rules used to select deforestation projects for the Amazon Fund, a pool of money provided to Brazil annually, mostly by Norway and Germany. Both nations deny being consulted about the rule change that could end many NGOs receiving grants from the fund.
- Environment Minister Riccardo Salles also announced a reassessment of every one of Brazil’s 334 conservation units. Some parks may be closed, including the Tamoios Ecological Station, where Bolsonaro was fined for illegal fishing in 2012 and which he’d like to turn into the “Brazilian Cancun.”
‘Resisting to exist’: Indigenous women unite against Brazil’s far-right president
- Brazil today is home to 900,000 indigenous people, speaking 274 languages and with widely differing cultural traditions. Indigenous rights were enshrined in Brazil’s 1988 constitution, including the demarcation and protection of indigenous ancestral lands.
- But indigenous people have felt seriously threatened since Jair Bolsonaro took office in January, as illegal invasions of indigenous territories have rapidly escalated, and as the administration threatens to put policies in place to limit further indigenous demarcations, eliminate indigenous comments on infrastructure projects, and cut back on health services.
- Many of the leaders in the fight against Bolsonaro’s policies are women; in this story, they give voice to their outrage at the danger to their homelands, communities and families.
The heat is on: Amazon tree loss could bring 1.45 degree C local rise
- A new modeling study finds that largely unrestricted “business-as-usual” Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado deforestation could result in the loss of an estimated 606,000 square kilometers of forest by 2050, leading to local temperature increases of up to 1.45 degrees Celsius, in addition to global rises in temperature.
- Under a Brazil Forest Code enforcement model, researchers predict deforestation would be limited to 79,000 square kilometers, with reforestation occurring over 110,000 square kilometers, leading to an average local increase of just 0.02 degrees Celsius.
- Researchers say loss of tree cover must be halted and reforestation program begun to protect people and wildlife, and curb regional warming.
- Reptiles and amphibians would be especially vulnerable to deforestation-triggered temperature rises and loss of humidity.
UK supermarkets implicated in Amazon deforestation supply chain: report
- Deforestation due to cattle ranching has increased in Brazil since 2014. With between 60 and 80 percent of deforested Amazon lands used for pasture, European retailers who source beef from Brazil risk amplifying Amazonian forest destruction unless international action is taken.
- A report from the UK organization Earthsight finds that UK supermarket chains — including Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons and Lidl — are still importing corned beef from Brazil’s largest beef producer, JBS, despite the company being implicated in a long string of corruption and illegal deforestation scandals over the last decade.
- JBS, one of the largest food companies in the world, has faced multiple corruption charges leading to the arrest of two of its former CEOs and was fined $8 million in 2017 for illegal deforestation in the Amazon.
- Many hope the forthcoming EU Communication on Stepping Up Action to Halt Deforestation will propose legislation to ensure EU companies and suppliers are not contributing to deforestation and human rights abuses. However, experts say such an agreement will only work if corporate standards are mandatory not voluntary.
Pressure mounts on EU to curb Brazilian deforestation, human rights abuses
- Concern is rising among Brazilian socioenvironmental NGOs and internationally over the new threats to indigenous people and rising deforestation seen under President Jair Bolsonaro — his administration completed its first 100 days in office in April.
- The EU is Brazil’s second largest trading partner, but currently lacks any binding trade regulations on agricultural goods linked to eliminating deforestation, reducing environmental degradation, and protecting against human rights violations.
- A new report by more than 20 NGOs — including FERN, Forest Peoples Programme, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, and Amazon Watch — is calling on the EU to include provisions in trade agreements now under negotiation, such as the EU/MERCOSUR agreement, that would fully protect forests and indigenous rights.
Dismantling of Brazilian environmental protections gains pace
- In his first 100 days in office, Jair Bolsonaro has moved fast to change personnel and reduce the authority of IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, and ICMBio, which manages its conservation areas. His actions are seen as most benefiting ruralists — wealthy elite agribusiness and mining interests.
- Presidential Decree No. 9,760 creates “conciliation centers” to investigate environmental fines, and provides multiple new ways for appealing fines, while also preventing funds gathered via penalties from being distributed to NGOs for environmental projects.
- Some worry the government may use the new decree as a precedent for forgiving the hefty R$250 million (US$63.4 million) fine imposed by IBAMA on Brazil’s gigantic Vale mining company for environmental law infractions related to the Brumadinho tailings dam disaster, in which 235 people died.
- A large number of IBAMA staff have been fired, including 21 of its 27 regional superintendents, responsible for combating deforestation. Many of Bolsonaro’s replacements within the top ranks of the Environment Ministry, IBAMA and ICMBio are coming from the military.
China, EU, US trading with Brazilian firms fined for Amazon deforestation: report
- Soy, cattle, timber and other commodity producers fined for Amazon illegal deforestation in Brazil continue to sell their products to companies in China, the European Union and United States according to a new report. The document names 23 importing companies, including giants Bunge, Cargill and Northwest Hardwoods.
- Large international investment firms, such as BlackRock, also continue to pump money into Brazilian firms, despite their being fined for illegal Amazon forest loss by the Brazilian government, according to the report. Many Brazilian producers deny the accuracy of the Amazon Watch document.
- Forest losses in the Brazilian Amazon jumped 54 percent in January 2019 compared to a year ago, and are expected to increase under the Bolsonaro administration which has announced plans for extensive environmental deregulation, and is making an aggressive push to develop the Amazon rainforest for agribusiness and mining.
- With Brazilian government checks on deforestation diminishing, many analysts feel that the only way to limit the loss of Amazon forests now will be to shed a bright light on global commodities supply chains in order to make consumers worldwide aware of the participation of international companies in deforestation.
Bolsonaro administration authorizes 150+ pesticides in first 100 days
- With Brazil’s Bolsonaro administration in power for just 100 days, it has already approved 152 new pesticides for use, a record in such a short period of time, while another 1,300 pesticide requests for authorization from transnational companies await action. Most requests are from U.S., German and Chinese companies.
- Brazil is already the world’s largest user of pesticides and has an acknowledged pesticide poisoning problem, with 100,000 cases reported annually, with likely many more not reported. Agriculture Minister Tereza Cristina denies that pesticide fast tracking will cause any serious environmental or health problems.
- Newly authorized this year are the fungicide mancozeb (mostly banned in Canada), pesticide sulfoxaflor (associated with bee colony collapse disorder), and insecticide chlorpyrifos (banned in the U.S. in 2018 and associated with development disabilities in children).
- The control of both the executive and legislative branches of the Brazilian federal government by the bancada ruralista agribusiness lobby means that it is very likely that bill PL 6299/2002 — called “the poison package” by critics — will be voted up this year. The legislation would greatly deregulate the approval process for pesticides.
Brazil Supreme Court land demarcation decision sparks indigenous protest
- On January 1, the first day of his presidency, Jair Bolsonaro issued a provisional measure (MP 870) shifting decision-making power regarding indigenous reserve demarcations from Funai, Brazil’s indigenous agency, to the Ministry of Agriculture.
- MP 870 was quickly challenged as unconstitutional in Brazil’s Supreme Court, but on April 24 Supreme Court Justice Roberto Barroso rejected that challenge, though he did agree that if the Agriculture Ministry failed to carry through with indigenous demarcations in future, further legal action could go forward at that time.
- At their annual encampment in Brasilia from April 24-26, approximately 4,500 indigenous people from across Brazil protested Barroso’s demarcation decision by marching on the Supreme Court building. During the three-day encampment, indigenous groups also protested Bolsonaro’s plan to allow mining and agribusiness within indigenous reserves.
- Of special concern to indigenous people is the administration’s move toward adopting a policy of assimilation, which could result in the erosion of indigenous autonomy within ancestral reserves, and the absorption of indigenous cultures and traditions into Brazil’s predominant culture.
Stinging ants: Amazon indigenous group girds itself to hold ancestral lands
- The ancestral home of the Sateré-Mawé indigenous group is the Andirá-Marau Indigenous Reserve, an officially demarcated, heavily forested region covering 780,000 hectares (3,011 square miles) in Amazonas and Pará states, Brazil.
- The reserve itself — along with indigenous villages around it that were not included in the demarcated area — are increasingly under attack from illegal loggers and land grabbers.
- To steel themselves against the challenges posed by invading outsiders, and to create unity among their tribal groups, Sateré young men participate in a ritual known as Waumat, in which they endure the painful bites of stinging ants.
- They also renew their commitment to active resistance through dances and songs that celebrate myths, past wars, victories, losses, and terrible exploitation by the colonial Portuguese. The Sateré are feeling especially challenged today by the anti-indigenous rhetoric and policies of the rightist Bolsonaro administration.
Bolsonaro draws battle lines in fight over Amazon indigenous lands
- Parintins, site of Brazil’s big annual indigenous festival, is typical of towns in the Brazilian Amazon. The Sateré, and other indigenous groups living or working there, often endure discrimination and work analogous to slavery. Civil rights are few and indigenous populations inhabit the bottom rung of the economic ladder.
- Now more than ever, indigenous groups fear the loss of their cultural heritage and land rights as guaranteed under the 1988 Brazilian Constitution. New president Jair Bolsonaro wants to achieve indigenous societal “assimilation,” a process by which an ethnic minority group’s traditional way of life and livelihoods is erased.
- The strongest advocates of indigenous assimilation are the ruralistas, rural wealthy elites and agribusiness producers, who have the most to gain via access to the timber, land and mineral wealth found within indigenous territories. The bancada ruralista agribusiness lobby is strong in Congress, and it supports Bolsonaro.
- The Sateré, along with other indigenous groups, have endured a long history marked by extermination and exploitation. Brazil’s 900,000 indigenous people are increasingly joining together to fight the anti-indigenous policies proposed by the Bolsonaro administration and supported by the ruralists.
Amazon could be biggest casualty of US-China Trade war, researchers warn
- The US is the world’s largest soy producer and historically has exported the majority of its soybeans to China.
- But after President Donald Trump’s high China tariffs resulted in a Chinese retaliation of a 25 percent import tariff on US agricultural goods last year, United States soy exports to China dropped 50 percent, and Chinese imports of Brazilian soybeans increased significantly.
- Soy production has been linked to large-scale deforestation in the Amazon rainforest and Cerrado savanna — Brazil’s two largest and ecologically most important biomes.
- If the US/China trade war continues, new research suggests that the amount of land dedicated to soy production in Brazil could increase by up to 39 percent in order to fill Chinese demand, causing new deforestation by up to 13 million hectares (50,139 square miles) of forest, an area the size of Greece, researchers estimate.
Brazil soy trade linked to widespread deforestation, carbon emissions
- Recent data released by the Brazilian government’s Prodes deforestation satellite monitoring system found that 220,000 square kilometers in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes were deforested between 2006 and 2017.
- Roughly 10 percent of that land was then used to grow soy, a native vegetation conversion of at least 21,000 square kilometres (with over 17,000 of that in the Cerrado), according to the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and Global Canopy’s Trase platform, which analyze commodities supply chains.
- Clearing native vegetation releases carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, while crop plantations store less CO2 – a one-two punch hindering efforts to curb climate change. About 140,000 square kilometers of Cerrado were lost from 2006-2017, releasing 210 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions (CO2e).
- The majority of Brazil’s soy is produced for export. So experts say the best way to protect the Cerrado under the Bolsonaro administration will be for commodities companies and NGOs to create market incentives. Plans now under consideration suggest momentum is building to protect Brazil’s most vulnerable ecoregion.
Brazil fails to give adequate public access to Amazon land title data, study finds
- Brazil possesses vast tracts of public lands, especially in the Amazon, which exist in the public domain. Traditional peoples, landless movements, quilombolas (communities established more than a century ago by Afro-Brazilian slave descendants), and other homesteaders have the legal right to lay claim to these lands.
- It is the job of state land tenure agencies to keep track of these public lands, regulating the allocation of land and property rights to secure protection for individuals and communities against forcible evictions, and to monitor against illegal deforestation, large illegal land grabs and other illicit activities.
- However, a recent study found that none of eight Amazonian states met all the mandated transparency criteria. Active transparency indicators (data accessible on the internet or via public documents) were missing 56 percent of the time. Passive transparency indicators (data available on request) fared poorly as well.
- The inefficiency of land tenure agencies in providing land titling information contributes to numerous land conflicts, and increases insecurity in the countryside. The lack of transparency also enhances the possibility of fraud. When the poor are deprived of rightful land title data, the wealthy often have the upper hand if land disputes go to court.
Bolsonaro on the move: International meetings push agribusiness agenda
- On his first trip outside Brazil to meet with a head of state, Jair Bolsonaro met with Donald Trump at the White House this week. Bolsonaro also visited the CIA and dined with Trump former strategist Steve Bannon, believed to have had a role in helping Bolsonaro get elected.
- Bolsonaro and Trump are known to have discussed trade, but their meeting was conducted in secret. Bolsonaro, dubbed the “Trump of the Tropics,” has long expressed his interest in stronger U.S. relations, though Brazil’s agriculture minister is also courting China (U.S./China trade relations remain frosty, and Brazil hopes to sell more of its soy to the Asian nation).
- In a speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Bolsonaro stated that the Brazilian government wants more agreements with the United States in a number of areas, especially mining and agriculture. He added that there is much to be discovered in the Amazon, a likely reference to untapped resources and agribusiness possibilities there.
- During the visit, a letter of intent was signed between the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Ministry of the Environment (MMA) “to work toward the launch of the first-ever biodiversity-focused impact-investment fund for the Brazilian Amazon,” with the US$100 million fund to be financed largely by the private sector.
Brazil’s key deforestation drivers: Pasture, cropland, land speculation
- New research shows that the expansion of cropland (row crops) in Brazil nearly doubled between 2000 and 2014, from 26 million hectares (100,387 square miles) to 46.5 million hectares (179,538 square miles).
- 80 percent of new cropland in Brazil came as a result of the conversion of pastures, while only 20 percent resulted from the direct conversion of native vegetation to croplands, especially soy.
- However, while pastureland “absorbs” cropland expansion, and displaces it away from forests, studies show Brazilian deforestation to be most highly driven by land speculation, whereby land speculators deforest an area, possibly selling off the timber, then converting the land to pasture, and then again quickly selling the land to a soy producer at a much increased price.
- Study data also confirmed a strong correlation between the implementation of the 2006 Amazon Soy Moratorium and declines in forest-to-soy direct conversion. However, Amazon conversion to pasturelands remains high. Meanwhile, the Cerrado savannah has seen rapid deforestation due to both pasturelands and soy plantations.
Investors warn soy giants of backlash over deforestation in South America
- Investors have called on the world’s biggest soy companies to make firm commitments to end deforestation in wildlife-rich areas of South America such as the Cerrado and Gran Chaco.
- Those that fail to do so risk being exposed by environmental activists to consumer boycotts, legal action and falling profits, experts warn.
- Investors are leading the way as companies fail to appreciate the scale of the crisis, campaigners say.
New maps show where humans are pushing species closer to extinction
- A new study maps out how disruptive human changes to the environment affect the individual ranges of more than 5,400 mammal, bird and amphibian species around the world.
- Almost a quarter of the species are threatened by human impacts in more than 90 percent of their range, and at least one human impact occurred in an average of 38 percent of the range of a given species.
- The study also identified “cool” spots, where concentrations of species aren’t negatively impacted by humans.
- The researchers say these “refugia” are good targets for conservation efforts.
Brazil’s New Forest Code puts vast areas of protected Amazon forest at risk
- A still controversial 2012 update to the Brazilian Forest Code that reduced the area required for legal reserves on rural private properties is endangering more than 15 million hectares (57,915 square miles) of Amazon forest, an area roughly the size of the U.S. state of Georgia, according to a recent study.
- Under the 2012 New Forest Code changes, Amazon states that have protected at least 65 percent of their territory as conservation units or indigenous reserves can reduce the percentage of native vegetation required to be conserved on private lands, which could lead to even larger increases in Amazon forest loss in those states.
- The updated 2012 code also pardoned illegal deforestation that occurred prior to 2008, leading to concerns among conservationists that such amnesties give private landowners a greenlight to clear native vegetation on their properties with impunity. Some analysts expect more deforestation pardons in the future.
- Rather than changing Brazil’s laws, say experts, what is needed to curb Amazon deforestation is a sea change in Brazilian culture – ceasing to prioritize industrial agribusiness above conservation and other socioeconomic goals. Such a shift seems unlikely under President Bolsonaro, except via international market forces.
Brazil wants to legalize agribusiness leasing of indigenous lands
- It is currently illegal under the 1988 Brazilian Constitution for outside agricultural producers to lease land within indigenous reserves from indigenous groups in order to grow commercial commodities crops there. It is also illegal for indigenous groups to convert forests within their reserves to commercial commodities crop production.
- However, the Bolsonaro government, utilizing public events and public statements, has made it clear that it condones such activities. Brazil currently knows of 22 indigenous reserves in violation of the law, with areas illegally leased to agricultural producers totaling 3.1 million hectares (11,969 square miles).
- Bolsonaro’s Agriculture Minister stated last week that she wants to see Congress move forward with new measures to make commercial commodities growing legal within indigenous reserves, provided the indigenous people living there agree to the crops and make land leasing agreements with producers.
- Up until now, indigenous groups have been renowned as the best protectors of the Amazon rainforest. However, the Bolsonaro administration’s moves seem aimed at dividing indigenous groups into two camps, one that favors agribusiness conversion, and one that wants to protect reserve forests and indigenous traditions.
Bolsonaro government takes aim at Vatican over Amazon meeting
- The Catholic Church has scheduled a Synod for October, a meeting at which bishops and priests (and one nun) from the nine Latin American Amazon countries will discuss environmental, indigenous and climate change issues.
- Members of the new rightist Brazilian government of Jair Bolsonaro are eyeing the event with suspicion, seeing it as an attack on national sovereignty by a progressive church.
- To show its opposition to the Amazon Synod, the Brazilian government plans to sponsor a rival symposium in Rome, just a month before the Pope’s meeting, to present examples of “Brazil’s concern and care for the Amazon.”
- At issue are two opposing viewpoints: the Catholic Church under Pope Francis sees itself and all nations as stewards of the Earth and of less privileged indigenous and traditional people. Bolsonaro, however, and many of his ruralist and evangelical allies see the Amazon as a resource to be used and developed freely by humans.
Brazil sees growing wave of anti-indigenous threats, reserve invasions
- At least 14 indigenous reserves have been invaded or threatened with invasion, according to Repórter Brasil, an online news service and Mongabay media partner. Threats and acts of violence against indigenous communities appear to have escalated significantly since President Jair Bolsonaro assumed office.
- Indigenous leaders say Bolsonaro’s incendiary language against indigenous people has helped incite that violence, though the government denies this, with one official saying the administration will “stop the illegality.” Indigenous leaders point out that, so far, the government has failed to provide significant law enforcement assistance in the crisis
- Among recent threats and attacks: a top indigenous leader, Rosivaldo Ferreira da Silva of the Tupinambá people, claims to have detected a plot by large-scale landowners and military and civilian police to murder him and his family. The Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau and Karipuna reserves in Rondônia state have been invaded by land grabbers and illegal loggers.
- Another five indigenous territories near the city of Altamira in Pará state have also reportedly been invaded.
Amazon at risk: Brazil plans rapid road and rail infrastructure expansion
- New Minister of Infrastructure Tarcísio Gomes de Freitas is considered one of President Jair Bolsonaro’s most capable ministers. The former army engineer wants to streamline Brazil’s infrastructure agencies, root out corruption, and is seeking foreign investors, especially China, to finance a rush of new transportation construction.
- Conservationists and indigenous groups worry that Tarcísio Freitas’ plans to push forward with new roads and railways – including Ferrogrâo (Grainrail) and FIOL (the Railway for the Integration of the Center-West) – could open the Amazon and Cerrado biomes to land grabbers, illegal loggers, illicit ranchers and industrial agribusiness.
- While Tarcísio Freitas says that new Amazon transportation routes can help industrial agribusiness grow without causing new deforestation, in a Mongabay interview last year, he failed to address how all of this new infrastructure could be accomplished without also degrading Amazon forests or impacting indigenous communities.
New appointments, new policies don’t bode well for Brazilian Amazon
- Jair Bolsonaro took office on 1 January. Since then, he has made appointments to his government, and there have been statements by people in his administration, that are causing grave concern among environmentalists.
- New Environment Minister Ricardo Salles has come out strongly for an end to the demarcation of indigenous lands, and in support of entrepreneurs and companies being allowed to self-regulate the environmental licensing process for major infrastructure and development projects.
- Salles also wants to hire a satellite firm to monitor Brazil’s forest fires, drought and deforestation. Brazil’s National Space Research Institute (INPE), a governmental agency, released a response explaining that it is already doing this work. While Salles plan isn’t clear, it could be a means of privatizing deforestation monitoring.
- Franklimberg Ribeiro de Freitas has been chosen to head Funai, Brazil’s indigenous affairs agency. However, some fear a major conflict of interest. Freitas was most recently a consulting advisor for indigenous, community, and environmental affairs with the Belo Sun mining company, where he sided against indigenous land rights.
Will President Bolsonaro withdraw Brazil from the Paris Agreement? (commentary)
- Early in his presidential campaign, candidate Jair Bolsonaro stated that he planned to pull Brazil out of the Paris Climate Agreement. Then, just before his election, the media reported that he was committed to keeping the nation in the accord.
- However, what Bolsonaro actually said was that he would keep Brazil in the agreement “for now,” but only if several conditions were met, allowances that would likely require alterations in the international accord.
- As there is no one who can make these assurances, Bolsonaro’s conditions cannot be met. Meanwhile, Amazon deforestation is rising, and the new government has announced massive plans for Amazon development. Brazil has also withdrawn its sponsorship of the 2019 United Nations Climate Conference (COP25).
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Bolsonaro government reveals plan to develop the ‘Unproductive Amazon’
- Bolsonaro administration Chief of Strategic Affairs Maynard Santa Rosa last week announced new Brazilian mega-infrastructure projects that include a dam on the Trombetas River, a bridge over the Amazon River, and an extension of the BR-163 highway from the Amazon River through 300 miles of rainforest to the Surinam border.
- Santa Rosa, a retired general, said that these Amazon biome infrastructure projects had as their purpose the integration of what he called an “unproductive, desertlike” region into “the national productive system.”
- The Trombetas region contains 4 indigenous reserves, 8 quilombo communities and 5 conservation units.
- In his radio announcement the official provided few details on the projects, saying nothing about costs, where the money to build would come from, what the socio-environmental impacts might be, or the timeline for the construction.
As Brazilian agribusiness booms, family farms feed the nation
- Brazil’s “Agricultural Miracle” credits industrial agribusiness with pulling the nation out of a recent economic tailspin, and contributing 23.5 percent to GDP in 2017. But that miracle relied on a steeply tilted playing field, with government heavily subsidizing elite entrepreneurs.
- As a result, Brazilian agro-industrialists own 800,000 farms which occupy 75.7 percent of the nation’s agricultural land, with 62 percent of total agricultural output. Further defining the inequity, the top 1.5 percent of rural landowners occupy 53 percent of all agricultural land.
- In contrast, there are 4.4 million family farms in Brazil, making up 85 percent of all agricultural operations in the country. The family farm sector produces 70 percent of food consumed in the country, but does so using under 25 percent of Brazil’s agricultural land.
- Farm aid inequity favoring large-scale industrial agribusiness over family farms has deepened since 2016 under Michel Temer, and is expected to deepen further under Jair Bolsonaro. Experts say that policies favoring family farms could bolster national food security.
Brazilian hunger for meat fattened on soy is deforesting the Cerrado: report
- The Cerrado, Brazil’s savanna, covers over 20 percent of the nation’s territory, but it is seeing severe deforestation. A recent report uncovered links between municipalities with the highest levels of deforestation and with significant soy production. Soy is Brazil’s most important and profitable export, but is also used domestically as animal feed and as a biodiesel energy crop.
- In 2017, Brazil produced 16.3 million tons of soymeal for its domestic market, and more than 90 percent of that became animal feed, with 50 percent used as chicken feed, 25 percent as pig feed, and 12 percent for beef and dairy cattle feed.
- From 2013 to 2016, more than 75 percent of all direct soy crop expansion accomplished via native vegetation clearance occurred in the so-called Matopiba states (Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia). A third of the 2016 soy harvest coming from Matopiba was utilized as animal feed or biodiesel consumed domestically in Brazil.
- More than 20 percent of all the native vegetation clearance occurring in the Cerrado in 2017 was located in just 20 out of 1387 municipalities. Forty percent of the soy produced in these 20 municipalities went to the Brazilian domestic market, with the soy processed mostly by Bunge, Granol, and Cargill.
Bolsonaro acts; Brazil’s socio-environmental groups resist
- The Bolsonaro administration is barely two weeks old, but the new president and his appointees continue to make incendiary statements and press forward with provisional measures and policies that could seriously infringe indigenous, quilombola and agrarian reform land rights, and environmental protections.
- Protest has been loud against the government’s plan to shift the responsibility for indigenous land demarcation away from FUNAI, the indigenous affairs agency, to the Agriculture Ministry, which is dominated by agribusiness and far right ruralists who have long desired indigenous lands. Another proposal may “rent” indigenous lands to ruralists.
- Amazon land thieves also have been emboldened since the election, with the invasion of the Arara Indigenous Reserve in southeast Pará state on 30 December, two days before Bolsonaro took office. On 11 January, land thieves invaded the Uru-eu-wau-wau reserve in Rondônia state. There has been no federal law enforcement response to either conflict.
- On 5 January armed land grabbers attacked a landless rural workers agrarian reform encampment occupied by 200 families in Colniza in Mato Grosso state. One landless peasant was killed and nine seriously wounded. The landless peasants were awaiting a court ruling as to whether a nearby tract would be deeded to the group.
Brazil’s indigenous agency acts to protect isolated Kawahiva people
- On 14 December, FUNAI, Brazil’s indigenous agency, supported by law enforcement, launched an operation to clear invaders – land thieves, illegal loggers, miners and ranchers – from the Pardo River indigenous reserve in Mato Grosso state. They did so possibly because FUNAI expects President Bolsonaro to curtail such raids in future.
- The reserve was established in 2016, after a 15-year effort by FUNAI to get it recognized. The territory covers 411,848 hectares (1,590 square miles) and is meant to protect the ancestral lands of the Kawahiva, a small beleaguered indigenous band that still lives there.
- Giving the Kawahiva a reserve was controversial from the start, and strongly opposed by loggers and agribusiness who denied the Kawahiva existed. FUNAI expeditions have since filmed the Kawahiva, proving that they do in fact continue to inhabit the territory.
- FUNAI officials fear that the Bolsonaro administration will refuse to demarcate the Pardo River Kawahiva reserve, and possibly even try to abolish it. Indigenous groups across Brazil say that if the government refuses to conclude the demarcation process for numerous indigenous reserves, and tries to dissolve some territories, they will resist.
Bolsonaro hands over indigenous land demarcation to agriculture ministry
- The new president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro has issued an administrative decree shifting the responsibility for indigenous land demarcation from FUNAI, the government’s indigenous affairs office, to the ministry of agriculture.
- Also as part of the decree, Bolsonaro shifted authority over the regularization of quilombola territory (land belonging to runaway slave descendants), from the government’s agrarian reform institute, INCRA, to the ministry of agriculture.
- Critics responded with alarm, seeing the move as a direct conflict of interest. But the bancada ruralista agribusiness lobby in Congress has long demanded this government reorganization, which analysts say will give agribusiness the political levers needed to invade and transform indigenous territories and treat forests as an industrial resource.
- Brazil’s indigenous communities are known to be the best stewards of the Amazon. But Bolsonaro’s moves could signal the weakening, or even the dismantling, of the indigenous reserve system. The potentially resulting wholesale deforestation could be a disaster to indigenous peoples, biodiversity, and even the regional and global climate.
Ten years on, Amazon Fund receives applause, criticism, faces new tests
- Launched in 2008, the Amazon Fund became one of the first UN REDD+ initiatives, funneling money from developed nations (with Norway as the major donor) to forest sustainability projects in Brazil, a developing nation in the Amazon basin.
- By creating a national framework to garner international resources based on results, the Amazon Fund established REDD+ as a legitimate way of achieving global cooperation to curtail greenhouse gas emissions through rainforest conservation.
- With the Fund now 10 years old, Mongabay spoke to experts about its accomplishments, shortfalls and suggestions for the future. Analysts share the view that future projects could become more innovative, encouraging not only limits to deforestation, but offering economic incentives for local communities to create a sustainable forest driven economy.
- The problem to date, say analysts, is that while the Fund has done good work, it has become the only major economic resource available for curbing deforestation in a nation where the government of Michel Temer has turned away from sustainable forestry goals, while Jair Bolsonaro, taking office in January, seems far less inclined to conserve Amazon forests.
Amazon soy boom poses urgent existential threat to landless movement
- Brazil’s 1988 constitution and other laws established the right of landless peasants to claim unused and underutilized lands. Thousands, with the support of the landless movement, occupied tracts. At times, they even succeeded in getting authorities to set up agrarian reform settlements.
- Big landowners always opposed giving large tracts of land to the landless but, until roads began penetrating the Amazon making transport of commodities such as soy far cheaper, conflict over land was less intense.
- As new Amazon transportation projects are proposed – like the planned Ferrogrāo (Grainrail), or the BR-163 and BR-319 highway improvements – land thieves increasingly move in to steal the land, with hired thugs often threatening peasant communities, and murdering leaders.
- An example: a landless community leader named Carlos Antônio da Silva, known as Carlão, was assassinated by armed gunmen last April in Mato Grosso state. The rise of Jair Bolsonaro, who has repeatedly threatened the landless movement with violence, has residents of Amazon agrarian reform settlements deeply worried.
Peccary’s disappearance foreboding for other Mesoamerican wildlife
- A multinational team of scientists met to discuss the current status and future of the white-lipped peccary, a pig-like mammal that lives in Central and South America.
- White-lipped peccaries no longer live in 87 percent of their former range, driven out largely by hunting and habitat loss.
- The scientists say the disappearance of this species, which requires large tracts of unbroken forest, could portend the extinction of other wildlife.
Bolsonaro shapes administration: Amazon, indigenous and landless at risk
- President-elect Jair Bolsonaro has chosen Ricardo Salles as Brazil’s environment minister. The former São Paulo state government environment secretary is under investigation for allegedly redrawing maps allowing protected lands to be developed for mining and factories. His statements are heavily pro-agribusiness and sometimes espouse violence.
- The selection of ruralist Tereza Cristina as agriculture minister, and Ernesto Araújo as foreign minister, also almost certainly signals difficult days ahead for Brazil’s environment. Cristina has pushed hard for fast track approval of toxic pesticides. Araújo calls climate change a “Marxist” conspiracy.
- Analysts say that, by choosing ministry appointees who hold extreme views on the environment, Bolsonaro is making Brazil vulnerable to economic reprisals from the international community – especially from developed nations and companies responding to voters and consumers who oppose harm to the Amazon and indigenous groups.
- Former army officer Bolsonaro has chosen six retired generals to head ministries; other military men join him as VP and chief of staff. Activists fear these appointments will have a chilling effect on Brazilian democracy, leading to repression. Deforestation and violence against activists since the campaign, including assassinations, continue rising in Brazil.
Purus-Madeira: Amazon parks and extraordinary biodiversity at risk now
- The Purus-Madeira interfluvial – an Amazon region running south to north from Rondônia state through Amazonas state – has been little studied by science. It is very high in biodiversity and has been fairly well preserved up until now, thanks mostly to low human occupation and difficulty of access.
- Studies indicate that more than 740 bird species occur regularly in the Madeira-Purus region representing more than 40 percent of all known Brazilian avifauna and approximately 60 percent of known Amazonian bird species. A new species, Campina’s Jay (Cyanocorax hafferi). with gaudy blue plumage, was recently recognized by science.
- Eleven protected areas, including a new national park, created in 2009 to ensure conservation of endemic species near the increasingly improved BR-319 highway, were meant to serve as a buffer against unrestrained development in the Purus-Madeira region.
- However, the Federal Attorneys Office accuses the Brazilian government of creating paper parks, without staffing or management plans. As a result, this diverse ecosystem is starting to see rapid negative change as plans to pave the BR-319 go forward, with the road offering access to illegal loggers, cattle ranchers and land grabbers invading protected areas.
‘Amazon Besieged’: Q&A with Mongabay contributor Sue Branford about new book
- From 2016 to 2017, Mongabay contributors Sue Branford and Maurício Torres traveled to the Tapajós River Basin, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, to report on the controversial plan to turn the region into a major commodities export corridor.
- Branford and Torres wrote a 15-part investigative series (published in partnership with The Intercept Brazil) based on what they’d found during their travels for Mongabay in the Tapajós Basin, one of the most biodiverse and culturally rich places on Earth. Now, the reporters have turned those pieces into a book, Amazon Besieged, which was published by Practical Action Publishing this month.
- Mongabay spoke with Sue Branford about what new perspectives she gained on the issues covered in the book while compiling her and Torres’ on-the-ground reporting for publication, what she hopes the average reader takes away from Amazon Besieged, and what she thinks the prospects are for the Amazon under the incoming Bolsonaro Administration.
COP24: Will they stay or will they go? Brazil’s threat to leave Paris
- In October, Brazil elected far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro to the presidency. During the campaign, he threatened to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, implement extreme environmental deregulation policies, and introduce mining into Amazon indigenous reserves, while also using incendiary language which may be inciting violence in remote rural areas.
- Just days before his election, Bolsonaro contradicted his past utterances, saying he won’t withdraw from the Paris accord. At COP24, the Brazilian delegation has fielded questions from concerned attendees, but it appears that no one there knows with certainty what the volatile leader will do once in office. He begins his presidency on the first of the year.
- Even if Bolsonaro doesn’t pull out of Paris, his plans to develop the Amazon, removing most regulatory impediments to mining and agribusiness, could have huge ramifications for the global climate. The Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest, stores massive amounts of carbon. Deforestation rates are already going up there, and likely to grow under Bolsonaro.
- Some in Brazil hope that environmental and economic realities will prevent Bolsonaro from fully implementing his plans. Escalating deforestation is already reducing Amazon rainfall, putting aquifers and agribusiness at risk. Agricultural producers also fear global consumer perceptions of Brazil as being anti-environmental could lead to a backlash and boycotts.
Amazon indigenous groups and truckers ally to oppose Brazil’s Grainrail
- It is well documented that the construction of new transportation infrastructure in the Amazon leads to an invasion by illegal loggers, illicit ranchers, and other land grabbers. Which is why indigenous people are opposed to Grainrail, a new railroad that, if approved, will penetrate the Tapajós basin threatening 20 indigenous territories.
- The Baú Indigenous Territory has already been reduced in size by the government which gave into pressure from invading land grabbers. Now, the Kayapó people worry that the construction of Grainrail will bring an onslaught of new land invaders and further reductions of their territory.
- This concern is especially strong as Jair Bolsonaro comes to power. He has made it known that he is opposed to the concept of indigenous preserves, while also being on the side of Amazon development and in favor of the fast tracking of environmental licensing for infrastructure projects – which means Grainrail could go forward quickly.
- Indigneous groups have found an unusual ally against Grainrail: truckers who fear they will lose their livelihoods if the planned railroad goes forward. Indigenous groups and truckers are both known for their use of direct actions, such as roadblocks and strikes, to get their views heard – methods that could lead to conflict with Bolsonaro.
Extreme floods on the rise in the Amazon: study
- Scientists and the media have documented deepening drought in the Amazon basin. But a new study finds that flood events are significantly intensifying too, becoming five times more common over the last century.
- The effect is caused by a combination of factors, including an increase in strength of the Walker circulation – an ocean-driven pattern of air circulation that carries warm moist air from the tropical Atlantic across South America towards the Pacific, resulting in Amazon precipitation.
- Human-driven climate change is a major contributing factor to this increased Amazon basin flooding. Intensifying flood events result in lives and property lost, and significant harm to croplands, pastures and livestock.
- A better understanding of flood and drought dynamics, and better predictability due partly to this study, could help reduce this damage. How escalating changes in precipitation occurrence and intensity might be altering Amazon flora and fauna is uncertain, though new research shows that tree species composition is altering.
Santo Antônio mega-dam on Brazil’s Madeira River disrupts local lives
- The Santo Antônio mega-dam built in the Amazon has heavily impacted the traditional communities displaced from their homes on the Madeira River. Many local residents were relocated from the riverside to cities, and seriously uprooted from their lifestyles, livelihoods and cultures.
- These local communities say that neither the Santo Antônio Energia Consortium, which built the dam, nor the government have been responsive to their allegations of polluted water, lost fisheries, lack of jobs and difficult urban living conditions.
- Analysts agree that the close relationship between the Brazilian government and large dam building consortiums, energy firms, mining companies and agribusiness – all profiting heavily from new dams – has resulted in local concerns being poorly addressed or ignored in the past.
- Experts also say that the Amazon dam building surge of the past few decades is likely to continue as Brazilian funding sources like the BNDES development bank dry up, but China steps in to fund mega-dams, and smaller hydro projects. Socio-environmental harm could easily escalate.
Smallholder farmers defy cocoa’s production model in Brazil
- Filha do Combu, a family-run chocolate factory in the Amazon makes tree-to-table organic chocolate and is an exception to this model.
- Using an agroforestry system, smallholder farms like Filha do Combu can now produce their own chocolate, which allows them to have more autonomy and control over their quality of life.
- When cocoa is grown within an agroforestry system, it helps preserve the forest by reducing erosion and the use of pesticides, as well as preserving biodiversity.
- However, there is still a lack of support from the public sector for these smallholder farmers.
Tax havens and Brazilian Amazon deforestation linked: study
- Tax havens are found in countries that demand no or low taxes for the transfer of foreign capital through their jurisdictions. Typically, tax havens, like those in the Cayman Islands, are very secretive and lack transparency.
- This secrecy protects institutional or individual investors from being in the public spotlight when making investments that are controversial, such as those in agribusiness companies in Brazil known to have caused significant Amazon deforestation, or those investing in illegal fishing.
- According to a recent study, between 2000 and 2011, 68 percent of all investigated foreign capital to 9 top companies in the soy and beef sectors in the Brazilian Amazon was transferred through tax havens. Soy and beef production cause major Amazon deforestation. Also, 70 percent of vessels known to be involved in illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing were funded via tax havens.
- Better transparency is needed so that investments moved through tax havens can be tracked so as to determine their impacts on the environment and on indigenous and traditional communities. This improved transparency would likely result in greater public scrutiny and force greater responsibility on investors who today remain largely anonymous.
Purus-Madeira: the Amazon arc of deforestation marches north
- For the past decade, the southern part of Amazonas state has seen some of the highest rates of deforestation increase in Brazil, threatening the unique moist forest ecosystem found on the divide between the Purus and Madeira river basins.
- The municipalities of Apuí and Lábrea, on the Transamazon highway (BR-230) lead this destructive trend. But now a variety of land users, including legal and illegal loggers, cattle ranchers, entrepreneurs and land grabbers are moving north along the currently unpaved BR-319 highway, causing major deforestation.
- Environmentalists warn that this new wave of Amazon destruction will continue sweeping northward, and intensify, if the Brazilian government continues investing in the BR-319, improving the 890-kilometer (550 mile) road linking the city of Porto Velho in Rondônia state with Manaus in Amazonas state and with the rest of Brazil.
- The new Bolsonaro government is expected to prioritize infrastructure investments in the region, likely weakening regulations governing environmental impact assessments. That could mean the fast tracking of full paving for the BR-319 soon. Among listed Bolsonaro goals is the opening of the Amazon to “new partnerships.”
Could Brazil be on verge of one of world’s biggest conservation agreements? (commentary)
- The Brazilian Cerrado is a biodiverse mixed ecosystem – a mosaic of forests, savanna and grasslands. It is huge, almost three times bigger than Texas, but half of its natural habitat has been lost as it is converted to croplands and cattle pasture, and especially soy plantations.
- in 2016, Brazil’s soy industry (via its trade association ABIOVE), joined with Brazilian NGOs to create the Cerrado Work Group. In 2017, the NGOs published a Cerrado Manifesto, stressing the need for a biome-wide conservation agreement. Many companies in the soy supply chain, including Tesco, Marks & Spencer, McDonalds and Unilever signed on.
- But a roadblock to the Brazil biome-wide agreement loomed: who would pay for zero deforestation incentives with Cerrado farmers? A breakthrough may be near: a shared incentive fund created by the dozens of companies that have signed the Cerrado Manifesto, a coalition that could include ABIOVE members, and all major global soy traders, plus impact investors.
- This sweeping Cerrado Agreement, which could be negotiated before the end of the year, would be revolutionary in that it eliminates agricultural conversion for all habitats, not just forests. This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
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