The Brazilian government levied penalties against meatpacking companies for violating laws regarding use of deforested Amazon land.
What's happening?
Fines and other punishments were issued against 23 businesses and their suppliers for "buying and selling cattle raised illegally" over 100 square miles, the Associated Press reported on Oct. 28. The offenders included JBS, the world's largest meatpacking company and a multitime target of government sanctions.
The fines totaled $64 million, and 8,854 cattle were seized. Because of illegal deforestation, the land was not to be used commercially, according to the AP. The government, though, documented sales of 18,000 cattle that had been raised in the prohibited areas.
Agropam was fined the most ($493,000) for buying 5,624 cattle. JBS received the fifth-largest fine ($108,000) for buying 1,231 cattle, as the AP reported.
Why is this important?
The Amazon is an essential carbon sink that helps suck heat-trapping polluting gases from the atmosphere, but mass deforestation has eliminated about one-fifth of the forest in the past few decades, as the BBC detailed. An additional 38% of the area is degraded.
This is wreaking havoc on wildlife with a loss of biodiversity, and the Amazon River system is drying up. Further deforestation could push the region past a tipping point, Carbon Brief reported.
Though meatpacking companies committed to cutting out illegal ranching from their supply chains in 2013, the deforestation is the result of "extensive cattle ranching along with clearing land to sell timber or grow soy," according to Reuters.
"JBS has maintained its Responsible Procurement Policy for 15 years and has a geospatial monitoring system in place to ensure that the company does not purchase animals from farms involved in illegal deforestation, encroachment on Indigenous lands or conservation areas that are under embargo by [the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources, known as IBAMA]," the company said in a statement.
What's being done about deforestation in the Amazon?
IBAMA is working to prevent further destruction of the vital natural resource, and Minister of Environment and Climate Change Marina Silva has a long and successful history of activism.
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But JBS agreed to a deal earlier this year with China to expand its business at the expense of the rainforest — and it was approved by Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Lula had taken steps to protect and conserve what's left of the Amazon upon taking office last year.
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