• About
  • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
BREAKING: 40% of Fossil Fuels Now Under Development Must Stay in the Ground May 17, 2022
Rocky Mountain Glaciers ‘Past Tipping Point’, with Some Expected to Vanish by 2030 May 17, 2022
UK Activists Block Russian Oil Tanker From Docking in Essex May 17, 2022
EXCLUSIVE: Bid to Revive Doomed Nova Scotia LNG Project Collides with Germany’s Net-Zero Plans May 16, 2022
3,800 Residents Ordered to Evacuate after Flooding in Hay River, NWT May 16, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Climate News Network

New Brazilian map unmasks its illegal foresters

July 22, 2020
Reading time: 3 minutes
Primary Author: Tim Radford

New Brazilian map unmasks its illegal foresters

Slash-and-burn agriculture spreads havoc through Brazil’s forests. Image: By Alzenir Ferreira de Souza (public domain)

 

Those who illegally clear protected forests for profitable soy and beef exports are now revealed by a new Brazilian map.

LONDON, 22 July, 2020 – Europe’s shoppers should have a bone to pick with Brazil: at a conservative estimate, one fifth of its beef and animal feed exports to the European Union are tainted by the illegal destruction of the nation’s rainforest and savannah woodland, a new Brazilian map reveals.

Researchers report in the journal Science that they painstakingly compiled a map of the boundaries of 815,000 farms, plantations, ranches and other rural properties to identify those that did not comply with the nation’s Forest Code, designed to protect native biodiversity, and those that had cleared forest illegally.

Just 2% of these properties were responsible, they found, for 62% of illegal forest destruction in the Amazon and the Cerrado regions, and much of this destruction was linked to agricultural exports.

They think that 22% of the soy harvest and more than 60% of the beef exported to the European Union each year could be contaminated by illegal destruction of natural wilderness the Forest Code law was designed to help protect.

“Now Brazil has the information, it needs to take swift and decisive action to ensure that its exports are deforestation-free. Calling the situation hopeless is no longer an excuse”

“Until now, agribusiness and the Brazilian government have claimed they cannot monitor the entire supply chain, nor distinguish legal from illegal deforestation,” said Raoni Rajão, of the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

“Not any more. We used freely available maps and data to reveal the specific farmers and ranchers clearing forests to produce soy and beef ultimately destined for Europe.

“Now Brazil has the information, it needs to take swift and decisive action against these rule-breakers to ensure that its exports are deforestation-free. Calling the situation hopeless is no longer an excuse.”

Right now Brazil is losing its native wilderness at the rate of a million hectares a year. This is the highest in a decade. A million hectares is 10,000 sq kms, an area bigger than the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. Brazil’s Forest Code has been around for more than 50 years but revised and updated much more recently.

Brazil is one of the world’s great agricultural nations, and the biggest producer of soy – often as fodder for pigs and chickens in Europe and Asia – in the world.

Worsened under Bolsonaro

Of the 4.1 million head of cattle sent to slaughterhouses, at least 500,000 come from properties that may have illegally destroyed forest. Altogether 60% of all slaughtered animals could carry with them the taint of illegal deforestation. The EU imports 189,000 tonnes of Brazilian beef a year.

Although much of the Amazon and the Cerrado wilderness enjoys formal protection, levels of destruction have increased under the government led by Jair Bolsonaro and some of the protections have since been weakened.

Earlier this year, the scale of damage linked to drought, forest fire, climate change and illegal destruction led scientists to wonder aloud if the devastation was irretrievable.

Meanwhile, sustainable agriculture has become a key tenet in the EU’s so-called Green New Deal and an instance of concern that greenhouse gas emissions from forest clearing and forest fires in Brazil could cancel EU efforts to mitigate climate change.

Breaking point

European consumers and their suppliers have separately begun to worry about the global costs of agriculture at home and abroad.

The Science study, provocatively headlined “The rotten apples of Brazil’s agribusiness”, is likely to increase Europe-wide awareness of the neglect of legislation still nominally enforceable, and of the latest disregard of environmental protection intended to stop illegal forest destruction.

“Brazil’s forests are at breaking point,” said Britaldo Soares-Filho, another of the authors, of the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais.

“It’s critical for Europe to use its trade might and purchasing power to help roll back this tragic dismantling of Brazil’s environmental protection, which has implications for the global climate, local people and the country’s valued ecosystem services.” – Climate News Network



in Climate News Network

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Smoke from wildfires kills thousands annually
Climate News Network

Smoke from wildfires kills thousands annually

September 24, 2021
62
Warming seas cut marine mammals’ survival chances
Climate News Network

Warming seas cut marine mammals’ survival chances

September 13, 2021
37
Earth’s future ‘hinges on UN Glasgow climate talks’
Climate News Network

Earth’s future ‘hinges on UN Glasgow climate talks’

September 10, 2021
26

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Mounting Drought Risk Confronts London, Other World Cities

Mounting Drought Risk Confronts London, Other World Cities

May 19, 2022
127
85,000-Hectare Fort Mac Wildfire Expected to Grow for Days

Six Traumatic Years After ‘The Beast’, Fort McMurray Remains Loyal to Big Oil

May 19, 2022
88
Ontario Contemplates ‘Ultra-Low Carbon’ Super-Agency

Ontario’s New Highway 413 Would Boost Emissions, Bake In ‘Auto-Dependent Sprawl’

May 19, 2022
64

BREAKING: 40% of Fossil Fuels Now Under Development Must Stay in the Ground

May 18, 2022
432
New Congressional Funding, Tax Credit Extensions Create ‘Enabling Conditions for Decarbonization’

ESG Becomes Latest ‘Acronym-Based Outrage’ in U.S. Republicans’ Culture Wars

May 19, 2022
63
‘New New Math’ Means Keeping Even More Fossils in the Ground: McKibben

U.S. Can’t Drill Its Way to Energy Security, Jenkins Warns

May 19, 2022
58

Recent Posts

Newfoundland Offers Suncor $175 Million to Restart Terra Nova Offshore Oilfield

Newfoundland Opens New Round of Offshore Oil Bidding

May 19, 2022
51
Farmers’ Mental Health Strained by Climate-Driven Weather Extremes

Farmers’ Mental Health Strained by Climate-Driven Weather Extremes

May 19, 2022
51
Calgary Company to Supply 180 MWh of Battery Capacity to Alberta Grid

Calgary Company to Supply 180 MWh of Battery Capacity to Alberta Grid

May 19, 2022
56
Customer Demand Pushes U.S. Utilities Toward Solar, Energy Services

Power Sector Giants Promote ‘Fair, Just Transition to Net-Zero’

May 19, 2022
51
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Haiyan

Fossils Liable For Human Rights Violations in Landmark Ruling by Philippines Commission

May 19, 2022
34
Food and Fashion Sectors Lead Widening Spread of Climate Careers

Food and Fashion Sectors Lead Widening Spread of Climate Careers

May 19, 2022
29
Next Post
Human climate change causes Arctic’s record heat

Human climate change causes Arctic’s record heat

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}

2022 ONTARIO GENERAL ELECTION

KEEP UP WITH ONTARIO’S CLIMATE CHANGE ELECTION

election-checkmark
Get Election Notifications

2022 ONTARIO GENERAL ELECTION

KEEP UP WITH ONTARIO’S CLIMATE CHANGE ELECTION

election-checkmark
Get Election Notifications
The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

2022 ONTARIO GENERAL ELECTION

KEEP UP WITH ONTARIO’S CLIMATE CHANGE ELECTION

election-checkmark
Get Election Notifications

2022 ONTARIO GENERAL ELECTION

KEEP UP WITH ONTARIO’S CLIMATE CHANGE ELECTION

election-checkmark
Get Election Notifications
The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

2022 Ontario General Election

Keep up with Ontario’s Climate Change Election

election-checkmark
GET THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

2022 Ontario General Election

Keep up with Ontario’s Climate Change Election

election-checkmark
GET THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST
The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

2022 Ontario General Election

Keep up with Ontario’s Climate Change Election

election-checkmark
GET THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

2022 Ontario General Election

Keep up with Ontario’s Climate Change Election

election-checkmark
GET THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST
The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Are you sure want to unlock this post?
Unlock left : 0
Are you sure want to cancel subscription?