topic: Beef

topic: Beef

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Indonesian palm oil, Brazilian beef top contributors to U.S. deforestation exposure
- A new report reveals that the United States imported palm oil, cattle products, soybeans, cocoa, rubber, coffee and corn linked to an area of tropical deforestation the size of Los Angeles between October 2021 and November 2023.
- Palm oil from Indonesia was the largest contributor to deforestation, followed by Brazil due to cattle grazing.
- The report by Trase, commissioned by Global Witness, found that the U.S. continues to import deforestation-linked commodities while awaiting the passage of the FOREST Act, which aims to prohibit imports of products linked to illegal deforestation.
- Experts emphasize the need for action from companies, governments, financial institutions and citizens to stop commodity-driven forest loss, urging support for smallholders, increased transparency in supply chains, and the passage of the FOREST Act in the U.S.

Goldman Prize honors Brazilian investigation linking JBS & deforestation
- Marcel Gomes, the executive secretary at investigative journalism outlet Repórter Brasil, is one of this year’s prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize winners.
- Gomes coordinated an international investigation in December 2021 on JBS’ beef chain, using a powerful data platform on Brazilian livestock, investigative teams in different countries and a grassroots network of Indigenous communities, local NGOs and small-scale farmers.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Marcel Gomes said the Repórter Brasil series pressured big European retailers to stop selling illegally sourced JBS beef and public authorities to monitor big beef companies.
- Also known as the “Green Nobel Prize,” the Goldman Environmental Prize honored five other environmental activists on April 29.

Ten years since anti-deforestation pledge, corporate world still not doing enough
- Global Canopy released its Forest 500 list of the 350 companies and 150 financial institutions connected to deforestation-linked commodities, including beef, leather, soy, palm oil, timber, pulp and paper.
- This is the organization’s 10th report, showing that numerous companies haven’t done enough to remove deforestation from their supply chains over the last decade.
- The report found 30% of companies still haven’t developed a single deforestation policy for their supply chains, while others have developed policies but failed to implement them in a meaningful way.
- The few companies with strong, long-term goals aren’t always doing enough to meet them, according to the report.

Major meatpacker JBS misled the public about sustainability efforts, NY lawsuit claims
- New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit against JBS USA Food Company and JBS USA Food Company Holdings for misrepresenting plans to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040.
- The lawsuit cites numerous instances in which the company’s claims to the public didn’t align with what was happening behind closed doors. Its website and advertisements have boasted claims about reaching net-zero carbon emissions while company executives were making plans to grow.
- The New York attorney general said JBS Group’s greenhouse gas emissions calculations don’t include deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest, making its environmental goals “not feasible given the current scope of [its] business operations.”

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.

Meatpacking giant and Amazon deforester JBS bid for NYSE listing challenged
- Environmental groups have filed complaints with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission against Brazilian meat-processing company JBS’s bid to list on the New York Stock Exchange by the end of the year.
- JBS, the number one beef producer in Brazil, and among the top three meat processors in the United States, has been implicated in multiple land-clearing investigations in the Amazon and other Brazilian biomes. Brazil’s forests are vital to the storage of carbon and to preventing catastrophic climate change.
- The latest audit by Brazilian authorities in the Amazonian state of Pará found that JBS had the lowest environmental compliance rate among large meatpackers there, with one out of six cows coming from dubious or illegal sources.
- JBS’s total deforestation footprint may be as high as 1.7 million hectares (4.2 million acres) in its direct and indirect supply chains, a 2020 study found. Environmentalists say a surge in new JBS investments via the NYSE could convert far more Brazilian rainforest to ranches, leading to climate disaster.

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.

Report links financial giants to deforestation of Paraguay’s Gran Chaco
- Major banks and financial institutions including BlackRock, BNP Paribas, HSBC and Santander continue to hold substantial shares in – or provide financial services to – beef companies linked to illegal deforestation in the Gran Chaco region of Paraguay.
- A report by rights group Global Witness released last month says these financiers knowingly bankroll beef traders accused of having links to deforestation, despite warnings in 2020 by U.K.-based NGO Earthsight about the beef industry’s impact on the Gran Chaco.
- Almost all of the banks, investment managers and pension funds named in the new report are members of voluntary initiatives to eliminate and reverse commodity-driven deforestation from their portfolios.
- Paraguay has one of the highest rates of tropical deforestation in the world, having lost a quarter of its net forest cover between 2000 and 2020 — an area almost twice the size of Belgium.

For Dutch farming crisis, agroforestry offers solutions: Q&A with Lennart Fuchs & Marc Buiter
- The Dutch government aims to halve nitrogen emissions by 2030 by downsizing and closing farms, sparking a wave of farmer protests and a surprising win for a new agrarian political party.
- Agricultural and environmental experts are calling for the need to introduce food system solutions that both address farmer livelihoods while tackling the climate and environmental crises.
- Agroforestry, agroecology and silvopasture — climate change and conservation solutions that can be profitable — are among the solutions they say can contribute positively to the country’s nitrogen goals.
- Mongabay spoke with two Dutch agricultural experts — Lennart Fuchs from Wageningen University & Research, and Marc Buiter from the Dutch Food Forest Foundation — on how agroforestry could be part of a solution that works for both farmers and the environment.

Climate change lawsuits take aim at French bank BNP Paribas
- French bank BNP Paribas is being sued by a group of environmental and human rights advocacy groups that allege it provides financial services to oil and gas companies as well as meat producers that clear the Amazon to make space for cattle pastures.
- The basis of both lawsuits is a 2017 French law known as the “Duty of Vigilance Act,” which requires companies and financial institutions to develop reasonable due diligence measures that identify human rights and environmental violations.
- Even though the bank has committed to financing a net-zero carbon economy by 2050, the groups that filed the lawsuits said it still isn’t meeting the standards of the 2017 law.

JBS is accused of misleading investors with suspicious green bonds
- The global NGO Mighty Earth has filed a complaint against the beef giant JBS with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), accusing the company of misleading investors in a sustainability-linked bonds issuance that raised $3.2 billion for the company in 2021.
- The bonds were attached to JBS’ promise to reduce its climate footprint and become net-zero by 2040. According to Mighty Earth, these targets don’t include cattle enteric fermentation and deforestation, which account for 97% of JBS’ emissions.
- JBS argues it can’t measure its indirect emissions and that it has always been transparent with investors about the scope of its commitments.
- The case will probably be analyzed by SEC’s recently created Climate and ESG Task Force, which has already punished heavyweights such as the mining company Vale and the international financial group Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

To cut emissions from cattle ranching, beef up the soil, study says
- A pilot project funded by the World Bank in Colombia’s Vichada municipality found that land management techniques paired with the implementation of a tropical grass species increased carbon storage in the soil by more than 15%, while also avoiding the need for cyclical burning of the savanna.
- Improving the productivity of inefficient ranching practices can boost profits for ranchers while combating growing food insecurity in Colombia, say the authors of a recent study documenting the pilot project.
- The study comes amid relative silence at the COP27 climate summit about the role of livestock in climate change: A quarter of all global emissions come from the livestock industry, yet serious measures to reduce or improve these systems are not being discussed enough, experts say.
- Scientists not involved with the pilot project have welcomed the findings but note that biodiversity indicators also need to be measured to compare the improved pastures to natural savanna.

Net-zero commitments must include more anti-deforestation policies, UN tells private sector
- Many companies with net-zero commitments have made little, tangible progress against tropical deforestation, according to a recent report from a U.N. climate change task force.
- Approximately a third of carbon emissions released each year are absorbed by forests, making tackling deforestation a key part of the fight to keep global temperatures below 1.5°C (2.7°F).
- Many companies, even ones that have implemented other effective net-zero commitments, have fallen short on deforestation, meaning their carbon footprint may end up being larger than they hope.

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.

Indigenous group defends uncontacted relatives from cattle onslaught in the Gran Chaco
- The Gran Chaco, a dry forest that stretches across Paraguay, Bolivia, and Argentina, is one of the fastest-disappearing ecosystems on the planet, having lost 20% of forest cover between 2000 and 2019, according to a recent study.
- The Chaco is home to the Ayoreo-Totobiegosode, one of the only known “uncontacted” Indigenous groups in South America outside of the Amazon; in early 2021, members of this group approached a camp of their contacted relatives to express their concerns about escalating forest destruction.
- The contacted Ayoreo-Totobiegosode have been engaged in a legal battle for their traditional homelands for nearly 30 years, and although Paraguay designated this region as a protected area in 2001, several cattle-ranching companies have obtained land titles within the region, with deforestation continuing.
- Last month, the tribe made further appeals to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights requesting the official title to their traditional lands.

European supermarkets say Brazilian beef is off the menu
- A group of European supermarkets said they would stop carrying beef imported from Brazil after a new report by Mighty Earth and Repórter Brasil linked it to deforestation in the Amazon and other critical biospheres.
- Sainsbury’s in the U.K., Lidl in the Netherlands, and the Dutch retailer Alhold Delhaize were among the companies saying they would move away from stocking Brazilian beef or products manufactured by meatpacking giant JBS.
- Last year, deforestation in the Amazon spiked to its highest level since 2005, largely due to the policies of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
- Campaigners say the Bolsonaro administration’s refusal to crack down on environmental destruction is spurring a commercial backlash in Europe.

New study helps cattle ranchers monitor ecological impact on U.S. rangelands
- A new study lays out 20 indicators that could prove useful to U.S. cattle ranchers trying to better quantify the ecological impact of their operations on rangeland ecosystems.
- In recent years, ranchers have expressed confusion about the benefits of ecological regulatory programs, pointing to the need for a uniform methodology for understanding cattle ranching’s impact on the environment.
- Some of the indicators include soil stability, water quality, diversity of native plants and bird diversity, soil compaction, ground cover, plant productivity, rancher satisfaction with livelihood, capacity to experiment and community health, among others.
- While this study doesn’t instruct ranchers on how or why to apply these 20 indicators, they lay the groundwork for future studies that could instruct ranchers on how to best monitor their operations.

Timmermans vs. Bolsonaro: Will the EU get deforestation off our dinner plates? (commentary)
- The European Commission is drafting a plan to address deforestation linked with commodity supply chains.
- But Nico Muzi, Europe Director of global environmental group Mighty Earth and member of the EU Commission Expert Group on protecting and restoring the world’s forests, argues the measure has a significant loophole for soy-based animal feed and leather from Brazil.
- “The leaked plan has several major loopholes that would substantially and unnecessarily weaken its impact even as deforestation in Brazil surges,” Muzi writes. “Even while the law would protect parts of the Amazon rainforest, it would still allow big agriculture companies like Cargill to continue to drive large-scale deforestation right next door in Brazil’s Cerrado savanna and Pantanal wetlands and export the products of that destruction to Europe.”
- The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

New permits for Brazilian beef exports to US could increase deforestation risk: Report
- An Earthsight report raises alarms about new sanitary permits that allow more slaughterhouses in the Amazon to export beef to the United States.
- More slaughterhouses could lead to increased deforestation since most facilities struggle to keep track of whether their cattle are sourced from land that was cleared legally or illegally.
- A bill in the U.S. Congress could impose new environmental regulations on Brazilian slaughterhouses. Still it’s unclear how effective they will be given the difficulty of tracking illegal cattle ranching in the Amazon.

11 Mongabay investigations in two years. Here’s what we found
- Two years ago, Mongabay and its partners launched a project dedicated to revealing corruption and collusion at the core of many natural resource industries around the world via its investigative journalism program.
- The result was observable impacts in multiple sectors including government agencies, international financial institutions, local communities and civil society organizations.
- The project supported investigations focused on cattle, fisheries, minerals, palm oil, soybeans, sunflower oil, and timber.
- Some findings include exposing contradictory actions from sustainability statements of financial institutions, mining encroachment on Indigenous lands, suspicious payments made to unnamed consultants by palm oil conglomerates and broken promises of land rights acknowledgements.

Fomenting a “Perfect Storm” to push companies to change: Q&A with Glenn Hurowitz
- Over the past few years, Mighty Earth has emerged as one of the most influential advocacy groups when it comes pushing companies to clean up their supply chains. The group, has targeted companies that produce, trade, and source deforestation-risk commodities like beef, palm oil, cocoa, rubber, and soy.
- Mighty Earth is led by Glenn Hurowitz, an activist who has spent the better part of the past 20 years advocating for forests and forest-dependent communities. In that capacity, Hurowitz has played a central role in pressing some of the world’s largest companies to adopt zero deforestation, peatlands, and exploitation (ZDPE) commitments.
- Mighty Earth’s strategy is built on what Hurowitz calls the “Perfect Storm” approach: “We work to bring pressure on a target from multiple different angles in a relatively compressed time period to the point that it becomes irresistible: their customers, financiers, media, grassroots, digital, direct engagement with the company,” he explained. “It’s an application of the basic principles of classical military strategy, combined with social change theory and a lot of hard-won experience to the field of environmental campaigning.
- Hurowitz spoke about how to drive change, the evolution of environmental activism, and a range of other topics during an August 2021 conversation with Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler.

Though nefarious, Russian hack of JBS should prompt environmental debate over meat “oligopoly” (commentary)
- The recent cyberattack on Brazilian meatpacking giant JBS attracted a lot of attention, but Author Nikolas Kozloff said that most of analysis and discussion neglected to focus on broader issues associated with the industry.
- “Public discussion has missed the mark by focusing far too narrowly on mere supply chain issues: however nefarious, the JBS hack exposes wider concerns ranging from food justice to animal rights to public health to the environment and climate change,” Kozloff.
- “It is highly ironic, and that is putting it mildly, that it has taken Russian cyber-crime to highlight such systemic and underlying problems, yet perhaps such high-profile incidents might succeed in prompting long-overdue debate.”
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Tesco’s meat problem (commentary)
- Campaigners argue new requirements from Tesco, the largest supermarket chain in the U.K., on meat suppliers sourcing from South America are an improvement over the status quo but point to critical issues with the details of the plan.
- Meat has outsized environmental consequences. Raising meat produces more climate pollution, fouls more drinking water, and requires more land for livestock and feed globally than all other food crops combined.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

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.

Beef industry causes deforestation in Colombia’s Chiribiquete National Park
- A recent investigation by the Environmental Investigation Agency found that some Colombian supermarkets may be selling beef from cattle raised in Chiribiquete National Park.
- There are large gaps in the traceability of the beef produced in Colombia.
- The Colombian Agricultural Institute is responsible for vaccinating all 28 million head of cattle in Colombia and has important information that could help authorities design effective strategies to prevent cattle ranching in natural protected areas.

Illegal clearing for agriculture is driving tropical deforestation: Report
- In a new report, NGO Forest Trends found that at least 69% of tropical forests cleared for agricultural activities such as ranching and farmland between 2013 and 2019 was done in violation of national laws and regulations.
- The actual amount of illegally deforested land is immense during that period – 31.7 million hectares, or an area roughly the size of Norway.
- The study notes that if tropical deforestation emissions tied to commercial agriculture were a country, it would rank third behind China and the U.S.
- Forest Trends president Michael Jenkins said that when governments view forests like Indigenous peoples do – far more valuable standing than clear cut – conservation at scale is possible.

As illegal forest conversion for industrial ag worsens, this moment is pivotal (commentary)
- A major new study released today finds that illegal conversion of forest for industrial agriculture and exports has been getting worse. Deforestation for consumer goods is up 28%, and more than 2/3 of this is illegal.
- This has big consequences for the health of our planet: if illegal agro-conversion were a country, its emissions would be the third largest after China and the US.
- Laws are now under development in the US, EU and UK, to address this, but whether they will be effective hangs in the balance: the German law has already been gutted, while the UK law leaves penalties to be determined at some later date.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

New beef scorecard measures brands against their deforestation promises
- A new scorecard ranks major beef retailers such as Sainsbury’s, McDonald’s, Costco, and Carrefour against their own pledges to eliminate deforestation from their supply lines.
- These beef retailers, supermarkets and fast-food chains, are lagging behind industry commitments to be deforestation-free by 2020.
- Imports of beef from Brazil to the United States and Europe are on the rise, linking unwitting customers in developed nations to tropical rainforest destruction.
- Food companies have shown themselves to be sensitive to pressure, responding to shifts in consumer habits and demands.

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.

Empowering Indigenous peoples crucial to climate, biodiversity crises: Study
- A new report by the U.N. based on a review of more than 300 studies over the last 20 years argues that Indigenous and tribal communities in Latin America and the Caribbean are the best guardians of the region’s forests.
- Supporting these communities is highly cost-effective, with titled Indigenous territories in the Bolivian, Brazilian and Colombian Amazon avoiding between 42.8 million and 59.7 million metric tons of CO2 emissions per year — valued at $25 billion to $34 billion and the equivalent of taking between 9 million and 12.6 million vehicles out of circulation for one year.
- There are enormous potential savings considering that forests in Indigenous territories contain almost 30% of the carbon stored in Latin America’s forests and 14% of the carbon in the world’s tropical forests.
- There are already many examples of empowered Indigenous communities that are governing their territories, and Indigenous peoples’ organizations argue that the most effective means to funding climate and biodiversity projects would be working with and investing directly in these communities.

Brazil beef giants linked to illegal Amazon deforestation
- Brazil’s biggest beef companies have been directly linked to more than 17,000 hectares (42,000 acres) of illegal deforestation in the Amazon state of Pará.
- According to an investigation by Global Witness, JBS, Marfrig and Minerva bought cattle from a combined total of 379 ranches between 2017 and 2019 where illegal deforestation had taken place.
- The firms also failed to monitor 4,000 ranches in their supply chains that were connected to large areas of deforestation in the state, investigators found.
- Brazil has the second-largest cattle herd in the world, which is the leading driver of deforestation emissions in Latin America.

Paraguay whistleblowers allege illegal deforestation cover up
- Senior officials at Paraguay’s Environment Ministry are allegedly helping cover up illegal deforestation by the country’s cattle industry.
- Last month, London-based NGO Earthsight reported that major European automakers, including Jaguar Land Rover and BMW, were using leather linked to illegal deforestation in Paraguay.
- Damning new testimony by current and former ministry employees suggests that in many cases environmental impact assessment applications are made long after the land in question has been cleared.

Brazilian and international banks financing global deforestation: Reports
- According to a new report, some of the world’s biggest Brazilian and international banks invested US$153.2 billion in commodities companies whose activities risked harm to forests in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and Central and West Africa since 2016 when the Paris Climate Agreement was signed.
- These investments were made primarily in forest-risk commodities companies that include beef, soy, pulp and paper, palm oil, rubber and timber producers. The big banks are failing to scrutinize and refuse loans to firms profiting from illegal deforestation, said several reports.
- Banco do Brasil offered the most credit (US$30 billion since 2016), for forest-risk commodity operations. BNDES, Brazil’s development bank, provided US$3.8 billion to forest-risk companies. More than half of that amount went to the beef sector, followed closely by the pulp and paper industry.
- “Financial institutions are uniquely positioned to promote actions in the public and private sector and they have an obligation with their shareholders to mitigate their growing credit risks due to the degradation of natural capital and their association with industries that intensively produce carbon,” said one report.

Could disruptions in meat supply relieve pressure on the Amazon? (commentary)
- Ranching and beef production have put great pressure on the Brazilian Amazon, resulting in significant deforestation which harms biodiversity, could add to the destabilization of the global climate, and even lead to future pandemics. While much Brazilian meat is consumed domestically, a large portion is exported to China.
- With the pandemic raging out of control in Brazil, meat plants have become viral “hot spots” and helped to spread COVID-19 in several places around the country. Meanwhile, the global pandemic has, for a variety of reasons, now reduced meat consumption in both Brazil and China.
- Meat and dairy are responsible for public health problems and for 18% of global greenhouse emissions, so any reduction in consumption could be good for the health of the planet. Though the pandemic has led to untold human suffering, could cratering demand for meat lead to a new environmental consciousness?
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

No, ‘regenerative ranching’ is not good for grassland birds (commentary)
- The benefits of regenerative plant agriculture are being co-opted by the ranching industry to inaccurately claim that ranching is the best solution to protect wild birds.
- Livestock grazing is actually one of the leading factors threatening and endangering populations of birds and other wildlife in the U.S. and globally, from habitat loss and degradation to water drainage and stream impacts, greenhouse gases, and the spread of invasive weeds.
- The best conservation principles will prioritize conserving nature and natural resources for wildlife over private industrial interests.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Europe’s richest countries importing Brazilian beef linked to millions of tons of emissions: Report
- Millions of tons of emissions are embedded in Europe’s Brazilian beef imports each year, equivalent to the annual footprint of between 300,000 and 2.4 million EU citizens, according to a new report by London-based NGO Earthsight.
- Though global emissions are expected to see a record fall this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, Brazil is set to defy the trend, with a predicted rise of between 10% and 20%. Deforestation and cattle ranching account for more than half of the country’s emissions.
- Two companies, Brazil’s JBS and Italy’s Silca, were found to be responsible for almost a quarter of the estimated emissions documented by Earthsight, while just eight firms were responsible for more than half of all imported emissions.

World Bank-backed attempt to commercialize Madagascar’s beef industry falters
- In 2018, the IFC, the arm of the World Bank that invests in the private sector, approved a $7 million investment in a company that wanted to buy zebu cattle from farmers in Madagascar and export the beef mainly to rich Middle Eastern countries.
- The BoViMA project hit a major roadblock when Malagasy President Andry Rajoelina banned the export of zebus last year, and has failed to recover.
- Despite being aimed at reducing poverty, the project has invited scrutiny for its potential impacts on food security, especially the sourcing of human-edible crops for cattle feed in one of the poorest and most water-scarce regions in the world.
- When fully operational, the slaughterhouse and feedlot would require 120,000 tons of feed and 150 million liters of water a year.

Concerned for the future, indigenous Nicaraguans lament lost habitats
- Last week we published an investigation detailing the companies importing beef from Nicaragua and the industry’s links to deforestation and land grabbing in the country’s indigenous autonomous regions.
- This article provides a glimpse of life in the indigenous regions and how people there are coping with an influx of settlers and cattle ranching.
- Mongabay visited Nicaragua’s South Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region in October last year.

Nicaraguan beef, grazed on deforested and stolen land, feeds global demand
- A Mongabay analysis shows major multinational companies including Nestlé and Cargill are at risk of sourcing Nicaraguan beef from indigenous regions consumed by settler occupation and mass deforestation. Both companies admit they can only trace the origin of their Nicaraguan beef back to the slaughterhouses, not the ranches.
- More than 100 indigenous people living in the country’s autonomous indigenous regions have been killed, kidnapped or injured since 2015 amid conflicts ignited by settler migration and land grabbing.
- Nicaragua is one of the world’s most heavily deforested countries, having lost about a fifth of its forest cover since 2000. Its indigenous regions were particularly badly hit, with deforestation rates as high as 27% over the same period.
- Lawyers allegedly rubber-stamp land sale documents that have no legal basis, further compounding invasions of indigenous territories. Meanwhile, researchers have identified locations of scales and intermediaries serving ranchers occupying a biosphere reserve and indigenous land.

Some ranchers and conservationists agree: Grazing and logging can save birds
- Landowners and the National Audubon Society have partnered over the past six years to restore rangeland from Texas to the Dakotas.
- The conservation ranching program targets bird species in peril in 13 states.

Cattle put Paraguay’s Chaco biome at high risk, but report offers hope
- Cattle production is the largest driver of tropical forest loss worldwide, with devastating impacts for climate, biodiversity and people.
- Paraguay has one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world, largely due to the rapid expansion of cattle ranching, especially in the western Gran Chaco region — a highly biodiverse and sparsely populated dry forest ecosystem.
- Experts predict that if the current rate of expansion continues in the Chaco, the forest and other native vegetation there could disappear within decades.
- As Paraguay considers new global markets into which to expand, and implements a new forest monitoring platform, a new report suggests that the country has a unique opportunity to shift towards large-scale sustainable cattle production, greatly reducing deforestation.

As COVID-19 spreads, commodity markets rumble
- Projections of a construction slowdown caused the price of lumber to plummet on global markets.
- While palm oil prices have dropped by 15 percent on lower demand for biofuels, most agricultural commodity prices have remained relatively stable so far.
- Economists say the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the environment is hard to forecast, but warn that the global economy could be on the brink of collapse.

Versace, Amazon, Samsonite among companies listed as deforestation ‘laggards’
- In its annual Forest 500 report, the environmental organization Global Canopy reports on the most influential companies and financial institutions that deal in key commodities linked to deforestation.
- The six commodities that drive deforestation worldwide are leather, beef, palm oil, soybeans, timber, and pulp and paper.
- The report identifies 140 companies as having made no public commitments to ending deforestation, and 100 as having done so but not reporting on the implementation or progress of these commitments.
- It also finds that 68% of 150 financial institutions assessed have zero commitments to deforestation.

A new dawn: The story of deforestation in the next decade must be different to the last (commentary)
- 2020 was to be the year when the bold commitment made by hundreds of companies to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains was met. Instead, the failure to achieve this goal can be measured by the sharp rise in deforestation since 2014.
- Yet despite this bleak picture – and the need to act being more urgent than ever – there’s another story to tell about the last decade.
- It’s the story of how the pledge to eliminate deforestation from supply chains by 2020 was doomed to fail. It’s also – perhaps surprisingly – about the immense journey some companies, NGOs, and institutions have made in that time and how the path to remove the stain of deforestation from the products we consume is now clearer than ever.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Breaking down barriers: Cattle and wildlife compete in Southern Africa
- Thousands of kilometers of fencing designed to keep cattle away from disease-carrying wildlife such as buffalo now cover many parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
- These disease-control fences have a devastating impact on wildlife by blocking migration routes and isolating populations.
- Global food safety rules that require that beef be produced in areas free of disease such as foot-and-mouth disease have historically made it difficult for regions with wildlife populations to trade in beef.
- Southern African nations are exploring a new approach to trade that may reduce the reliance on fences, in the process also allowing key migration routes to be restored.

British armed forces supplied by Brazilian meat firm linked to Amazon deforestation, corruption: Report
- The British military sourced beef for ration packs from Brazilian meatpacker JBS despite its history of corruption, poor environmental record and links to human rights abuses.
- Ration packs supplied to the UK armed forces between 2009 and 2016 were found to be manufactured by JBS and supplied by Vestey Foods.
- The sources of JBS beef imported by Vestey into the UK could not be confirmed and may not have come from illegally deforested lands or suspect supply chains.
- Cattle ranching is the largest single driver of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon and a significant contributor to tropical carbon emissions. A recent wave of forest fires in the region prompted a global outcry and calls for tougher action to curb environmental destruction.

Fires still being set in blazing Bolivia (commentary)
- Firefighters in Bolivia are tackling conflagrations that have burned an area larger than Costa Rica. Several national parks and Indigenous territories have been affected.
- Many Indigenous and civil society groups are calling for an end to laws that allow burning.
- I spoke to ecologists and biologists about what is being lost, and what the chances of recovery are for affected areas. Some did not want to be named, as the political situation is tense right now in the run up to Bolivia’s October elections.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Companies sourcing beef, leather from China exposed to Brazil deforestation risk, researchers say
- An analysis of trade data reveals retailers and manufacturers using cattle products sourced from Brazil may be buying beef and leather linked to deforestation.
- The research by NGO Global Canopy linked Brazilian and Chinese companies to major brands including Adidas, Nike, DFS, Ikea, BMW, Daimler, General Motors and Volkswagen.
- Of the 15 importers in Europe and the United States included in the data, only three purchased products from Chinese companies that had made deforestation commitments.

To regulate or not to regulate? EU climate commitments face key test over global deforestation (commentary)
- European citizens overwhelmingly support government action to address deforestation. But it has been painfully slow in coming. Eleven years have passed since the EU first promised to act.
- Meanwhile, EU imports of high-risk commodities like palm oil, beef, and soy from tropical countries have continued to rise, and deforestation to feed them has accelerated.
- Europe’s new plan to address its role in driving rampant, often illegal deforestation through its consumption of commodities is finally ready. It has taken over 10 years to write. It runs to 21 pages. But just one short sentence really matters — and the future of the planet may hinge on how it is interpreted.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

New tool helps monitor forest change within commodities supply chains
- With commercial agriculture driving some 40 percent of tropical deforestation, more than 300 major companies involved in the commodities trade have pledged to avoid deforestation in their supply chains.
- To help the companies and financial institutions adhere to these commitments, Global Forest Watch (GFW) has launched a new forest monitoring tool called GFW Pro.
- Using tree cover change information from GFW’s interactive maps, the new desktop application enables users to observe and monitor deforestation and fires within individual farms and supply sheds or across portfolios of properties and political jurisdictions.
- To encourage use by businesses, the new tool presents the information in graphs and charts to companies for easy and regular monitoring, as they might monitor daily changes in stock prices.

New report examines drivers of rising Amazon deforestation on country-by-country basis
- A new report examines the “unchecked development” in the Amazon that has driven deforestation rates to near-record levels throughout the world’s largest tropical forest.
- The main drivers of deforestation vary from country to country, according to the report, a collaborative effort by the Inter-American Dialogue and the Andes Amazon Fund.
- While the causes of Amazonian forest destruction vary, one thing that is common throughout the region is a lack of adequate resources for oversight and enforcement of environmental regulations. And “signs suggest this problem is only growing,” according to the report.

EU holds the key to stop the ‘Notre Dame of forests’ from burning (commentary)
- Brazil’s President vowed to rip up the rainforest to make way for farming and mining, threatening the lives of Indigenous people.
- European scientists and Brazilian Indigenous groups say that the EU can halt the devastation. In ongoing trade talks, the EU must demand higher standards for Brazilian goods.
- EU citizens care about our planetary life support systems. Their leaders should reflect this on the global stage.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

A plea to Botswana: Please rethink a “Not Enough Fences” approach (commentary)
- The Government of Botswana is considering significant changes to the country’s approach to wildlife management.
- The proposed policy reflects a worrying lack of recognition of the habitat and migration route requirements that the future of southern Africa’s wildlife fundamentally depends upon.
- Now is not the time to cut-off migratory corridors or build new fences. Instead, it is time to make land-use decisions that will be socially, ecologically and economically sustainable for generations to come.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

EU action plan on tropical deforestation must be beefed up, or it will fail (commentary)
- Through its insatiable consumption of agro-commodities like soy, palm oil, and beef, the EU is contributing to a global deforestation crisis. After stalling for years while it carried out study after study, 2019 is crunch time.
- The first signs are far from good, suggesting a toothless, pro-corporate, ‘more of the same’ approach — which the available evidence indicates is doomed to failure — in marked contrast to the EU’s action on illegal timber.
- To have any chance of having an impact, the EU’s action plan on deforestation must be strengthened to include plans for legally binding regulation.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

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.

Hunting, agriculture driving rapid decline of jaguars in South America’s Gran Chaco
- New research finds that one-third of critical jaguar habitat in the Gran Chaco, South America’s largest tropical dry forest, has been lost since the mid-1980s.
- According to the study, led by researchers at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU Berlin) and published in the journal Diversity and Distributions this week, deforestation driven by agricultural expansion — mainly for soy and cattle production — has caused the steep decline of jaguar habitat in the region.
- Meanwhile, the conversion of jaguar habitat into cropland and pastureland gives hunters easier access to the forest. Thus overhunting and persecution by cattle ranchers has also become one of the chief causes of the big cat’s shrinking numbers, the study found.

The forested path to climate stability (commentary)
- Halting and reversing deforestation is critical for climate stability — this alone could reduce the world’s net carbon emissions by up to 30 percent. Furthermore, forests and land offer the most cost-effective way to store more carbon right now.
- In September, leaders from around the world will gather in California for the Global Climate Action Summit. The agenda focuses on the twin truths of climate change: While we are making real progress, we need to move much more ambitiously and quickly to seize the opportunities right in front of us.
- There are many paths to climate stability, and we need to follow all of them. Some of these paths — and particularly those that lead through fields and forests — are less traveled.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

New research proposes solutions for reducing environmental costs of feeding Earth’s 7.6-billion human population
- Researchers at Oxford University in the UK and Agroscope, a Swiss agricultural research institute, have compiled an extensive database on food production around the world in order to determine the best means of reducing the environmental impacts of what we eat.
- To pinpoint possible solutions for reducing the impact of food production on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and the global climate that would be effective for the large and diverse range of food producers across the globe, the researchers compiled a database covering five different indicators of the environmental impacts of 38,700 farms and 1,600 processors, packaging types, and retailers.
- They found that environmental impacts can vary widely — by as much as 50-fold — even among producers of the same food product. These discrepancies in the environmental tolls exacted by the same foods when grown in different geographies and under different production practices present a number of opportunities to mitigate those impacts.

Government regulation is the missing ingredient in efforts to end deforestation driven by agriculture (commentary)
- Despite countless corporate commitments, tropical deforestation for agriculture remains rampant.
- New research reveals that we need government regulation to achieve meaningful results.
- The European Union, a top importer of products that drive deforestation, must take the opportunity to make a difference, writes Nicole Polsterer, Sustainable consumption campaigner at the NGO Fern.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Do environmental advocacy campaigns drive successful forest conservation?
- How effective are advocacy campaigns at driving permanent policy changes that lead to forest conservation results? We suspected this might be a difficult question to answer scientifically, but nevertheless we gamely set out to see what researchers had discovered when they attempted to do so as part of a special Mongabay series on “Conservation Effectiveness.”
- We ultimately reviewed 34 studies and papers, and found that the scientific evidence is fairly weak for any claims about the effectiveness of advocacy campaigns. So we also spoke with several experts in forest conservation and advocacy campaigns to supplement our understanding of some of the broader trends and to fill in some of the gaps in our knowledge.
- We found no evidence that advocacy campaigns on their own drive long-term forest conservation, though they do appear to be valuable in terms of raising awareness of environmental issues and driving people to take action. But it’s important to note that, of all the conservation interventions we examined for the Conservation Effectiveness series, advocacy campaigns appear to have the weakest evidence base in scientific literature.

Unfair trade: US beef has a climate problem
- Across the globe, beef consumption, is seeing rapid growth, fed by cheap imports and served by an industrialized agricultural global trade model that’s been linked to a host of environmental impacts, climate change chief among them.
- Beef consumption in previously meat-light countries like Japan presents profit opportunities for the global beef industry. But scientists and activists argue that increasing beef consumption and industrial farm production go against efforts to combat climate change.
- President Trump’s recent decision to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a global trade deal, upset the US beef industry’s plans of expanding into lucrative Asian markets, including Japan, calling into question if, or when, a future deal will be signed.
- TPP, like other global trade treaties, fails to acknowledge climate change or include mechanisms to curb it. Critics say TPP (which continues to be negotiated by 11 nations) and future trade deals must change radically — protecting not only business and the economy, but the environment.

Charcoal and cattle ranching tearing apart the Gran Chaco
- The year-long probe of Paraguay’s charcoal exports by the NGO Earthsight revealed that much of the product was coming from the Chaco, the world’s fastest-disappearing tropical forest.
- Suppliers appear to have reassured international supermarket chains that it was sustainable and that they had certification from international groups such as FSC and PEFC.
- But further digging by Earthsight revealed that the charcoal production methods used may not fit with the intent of certification.
- Several grocery store chains mentioned in the report have said they’ll take a closer look at their supply chains, and the certification body PEFC is reexamining how its own standards are applied.

Big mammals flourish as Cerrado park’s savanna comes back
- The study examined a state park in the Brazilian Cerrado, which contains land used in recent decades for eucalyptus plantations, cattle ranching and charcoal production.
- The researchers used camera traps, recording the dry season presence of 18 species of large mammals.
- In a subsequent analysis, they found that the number of large mammals found in the ‘secondary’ savanna was similar to numbers found in untouched regions of the Cerrado.

New investor guide aims to help navigate social and environmental risks of commodities supply chains
- Procuring agricultural commodities has become a much more difficult business function for food makers and agribusiness conglomerates to perform amidst rising global temperatures and unpredictable weather patterns, as well as increasingly widespread groundwater depletion and soil erosion, all of which affect agricultural productivity and raise the cost of sourcing in-demand raw materials.
- Engage the Chain offers guidance to investors on how to evaluate the level of risk in their portfolios, and also includes a number of examples of the types of threats these environmental and social impacts can pose to companies that, unwittingly or not, find their supply chains associated with them, from reputational and brand damage to litigation and running afoul of regulators.
- Ceres developed the guide through a peer review process that included input from top investors, a number of companies involved in the global commodities trade, and environmental NGOs.

Is intensification of beef production really a solution to Amazonian deforestation?
- Beef production has become a major driver of tropical deforestation, responsible for as much as 65 percent of rainforest destruction caused by the global agricultural commodities trade in the first decade of the 21st century, according to a 2015 study.
- One proposed means of slowing the rate at which forests are being destroyed to create pastureland for cattle in the Amazon and other tropical regions is intensification, or the adoption of technologies and practices that allow for the production of more beef on less land.
- “Based on a historical comparison between the US, a fully intensive system, and Brazil, one moving in that direction, we suggest that cattle ranching will intensify as a result of conservation investments (reductions in capital and land subsidies) rather than intensifying in order to produce conservation results,” the researchers write in the article.

The meat hook: satiating Asia’s demand for beef
- Traditionally, beef was never a favored meat across much of Asia, but rising incomes and changing cultures are dramatically increasing beef demand on the continent.
- Increased beef demand in China is bumping up imports from Brazil, leading to a new boom in local beef production.
- Given the massive climate impact of beef production, some Asian nations are trying to dissuade beef consumption but the results, if any, remain to be seen.

Governments must do more to help companies end deforestation in commodities supply chains, companies say
- Fern conducted interviews with and policy reviews of 15 companies, from major consumer-facing companies like IKEA, Nestlé, and Unilever, to producers and traders such as APP (Asia Pulp and Paper), Cargill, Golden Agri-Resources, and Sime Darby.
- One overriding message emerged, Fern reports: companies see government policies and actions — or lack thereof — as one of the main obstacles to cleaning up their supply chains.
- Many companies view the governments of countries where commodities production occurs as having a crucial role to play in “creating an enabling framework of rules, regulations and effective administration without which private sector commitments to tackle deforestation can only have limited impact,” the report states.

Deforestation-free commodities represent a major investment opportunity: Report
- Agricultural commodities — especially beef, palm oil, soy, and pulp and paper — have become an increasingly important driver of deforestation over the past couple decades, particularly in the tropics.
- While there’s a lot of work left to be done, WEF and TFA 2020 see momentum building toward a sea change in the global supply chain for these much-in-demand commodities.
- Overcoming the barriers to sustainable production of the big four commodities and supporting the transition to deforestation-free supply chains represents an investment opportunity that will “roughly total US$ 200 billion annually” by 2020, per the report.

Top climate stories to watch in 2017
- Renewable energy use has never been higher — but on the other hand, 2016 brought with it news of record fossil fuel consumption, as well.
- Meanwhile, the Paris Climate Agreement went into force on November 4, far sooner than anyone ever expected, signaling a new era of international climate action — but just a few days later, the U.S., the second-largest emitter in the world, elected a new president who has called global warming a hoax and pledged to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement as soon as possible.
- Here, in no particular order, are some of the top stories to keep an eye on in the new year.

Companies are underestimating the risks of deforestation in their commodities supply chains
- London-based non-profit CDP, formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project, released a report earlier this month, produced on behalf of 365 investors representing $22 trillion in funds, that analyzes data disclosures by 187 companies regarding their deforestation risk management strategies.
- Despite the significant share of their income that is dependent on cattle products, palm oil, soy, and timber products, just 42 percent of the companies surveyed by CDP have evaluated their supply chains in order to determine how their growth strategies for the next five years will be impacted by the availability or quality of those raw materials.
- In its third annual ranking of what it calls the “Forest 500,” the UK-based think tank Global Canopy Programme (GCP) determined that, given the current rate of progress, ambitious deforestation targets for 2020 and 2030 such as those committed to by the Consumer Goods Forum and signatories to the New York Declaration on Forests, aren’t likely to be met.

The alarming number of fires in the Brazilian Amazon
- The sharp decrease in the annual rates of forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon is celebrated worldwide. The trend started in 2005 after a peak in deforestation the year before.
- However, the figures are not so bright when it comes to forest fires, and few people are talking about that.
- The number of fires in the Brazilian Amazon is alarming, and that was especially true in 2015, when a sharp increase in forest fires occurred.

Here’s what’s driving deforestation in South America
- Pasture was responsible for the vast majority, or 71.2 percent, of deforestation in South America, as well as 71.6 percent of related carbon loss, between 1990 and 2005.
- The chief hotspots where forests were replaced by pastureland were Northern Argentina, along the arc of deforestation in Brazil, and Western Paraguay, according to the study.
- After pastureland, the second most common driver was found to be commercial cropland, responsible for 14 percent of deforestation and 12.1 percent of emissions.

Here Are The Top 15 Environmental Stories of 2015
- This was a year that saw President Obama reject the Keystone pipeline as historic droughts and a vicious wildfire season wracked the western US and Canada.
- The world committed to climate action in Paris as Southeast Asia was choking on the worst Indonesian haze in years.
- Shell aborted its plans to drill in the Arctic for the “foreseeable” future and ExxonMobil is being investigated for lying to the public about climate risks.

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