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Out to Pasture
Brazil’s industrial agriculture boom — largely in soybeans (left) — is taking a growing toll on the Amazon Forest , which loses about 7,750 square miles each year, largely to cattle ranchers (right) and subsistence farmers.
Go Deeper
The Nature Conservancy in Brazil
Brazil’s unparalleled natural treasures include tropical rainforests of the Amazon, extensive grasslands of the Cerrado, arid scrublands of the Caatinga, and the seemingly infinite wetlands of the Pantanal.
Explore the Amazon
Explore the Amazon River Basin, which harbors nearly one-third of the world’s species and contains nearly one-quarter of the earth’s fresh water.
Responsible Soy in the Amazon
The Nature Conservancy is working with with soy farmers on the Responsible Soy Project, an initiative that has the potential to conserve nearly 1.2 million acres of this important tropical forest. |
McDonald’s Europe, recognizing it could not guarantee consumers that the soy used to fatten its chickens was not grown in Amazonian clear-cuts, called its suppliers with this stark warning: Take verifiable steps to ensure you are not selling us soy from deforested land in the Amazon or we will look elsewhere.
“We have a firm policy against using beef — or any other products — that come from the rainforest,” said Bob Langert, McDonald’s vice president for corporate citizenship, in an interview with the Washington Post. “So when we learned that some of our soy was coming from there, we got involved.”
80 Percent Ignored
Despite the heavy toll the Amazon has endured in the past few decades, Brazil has some of the most progressive environmental laws in the world. The country’s Forest Code requires farmers and ranchers in the Amazon to set aside 80 percent of their land as protected forest preserves. The rules also mandate that landowners leave forests standing within 10 to 50 meters of streams and rivers as “areas of permanent protection.”
However, only a handful of farmers in the Amazon basin currently meet the Forest Code’s legal criteria, says David Cleary, The Nature Conservancy’s director of conservation strategies for South America. With almost no government enforcement and the draw of potential profits to be made from logging, cattle and agriculture, few people have paid much heed to the rule. In fact, 80 to 90 percent of the farmers have ignored the Forest Code, says Cleary. And, he says, many who are currently in compliance probably bought their land so recently they simply haven’t had time to clear forest yet.
The original version of the Forest Code was instituted in 1965 and stipulated farmers in the Amazon keep at least 50 percent of their land as forest or natural vegetation. The Brazilian Congress tightened the ratio to 80 percent after record bouts of deforestation in the 1990s drew intense international scrutiny.
But ratcheting up legal protections hasn’t helped much to slow the rates of destruction in the Amazon. When inter-national prices for soy on commodity markets spiked in 2004, deforestation surged. The Amazon experienced its second-worst year of clearing as ranchers and farmers rushed to open new pasture and fields. So far, about 17 percent of Brazil’s Amazon has been lost, and scientists project that if current pressures keep pace, 40 percent of the forest will be cleared by 2050.
In Brazil’s Wild West agricultural frontier, international markets — not legal edicts — control the future of the forest. “Brazil is one of the only countries in the world that has room for soy and agribusinesses to expand,” says Margaret Francis, the Conservancy’s information officer in Brazil. “And the push toward biofuels will only add to that.”
That’s why in 2004 the Conservancy launched the Responsible Soy Project, a certification program geared toward harnessing market pressure on soy. The Conservancy had approached the biggest grain trader in the world, Minnesota-based Cargill, with a plan. The idea was to set up a seal of approval for “Amazon-friendly” soy — something similar to certification for organic food — that would provide farmers with a market incentive to stop clearing forested lands and give Europeans and other concerned consumers a supply of guaranteed “forest-friendly” soybeans.
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Nature picture credits: All Photos © Alex Webb/Magnum Photos
