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deforestation
Brazilian Judge Orders Slaughterhouses and Ranchers to Pay for Harming Amazon
"The invaders and their main business partners—loggers and meatpacking companies—make the profits their own while passing on to society the costs of environmental damage," notes one of numerous lawsuits.
Sep 06, 2024
A Brazilian judge on Thursday ordered two slaughterhouses and three ranchers to pay $764,000 in combined penalties for trading cattle raised in a protected area of the Amazon rainforest.
The decision by Judge Inês Moreira da Costa in Rondônia—the most severely deforested state in the Brazilian Amazon—came in response to a flurry of lawsuits filed by green groups seeking millions of dollars in damages from defendants including Distriboi and Frigon, two meat processing firms accused of trading cattle in the Jaci-Parana protected zone.
"When a slaughterhouse, whether by negligence or intent, buys and resells products from invaded and illegally deforested reserves, it is clear that it is directly benefiting from these illegal activities," the plaintiffs' complaint states. "In such cases, there is an undeniable connection between the company's actions and the environmental damage caused by the illegal exploitation."
The slaughterhouses and ranchers are but two of numerous parties being sued, including other ranchers and JBS, the Brazilian meat giant that bills itself as the world's largest protein producer.
According toThe Associated Press—whose reporting on the cattle trading documents prompted the lawsuits:
Brazilian law forbids commercial cattle inside a protected area, yet some 210,000 head are being grazed inside Jaci-Parana, according to the state animal division. With almost 80% of its forest destroyed, it ranks as the most ravaged conservation unit in the Brazilian Amazon. A court filing pegs damages in the reserve at some $1 billion.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuits are seeking to put a price on the destruction of old-growth rainforest, asserting that "the invaders and their main business partners—loggers and meatpacking companies—make the profits their own while passing on to society the costs of environmental damage."
The Amazon rainforest is one of the world's most biodiverse ecosystems and is a crucial carbon sink, meaning it absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The world lost around 3.7 million hectares of primary tropical forests last year—a rate of approximately 10 soccer fields per minute, according to data from the University of Maryland's Global Land Analysis and Discover laboratory. While this marked a 9% reduction in deforestation compared with 2022, the overall deforestation rate is roughly the same as in 2019 and 2021. Felling trees released 2.4 metric gigatons of climate pollution into the atmosphere in 2023, or almost half of all annual U.S. emissions from burning fossil fuels.
In Brazil, the government of leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has taken steps to combat deforestation, resulting in a more than one-third reduction in forest loss. Progress in reversing the rampant forest destruction wrought by the previous far-right administration of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro—who was nicknamed "Captain Chainsaw"—were partially offset by a 43% spike in deforestation in the Cerrado region last year.
Earlier this year, Marcel Gomes—a Brazilian journalist who worked with colleagues at Repórter Brasil to coordinate "a complex, international campaign that directly linked beef from JBS... to illegal deforestation"—was one of seven winners of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize.
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'Groundbreaking' Study Stresses Need to Protect Global Forest Carbon Sink
"Despite facing regional threats like deforestation and wildfires, the world's forests continue to be a powerful weapon in the fight against climate change."
Jul 18, 2024
In what one researcher's group on Thursday hailed as a "groundbreaking" study, scientists from 11 countries highlighted "the critical role of forests in mitigating climate change" and how various threats are imperiling Earth's vital climate sink.
"Despite facing regional threats like deforestation and wildfires, the world's forests continue to be a powerful weapon in the fight against climate change," the U.S. Forest Service (USFS)—which co-led the study published in Nature—said Wednesday in a statement announcing the paper. "These vital ecosystems have consistently absorbed carbon dioxide for the past three decades, even as disruptions chip away at their capacity."
The study shows how the world's forests have consistently absorbed carbon dioxide over the past three decades, "even as disruptions chip away at their capacity."
Researchers examined long-term ground measurements combined with remote sensing data and found that "forests take up an average of 3.5 ± 0.4 billion metric tons of carbon per year, which is nearly half of the carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels between 1990 and 2019."
According to USFS, other key findings from the study include:
- Boreal forests in the Northern Hemisphere, spanning regions like Alaska, Canada, and Russia, have experienced a significant decline in their carbon sink capacity, dropping by 36%;
- This decrease is attributed to factors including increased disturbances from wildfires, insect outbreaks, and soil warming;
- Tropical forests have also seen a decline, with deforestation causing a 31% decrease in their ability to absorb carbon;
- Regrowth in previously abandoned agricultural lands and logged areas has partially offset these losses, keeping the net carbon flux in the tropics close to neutral; and
- Temperate forests, on the other hand, have shown a 30% increase in their carbon sink capacity, a rise largely due to extensive reforestation efforts, particularly in China.
"Our research team analyzed data from millions of forest plots around the globe," USFS researcher Yude Pan said in a statement. "What sets this study apart is its foundation in extensive ground measurements—essentially, a tree-by-tree assessment of size, species, and biomass. While the study also incorporates remote sensing data, a common tool in national forest inventories and land surveys, our unique strength lies in the detailed on-the-ground data collection."
The study's other lead author, Richard Birdsey of the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts, said that "the persistence of the global forest carbon sink was a surprise given global increases in wildfire, drought, logging, and other stressors."
"But it turns out that increasing emissions in some regions were balanced by increasing accumulation in other regions, mainly re-growing tropical forests and reforestation of temperate forests," Birdsey added. "These findings support the potential for improving protection and management of forests as effective natural climate solutions."
The study's recommendations include reducing deforestation, promoting reforestation, and "improving timber harvesting practices to minimize emissions from logging and related activities."
The world lost around 3.7 million hectares of primary tropical forests last year—a rate of approximately 10 soccer fields per minute, according to data from the University of Maryland's Global Land Analysis and Discover Lab. While this marked a 9% reduction in deforestation compared with 2022, the overall deforestation rate is roughly the same as in 2019 and 2021. Felling trees released 2.4 metric gigatons of climate pollution into the atmosphere in 2023, or almost half of all annual U.S. emissions from burning fossil fuels.
In the United States, green groups cautiously welcomed the USFS introduction last month of a draft environmental impact statement for the proposed national old-growth forest plan amendment, which followed President Joe Biden's 2022 directive to protect old-growth forests.
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Stop Green Genocide in Cameroon
Fortress conservation has pushed the Baka people from the rainforests of the Congo Basin into villages bordering the national parks of southern Cameroon, while the logging that truly threatens the forest continues.
Jul 16, 2024
Clouds of red dust rise into the sky and hang in the air as the truck roars past. It's impossible to breathe as the dust gathers in the folds of villagers' clothes, settles on rooftops, and coats the forest's green leaves. The next truck goes by, and another cloud rises up in its wake. They carry massive tree trunks felled in the rainforests of the Congo Basin. The Baka people struggle to breathe every day, as logging companies from China, France, Italy, and Lebanon descend on the tropical forests and cut everything in their path.
The Baka have been pushed into villages bordering the national parks of southern Cameroon. Amid the din of passing trucks, they tell me they have been barred from their forest—they can no longer hunt for food, access their sacred sites, fish, or gather medicinal plants. Government authorities and "nature conservation" organizations say it's not the clear-cutting loggers destroying the forests. They blame the Baka—Indigenous hunter-gatherers who rely on the forests to live.
You're probably wondering how such a paradox can be tolerated. This is the heart of what's known as fortress conservation, driven by the erroneous belief that Indigenous people cannot look after their own land.
The Baka are fighting for their own survival, for their way of life, and for the forest they love. We in the West must ensure that our governments, and organizations such as WWF, finally stop supporting these atrocities.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) supports national parks, including Lobéké, Nki, and Boumba Bek parks. The organization funds heavily armed rangers who prevent the Baka from entering their forest by arresting, beating, and torturing them. The Baka are forced to live in small roadside villages—without access to their own lands. Logging companies' concessions surround the parks. And it's not hard to see that it's their activities—not the Baka—threatening the Congo Basin forest, especially as most of the timber is destined for export to industrialized countries.
The companies sometimes operate within the parks. But WWF and other major conservation NGOs look the other way. Instead, they create partnerships with the companies for "sustainable forest management." But let's be honest: For WWF, it has more to do with the money they receive from the companies than actual conservation. WWF and the companies set up "anti-poaching units," with yet more guards attacking the Baka—all while the trucks keep roaring by. The certification labels on the timber say "sustainable"—so does the companies' advertising. But, watching the trunks trundle past before me, and seeing the destruction of the forest, that is laughable. There's no such thing as sustainable destruction.
National parks are not—as the conservation industry would have us believe—rare islands of unspoiled nature that mitigate the surrounding destruction. Instead, they are an integral part of a strategy designed to maximize profit from the environment and its resources while pointing the finger of blame at local communities—the people who are least responsible for the destruction.
Michel is chief of a Baka village on the edge of Lobéké National Park. He explains: "Our grandparents used the forest at Lobéké, before WWF arrived. Since they came, we don't go there anymore. If you go there, in the park, you won't be able to go home without problems. They're not protecting anything—they just want to kick us out."
For the Baka, the loss of their forest takes all of that away. It's not just losing a place to live or access to food; it's losing their identity. So, it's not just a matter of material hardship, it's also the destruction of a people.
Baka children no longer learn about the forest plants: It's too dangerous to take them into the forest to teach them. The Baka say that for them the forest is absolutely everything. It sustains them and it provides everything that gives meaning to their lives. Without access to their forest, the Baka's future is in jeopardy.
Tragic as it may seem, the situation was much worse just a few years ago. WWF-funded guards waged a veritable war against the Baka. They harassed people, invading their homes, beating and torturing anyone they found—including the elderly who weren't quick enough to flee. Many Baka had to abandon their villages to escape. Some fled to neighboring Congo.
Thanks in large part to the work of Survival International, which catalyzed international support and investigations, the once-extreme level of violence has radically diminished. But the guards still beat Baka people if they try to enter the forest, and the severe trauma of the extreme physical violence of previous years remains. Célestin, a young Baka man in his mid-20s says: "We always think about violence. We go to sleep without having eaten, and we think about it. All the time."
The big conservation organizations are responsible for this chaos and pain. Once they've forced the Baka out of the forest, they offer "alternative livelihood projects" to draw them further away from their ancestral territory and way of life. Though they claim the projects compensate for the loss of the forest, it's just a less obvious way to go about destroying the Baka's lives and their bonds with their forest.
"They want to turn us into villagers," say the Baka. "We stay in the village all day, but we were born to be in the forest." WWF set up a mushroom-growing project in a Baka village. It provided equipment and training and built a warehouse. The Baka followed the instructions to grow and dry the mushrooms. But a year later, no one came to buy them, and WWF never returned. That's just one example among many. NGOs promise people chickens, sheep, ponds for fish farming, saying they'll have a "better" life. But for the Baka, the best life is one at peace in the forest, and the promises never materialize. "So far, we've had nothing. The people to whom these promises were made are dead now," testify the Baka.
The loss of their forest, as described by village chief Michel, leads to a disintegration of the social fabric, and loss of the foundations of the Baka identity and way of life. It is simply the destruction of them as a people: it's a green genocide. Nothing could compensate the Baka for the loss of their forest. The Baka survive by working in neighboring communities' fields, in conditions akin to slavery, paid tiny sums of money or just given alcohol. But it's dependent on the goodwill of those who "employ" them. (There is a big problem now with alcohol dependency among the Baka, not unlike the historical problems of other peoples who were dispossessed of their land, such as those in North America and Australia.)
"We are suffering. Those who make us work in the fields don't consider us human, they want to kill us. They give us so much to do, and if you refuse to work in the fields, they hit you," says Michel.
Michel, Célestin, and the rest of the Baka are fighting for their own survival, for their way of life, and for the forest they love. We in the West must ensure that our governments, and organizations such as WWF, finally stop supporting these atrocities. It's not too late to prevent the conservation industry suffocating an entire people, just as the red dust suffocates everyone in its path. Let's stop this green genocide.
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