Soy
‘Amazing first step’ as EU law cracks down on deforestation-linked imports
JAKARTA — The European Union has finalized a law that will ban the trade of commodities associated with deforestation and forest degradation. On Dec. 6, the European Council, Parliament and Commission struck a preliminary deal to adopt the deforestation-free regulation, proposed by the European Commission in 2021. The Parliament and the Council will still have to formally […]
2022 Amazon fires tightly tied to recent deforestation, new data show
This year’s Amazon fire season was milder than the previous two years, but there were still nearly 1,000 major fires, many of them in recently cleared areas in the Brazilian Amazon, highlighting a key link between deforestation and fires. Using ground and atmospheric data, the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) documented 983 major […]
Beef is still coming from protected areas in the Amazon, study shows
Some of the world’s largest beef exporters are still buying cattle that grazed in protected areas of the Amazon rainforest, despite commitments to stop this practice, according to a new study. The report, published today in the journal Conservation Letters found that millions of cattle grazed in protected areas (PAs) in the Brazilian states of Mato […]
Commodity kings Cargill, Bunge buying soy from stolen Indigenous land, report says
Two of the world’s largest agricultural producers are caught up in another scandal involving soy grown on illegally seized Indigenous land in Brazil. Both Cargill and Bunge source some of their soy products, used in products like chicken feed and pet food, from land where Indigenous communities have suffered violence and displacement, according to a new […]
Industrial soy drives deforestation spike in southeastern Brazil, satellite images show
Deforestation is rising in a vulnerable part of the Amazon rainforest due to increased activity by industrial agricultural producers, who are burning down large pieces of territory to create new plantations. A new report from NGO Amazon Conservation analyzed satellite data in the southeastern state of Mato Grosso, discovering surprising amounts of deforestation connected to […]
World Bank approves $200 million IFC loan for industrial agriculture in Brazil’s Cerrado
A major loan was approved this week for an industrial food producer operating in Brazil, despite outcries from conservation groups and international shareholders worried that the money would ultimately fund activities that contribute to deforestation. The $200 million loan was granted to industrial agricultural producer Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) for monoculture soy and corn production […]
EU’s anti-deforestation bill leaves out critical ecosystems, study shows
On May 11 this year, dozens of activists with Greenpeace Netherland blocked a ship carrying 60,000 metric tons of soy from Brazil to the Netherlands. Among the protesters was Alberto Terena, a leader of the Indigenous Terena People’s Council in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. The Terena live on the border between Brazil […]
‘Giving up’: Amazon is losing its resilience under human pressure, study shows
The Amazon Rainforest is resilient: the largest rainforest on the planet has been around for at least 55 million years, surviving repeated ice ages and warming. But human impacts, combined with climate change, are decreasing that resiliency, causing the forest to lose its ability to bounce back from repeated disturbances, according to a new study published […]
French deforestation database pressures Brazilian soy traders to clean up supply chain
France is taking new steps to ensure that products imported from Brazil aren’t contributing to deforestation in vulnerable forests and savannahs. The French government published a new risk analysis platform earlier this month that shows how much activity by soy traders is causing tree cover loss. The tool is intended to implement more rigorous oversight […]