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Wan LixinOpinion deputy editor of Shanghai Daily
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Activists take aim at cattle ranching
By Stuart Grudgings |
June 7, 2009, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
THE small plane is gliding over a mesmerizing landscape of green pasture interspersed by patches of forest in Apyterewa Indigenous Reserve, Brazil, but Wayne Lindbergh keeps his eyes firmly glued to his laptop.
Below, where a map on his screen indicates forest stood last year, bare soil is charred brown by recent burning, another example of the widespread illegal deforestation of the Amazon forest that environmentalists blame on cattle ranchers.
"This is all new this year,?said Lindbergh, a campaigner for the Greenpeace environmental group, earphones clamped to his head as he points to the screen of his laptop computer showing the latest satellite data on deforestation.
Soon thousands of cows will be chewing pasture on the freshly cleared land in Brazil's Amazon state of Para, just a tiny part of Brazil's 200-million-strong commercial cattle herd, the world's biggest, that makes it a beef superpower.
More than 70 million are in the Amazon area, three for every person. This is where the industry has grown fastest in recent years, a trend activists say is due to cheap land, widespread illegal clearing and weak government enforcement.
Now, buoyed by a landmark success in persuading the country's soy industry to avoid deforestation, activists are now hoping to use the power of consumers to rein in the cattle industry.
Ahead of world climate talks in December, they point to evidence that ranching is by far the biggest driver of the deforestation that makes Brazil the world's fourth-biggest carbon emitter. Greenpeace, which says Amazon cattle are the biggest single driver of deforestation in the world, launched a campaign this week linking illegal land-clearing with beef products sold by companies in Europe and the United States.
The campaign against soy farmers in 2006, which linked deforestation with major firms such as McDonald's Corp, led to a three-year moratorium on soy from deforested areas.
Powerful foe
But replicating that success with the cattle industry will be tougher, activists say. The industry, long at the heart of a bitter struggle for land in the Amazon, is a powerful opponent seen as strategically important by the government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Major Brazilian meat-processing companies JBS, Marfrig and Bertin have expanded abroad to become global players and in the past five years have driven the industrialization of cattle ranching in the Amazon.
State development bank BNDES gave financing totaling 4.7 billion reais (US$2.38 billion) to the four biggest meat packers in 2008 and recently created a 1 billion reais package to help them through the world financial crisis.
Environmental groups say that means the government is effectively financing the forest's illegal destruction, even as it has adopted its first target for reducing deforestation ?by half in the next decade.
They say slaughterhouse operators take advantage of widespread confusion over land ownership and a limited state presence. Thus, they rarely check whether meat comes from legal areas.
"It's the role of the industry to segregate,?said Andre Muggiati, another Greenpeace activist. "The industry can demand from farms that they don't deforest any more.?
The meat firms deny any links to illegal deforestation. Bertin, in response to questions, said it would cut off any supplier found to be illegally clearing forest.
But in past decades, settlers, farmers and speculators have operated in the virtual absence of state controls, leaving a legacy of conflict, illegality and distrust in the Amazon even as big companies with foreign shareholders have moved in.
Back on the ground in central Para state, where the farming frontier meets the vast, virgin forest, the clarity provided by aircraft observation and satellite data is quickly clouded.
In a dusty settlement by the Xingu river, Indians from the Parakana tribe recalled seeing thousands of cows rounded up and confiscated from across the water last year, part of a high-profile government operation against illegal ranchers.
But they say rancher invasions and deforestation have continued. Tamakware, a tribal elder, brandished an arrow and made a plaintive appeal to foreign visitors to tell President Lula to move the farmers out.
"The state is absent here,?said Francisco Pinto, a government official of the Indian affairs agency who lives with the tribe.
While conservationists say ranchers and the meat packers who buy their cattle are the biggest driver of deforestation, farmers often blame landless peasants who accept land from the government and then illegally sell it.
James de Senna Simpson, the financial director of the rural producers syndicate of Maraba city, questioned whether foreigners and environmental groups had the right to tell Brazilian farmers to stop cutting down trees.
"What will the world pay us to stop cutting down trees? They will have to pay us something,?said Simpson.
Below, where a map on his screen indicates forest stood last year, bare soil is charred brown by recent burning, another example of the widespread illegal deforestation of the Amazon forest that environmentalists blame on cattle ranchers.
"This is all new this year,?said Lindbergh, a campaigner for the Greenpeace environmental group, earphones clamped to his head as he points to the screen of his laptop computer showing the latest satellite data on deforestation.
Soon thousands of cows will be chewing pasture on the freshly cleared land in Brazil's Amazon state of Para, just a tiny part of Brazil's 200-million-strong commercial cattle herd, the world's biggest, that makes it a beef superpower.
More than 70 million are in the Amazon area, three for every person. This is where the industry has grown fastest in recent years, a trend activists say is due to cheap land, widespread illegal clearing and weak government enforcement.
Now, buoyed by a landmark success in persuading the country's soy industry to avoid deforestation, activists are now hoping to use the power of consumers to rein in the cattle industry.
Ahead of world climate talks in December, they point to evidence that ranching is by far the biggest driver of the deforestation that makes Brazil the world's fourth-biggest carbon emitter. Greenpeace, which says Amazon cattle are the biggest single driver of deforestation in the world, launched a campaign this week linking illegal land-clearing with beef products sold by companies in Europe and the United States.
The campaign against soy farmers in 2006, which linked deforestation with major firms such as McDonald's Corp, led to a three-year moratorium on soy from deforested areas.
Powerful foe
But replicating that success with the cattle industry will be tougher, activists say. The industry, long at the heart of a bitter struggle for land in the Amazon, is a powerful opponent seen as strategically important by the government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Major Brazilian meat-processing companies JBS, Marfrig and Bertin have expanded abroad to become global players and in the past five years have driven the industrialization of cattle ranching in the Amazon.
State development bank BNDES gave financing totaling 4.7 billion reais (US$2.38 billion) to the four biggest meat packers in 2008 and recently created a 1 billion reais package to help them through the world financial crisis.
Environmental groups say that means the government is effectively financing the forest's illegal destruction, even as it has adopted its first target for reducing deforestation ?by half in the next decade.
They say slaughterhouse operators take advantage of widespread confusion over land ownership and a limited state presence. Thus, they rarely check whether meat comes from legal areas.
"It's the role of the industry to segregate,?said Andre Muggiati, another Greenpeace activist. "The industry can demand from farms that they don't deforest any more.?
The meat firms deny any links to illegal deforestation. Bertin, in response to questions, said it would cut off any supplier found to be illegally clearing forest.
But in past decades, settlers, farmers and speculators have operated in the virtual absence of state controls, leaving a legacy of conflict, illegality and distrust in the Amazon even as big companies with foreign shareholders have moved in.
Back on the ground in central Para state, where the farming frontier meets the vast, virgin forest, the clarity provided by aircraft observation and satellite data is quickly clouded.
In a dusty settlement by the Xingu river, Indians from the Parakana tribe recalled seeing thousands of cows rounded up and confiscated from across the water last year, part of a high-profile government operation against illegal ranchers.
But they say rancher invasions and deforestation have continued. Tamakware, a tribal elder, brandished an arrow and made a plaintive appeal to foreign visitors to tell President Lula to move the farmers out.
"The state is absent here,?said Francisco Pinto, a government official of the Indian affairs agency who lives with the tribe.
While conservationists say ranchers and the meat packers who buy their cattle are the biggest driver of deforestation, farmers often blame landless peasants who accept land from the government and then illegally sell it.
James de Senna Simpson, the financial director of the rural producers syndicate of Maraba city, questioned whether foreigners and environmental groups had the right to tell Brazilian farmers to stop cutting down trees.
"What will the world pay us to stop cutting down trees? They will have to pay us something,?said Simpson.
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