Every day around 10,000 acres of the Amazon are destroyed. With as much as 20% of the rainforest already lost forever, controversy has long surrounded the region as big businesses – attracted to natural resources including gold, crude oil, timber and land – have clashed with indigenous people and environmentalists over how the forest should be used. As deforestation in Brazil reaches record levels, and President Bolsonaro attempts to pass a bill that would allow mining on indigenous reservations, we expose the huge global powers fighting over the Amazon.
Until the arrival of colonisers in 1492 the Amazon had been occupied by indigenous people. Between the late 1400s and early 1800s South America was divided into Portuguese, Spanish, French, Dutch and British colonies, and the rainforest and its reources were divvied up too. During the 1820s a series of revolutions led to the formation of newly independent nations including Brazil, Peru and Colombia. Today the Amazon rainforest falls under the territory of nine countries: Brazil has the largest share at 60%, while Peru owns 13%, Colombia 10%, and the rest is claimed in small parts by Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana.
The earliest settlers in the Amazon were indigenous people who lived there untouched by the outside world for centuries, with estimates suggesting that the first humans arrived in the region at least 10,000 years ago. In fact indigenous people are thought to have domesticated many crops that are essential to modern commodities including the rubber tree, which is used to produce latex, and the cocoa tree, used for making chocolate.
Everything changed in 1492 when Christopher Columbus arrived in the Amazon region, marking the start of European colonisation. Up until then there were an estimated 11 million indigenous people living in Brazil in around 2,000 tribes. Around 90% of them were wiped out in the first century of European contact due to exposure to foreign diseases and slavery. The Portuguese began to exploit various commodities in Brazil, starting with brazilwood, which could be soaked in water to develop into a sought-after red colour that was used to dye textiles. Portuguese trade in brazilwood peaked in the 1600s before declining due to over-harvesting among other issues.
Started off by ‘bandeirantes' (Portuguese fortune hunters), the Brazilian Gold Rush was the world’s longest, lasting between the 1690s and late 1800s. It began in the city of Ouro Preto (pictured), with the discovery of large gold deposits in the Minas Gerais mountains. Yet it also formed a part of the global slave trade, with around half a million enslaved people forced to mine there throughout the period. As much as 850 tonnes of gold were officially sent to Portugal, although the actual amount discovered may have been much higher as gold was also smuggled illegally. As you will read later, illegal gold mining remains a threat to the Amazon today.
Beginning in the mid-1800s the Amazon basin became increasingly attractive to settlers for its abundance of rubber trees, which can be used to extract latex. Colonialists brought the material to Europe where it was used to make carriage tyres and it became a desirable commodity that could be sold for a high price. In 1840 Brazil exported 388 tonnes of rubber and by 1860 that grew to 2,700 tonnes. What's more, the rubber trade led to the urbanisation of the Brazilian cities of Belém and Manaus. Rubber 'tapping', where a small cut is sliced into the tree in order to get the latex out, does not require trees to be cut down so can be practised relatively sustainably.
Cattle ranching has been practised in the Amazon since colonial times, but it wasn’t until the 1960s that the industry really exploded. Brazilian government policies encouraged cattle ranching in the Amazon, which included building three major roads into the forest and implementing a tax exemption programme to encourage the establishment of large farms. It's not too surprising that the number of cattle in the Amazon jumped from 5 million in the 1960s to 70-80 million in the early 2000s, according to a research paper submitted to the XII World Forestry Congress 2003. However, this has also driven a huge demand for land, and around 80% of total deforestation in the Amazon is attributed to cattle ranching.
Abundant oil reserves have also brought business to the Amazon. In 1967 US oil firm Texaco discovered huge reserves of crude oil in the Lago Agrio region in Ecuador and began drilling there. When the company ceased operations in 1992 it entered a decades-long lawsuit concerning widespread contamination and oil spills (pictured). Judges alleged this affected wildlife populations and led to a rise in cancer deaths, miscarriages and birth defects among indigenous people. The company, which has since been taken over by Chevron, was ordered to pay $18 billion (£13.7bn) in damages for environmental contamination in 2011, later reduced to $9.5 billion (£7.2 billion). However, a US District Court has since found the Ecuadorian court's judgment frauduent and in October 2021 the plaintiff's lawyer, Steven Donziger, went to prison to serve a six-month sentence for being in contempt of court.
In the 1970s the Brazilian government began building the first major road into the rainforest: The Trans-Amazonian Highway. The 2,485-mile (4,000km) road was built in order to support Brazil’s burgeoning logging, farming and cattle ranching industries, linking major port cities including Rio de Janeiro, Salvador and Lima, Peru. However, its construction has been criticised for increasing deforestation rates in the Amazon by making it easier for industries to access previously untouched areas of forest. Around 80% of deforested areas in the Brazilian Amazon are within 19 miles (30km) of official roads, according to the WWF.
In 1979 a farmer in the Brazilian Amazon’s remote interior region of Serra Pelada found a nugget of gold near his home, kickstarting Brazil’s second gold rush. In the days and weeks that followed miners flocked to the region with as many as 40,000 workers entering the territory. The officially-recorded gold yield was 44.5 tonnes, although it’s estimated that the majority of gold was smuggled away. In 1986 the mine closed due to structural deficiencies and it's been flooded to prevent any further mining. Today all that’s left on the site is a polluted lake (pictured)
Nearly 14% of the land in Brazil is occupied by indigenous people, almost all of which is in the Amazon rainforest. Indigenous lands are legally protected by the Brazilian constitution and shouldn’t be developed, although they’re still technically owned by the government. The Trincheira Bacajá territory in the northern Amazon was designated as indigenous territory for the Xikrin community by the government in 2000. Yet in July 2019 land-grabbers destroyed an area of the forest the size of 1,500 football pitches, according to independent monitoring group Imazon.
According to economists, conserving the Amazon rainforest could be worth as much as $8.2 billion (£6.7bn) per year for the Brazilian economy. However, agribusiness is one of the country's biggest industries contributing nearly a quarter of its total GDP in 2017, and Brazil is the world's biggest exporter of beef according to a report by USDA's Foreign Agriculture Service. A significant amount of that farming happens in the Amazon, which is home to 40% of the Brazilian cattle herd.
Cattle ranching is thought to be one of the key drivers of deforestation and wildfires in the Amazon today, yet it’s a stable source of income in Brazil. In Humaita, a town located on the Trans-Amazonian Highway, local politicians have reported that farmers don't have much choice but to set fire to the land to clear space for cattle ranching. "I understand that the fires are out of hand, but we need a policy that benefits us. Our people live in poverty," councilman Russell Lello de Miranda told Reuters.
Many major Brazilian meatpackers agreed to stop buying beef from farmers who raise cattle connected to deforestation in the 2009 Cattle Moratorium. However, in July 2019 major meat and soy trader Cargill revealed in a statement that it would fall short of its pledge to remove deforestation from its supply chain by 2020, and the company has since updated its target to 2030. Meanwhile, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Repórter Brasil and the Guardian reported that JBS, the world's largest meatpacker, was still buying cattle from deforested land despite initial pledges to "address" deforestation by 2020. And it gets worse...
JBS, run by brothers Joesley (pictured) and Wesley Batista, dwarfs all other global meatpackers and made more than $61 billion (£46.6bn) in the 12 months ending last September. The company is no stranger to controversy. In May 2017, its holding company was fined 10.3 billion real ($3.2bn/£2.4bn at the time) for bribing more than 1,800 politicians, one of the largest fines in global corporate history. JBS continues to promise to eliminate deforestation in Brazil by 2025 and the rest of its global supply chain by 2035. However, an audit in September 2021 revealed the company recently bought more than 300,000 cattle from problematic farms, including those tied to deforestation.
In May 2019 research by environmental groups including Friends of the Earth revealed that UK supermarkets Co-op, Sainsbury’s, Lidl, Morrisons, Waitrose and Iceland had been selling corned beef supplied by JBS. The investigators checked the tins' product codes against the Brazilian government's regulatory documents and JBS' supply chain website, tracing the product back to JBS slaughterhouses in Brazil. The British Retail Consortium, which represents supermarkets including Co-op, Morrisons and Lidl, released a statement saying it "regard[s] any form of labour abuse and illegal deforestation to be completely unacceptable."
US officials had temporarily suspended imports of fresh beef following food safety concerns from 2017 to 2020. With new reports of mad cow disease in summer 2021, cattle groups in the US called for another ban on beef products from Brazil with a bill eventually introduced in the Senate last November.
Given the beef industry's contribution to Amazon deforestation, along with the fact that agribusinesses have exploited loopholes to use cattle raised on deforested land, it's difficult to identify which processed beef products might be linked to deforestation in their supply chains.
Another report by Repórter Brasil and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism claimed that Brazilian meat company Marfrig, the world's biggest supplier of burgers, had bought cattle from a farmer that had used deforested land in 2019. Both McDonald’s and Burger King have been supplied by Marfrig. Burger King responded: "Our goal is to eliminate deforestation within our global supply chain, and we are working toward this." Likewise, McDonald's says it aims to eliminate deforestation from global supply chains by 2030. However, new reports of beef products linked to deforestation being sold to the fast food giant continue to surface.
Soybean production is the second biggest driver of deforestation in Brazil's Amazon and Cerrado regions, as well as Argentina and Paraguay's Gran Chaco regions (just behind beef). Between 70-75% of the world's soybeans are used for animal feed. A Guardian investigation found that UK supermarkets Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and M&S have bought products from UK farmers which use animal feed sourced from Argentinian soya, and around 14% of Argentinian soya is grown in the Grand Chaco forest. In 2020 the UK imported more than 140,000 tonnes of soya from farms that had carried out around 7 square kilometres of 'hidden deforestation', according to the Grocery Gazette.
Both Asda and Tesco have pledged to eliminate deforested soya from their supply chains by 2025. In 2018, Asda also signed the New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF), a voluntary declaration to halve the loss of natural forests by 2020 and potentially end it completely by 2030. However, the Declaration's most recent progress report in October 2021 found that: "public and private efforts have not made progress towards reducing emissions from forest loss... after the NYDF was endorsed in 2014, tropical primary forest loss has generally increased, with 4.2 million hectares lost in 2020."
When then-president Trump imposed tariffs on Chinese imports in 2018, launching a trade war between the two countries, China stopped buying US soybeans. It took its business to Brazil instead: China imported 71 million tons of Brazilian soybeans that year alone, the same as its total overall soybean imports in 2013. In Brazil the land used to grow soybeans is usually land that was previously cleared for cattle grazing. Joseph Glauber, senior research fellow at International Food Policy Rearch Institute, told CBS News: “The overall pressures of pasture land conversion into cropland have continued. Indirectly it does have the effect of putting pressure on forest.”
These agribusinesses have often had to turn to foreign investors and big banks to support them through loans and underwriting. Soy-trading giants Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and Bunge count BlackRock and Vanguard among their shareholders. ADM's share price reached a record-breaking $70 (£53.50) earlier this year. Due to its extensive soy and cattle investments, Friends of the Earth labelled BlackRock the “world’s largest investor in deforestation” in a 2019 report, causing protesters to target BlackRock offices worldwide.
While cattle ranching and soybean production are the biggest drivers of Amazon deforestation, other industries are complicit too. In April 2019 a report by Amazon Watch found that two French wood firms – Guillemette & Cie and Groupe Rougier – were importing wood from Brazilian logging company Benevides Madeiras. The company’s owner, Arnaldo Betzel, was fined $570,000 (£433k) by IBAMA between 2017 and 2018 for illegal deforestation. Benevides Madeiras contested the fine. German drinks company Acai GmbH was found to have imported 9 tonnes of fruit pulp in 2018 from Argus, a company also owned by Betzel. Acai denied the pulp came from trees in deforested areas.
A report by Human Rights Watch found that fires can be driven by illegal logging groups. These groups have been known to threaten, attack and even kill indigenous people and public officials who try to stop them. According to the Pastoral Land Commission, an organisation associated with the Catholic Church that documents violence in rural areas of Brazil, more than 300 people were killed for defending Amazon land between 2009 and 2019.
Mining is still widespread in the Amazon. Illegal miners known as 'garimpeiros' look for gold in the forest, and there are thought to be more than 320 illegal mining sites – and 20,000 garimpeiros – in the area currently, according to Mining Technology and The Associated Press. The scale of the problem is believed to have worsened due to the rising price of gold, with mined areas of Brazil increasing sixfold between 1985 and 2020. On Wednesday 9 March this year, thousands of protestors campaigned against a controversial new bill by President Bolsonaro which, if passed, will allow mining to occur on indigenous land. Bolsonaro first proposed the bill in 2020 but has revived it following the Russia-Ukraine war, claiming Brazil needs to mine for potassium now that it cannot import Russian fertiliser. A final vote is expected in April.
However, the issue has actually divided tribal opinion. Back in September 2019 when miners staged a protest demanding the right to mine on protected lands a northern Brazil tribe lent its support. Alledgedly they agreed that some wildcat miners should be allowed to look for gold as it provides many with a source of income. Pictured is garimpeiro Inacio Vilela (left) speaking to the media at the protest.
In response to the 2019 wildfires in the Amazon some companies have taken steps to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains. VF Corporation – the parent company behind the likes of Vans, Timberland and The North Face – pledged to stop sourcing leather from Brazil, concerned that it could be linked to illegal deforestation. So did fast fashion chain H&M. Meanwhile Brazilian shoe company Havianas donates 7% from its sales from the Havianas IPÊ range to an environmental research enstitute called IPÊ, which helps preserve the Amazon rainforest.
Many of the investigations that expose companies with deforestation in their supply chains have been carried out by charities, most notably Friends of the Earth and Amazon Watch. On 5 September 2019 a coalition of organisations led protests across the world, which saw thousands of people assembling outside political buildings and company offices to protest the destruction of the Amazon and President Bolsonaro’s actions. But what has changed since?
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President Jair Bolsonaro has been in charge since January 2019 and the budget for Brazil's environment agency IBAMA shrunk by one-quarter within the first six months. Meanwhile a New York Times analysis of public records found that there was a 20% drop in enforcement actions like fines, warnings and seizure of illegal equipment in the same period.
Prior to his presidency deforestation in the Amazon had been slowing down since its early 2000s peak. By 2012 the annual deforestation rate was 80% lower than that between 1995 and 2006. Many attributed this to the REDD (reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation) international conservation effort, which involved expansion of indigenous territories, exposés of deforestation caused by the soy and beef industries and stronger enforcement of logging laws.
Bolsonaro has seemingly no desire to stop nor slow the damage, with new figures from the Brazilian space agency showing that 77 square miles (199 square kilometres) of forest were lost in February this year. This represents a 62% increase from deforestation levels in the same month last year and makes it the worst February since the agency started monitoring the forest in 2015. With both January and February breaking records, 2022 could prove to be the Amazon's most devastating year yet, outstripping catastrophic levels of deforestation seen between August 2020 and July 2021.
The economic benefits that drive deforestation in the Amazon could be short-lived. A study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that the economic damages from a “dieback scenario” in the Amazon would cost the region's economy between $957 billion and $3.59 trillion over 30 years. A dieback scenario refers to the point when the forest turns into savannah due to a lack of vegetation moving moisture through the ecosystem. This would affect everything from agriculture and fishing to transport and infrastructure. It's believed that dieback could happen if 20-25% of the Amazon is deforested, a percentage bracket we've already started to reach. And as the problem worsens, the vicious tug-of-war over the Amazon rainforest – between big business, the government, indigenous people and charities – is only going to intensify.
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