Brasil's Deforestation

About a fifth of the soy exported to the EU from Brazil’s Amazon and Cerrado regions, mostly for animal feed, and at least 17% of the beef, may be coming from land that has been deforested, according to the study published in the journal Science. The Guardian’s own investigations have also established clear links between deforestation and animal feed, and the sale of products to consumers in the UK. In the UK, only about 27% of soy is officially certified as not being associated with deforestation or destruction of other natural habitats, but two-thirds of the soy imported comes from countries with high deforestation rates.

The researchers compiled a new comprehensive set of land-use and deforestation maps, from sources including the national online environmental registry and cattle transport permits, to distinguish between legal and illegal deforestation linked to the production of soy and beef.

They said the government of Brazil could do more to ensure its agricultural supply chain was transparent, and to enforce clear policies on deforestation. “It is not enough to claim to be the world’s most sustainable agriculture while a share of the sector fails to comply with the country’s own environmental laws, and supports the government’s undoing of past environmental achievements,” said the researchers.

Environmental campaigners are urgently seeking safeguards to ensure any increase in trade does not encourage deforestation, which has increased in Brazil under the government of Jair Bolsonaro, who has been accused of presiding over the destruction of the Amazon and other key regions. Environmentalists say fines for deforestation are often ignored and rarely enforced, and that the government has hobbled environment agency work since it came to power. They also say the Brazilian government does not take the climate emergency seriously. The Brazilian environment minister, Ricardo Salles, has called the climate crisis a “secondary issue”, while the foreign minister, Ernesto Araújo, has described it as Marxist plot.

Mike Barrett, executive director of science and conservation at WWF-UK, said: “Without knowing it, we’re eating meat and dairy products from animals fed on soy grown on deforested land in Brazil. We need to stop importing habitat destruction.”

Campaigners are concerned at the lack of any law in the UK that requires importers to guarantee their products are free from deforestation. WWF said that meant people could be unwittingly consuming products that contribute to the destruction of nature.