Eating up the Amazon 1

EATING UP THE AMAZON 1 EATING UP THE AMAZON 2 EATING UP 3 THE AMAZON CONTENTS DESTRUCTION BY NUMBERS – THE KEY FACTS 5 INTRODUCTION: THE TRUTH BEHIND THE BEAN 8 HOW SOYA IS DRIVING THE AGRICULTURE FRONTIER INTO THE RAINFOREST 13 WHO PROFITS FROM AMAZON DESTRUCTION? 17 THE ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS OF AMAZON DESTRUCTION AND SOYA MONOCULTURE 21 BEYOND THE LAW: CRIMES LINKED TO SOYA EXPANSION IN THE AMAZON 27 CARGILL IN SANTARÉM: MOST CULPABLE OF THE SOYA GIANTS 37 EUROPEAN CORPORATE COMPLICITY IN AMAZON DESTRUCTION 41 STRATEGIES TO PROTECT THE AMAZON AND THE GLOBAL CLIMATE 48 DEMANDS 51 ANNEX ONE – GUIDANCE ON TRACEABILTY 52 ANNEX TWO – A SHORT HISTORY OF GM SOYA, BRAZIL AND THE EUROPEAN MARKET 55 REFERENCES 56 ENDNOTES 60 4 The Government decision to make it illegal to cut down Brazil nut trees has failed to protect the species from the expanding agricultural frontier. When farmers clear the land to plant soya, they leave Brazil nut trees standing in isolation in the middle of soya monocultures. Fire used to clear the land usually kills the trees. EATING UP 5 THE AMAZON DESTRUCTION BY NUMBERS – THE KEY FACTS THE SCENE: THE CRIME: THE CRIMINALS: PARTNERS IN CRIME: The Amazon rainforest is Since Brazil’s President Lula da Three US-based agricultural 80% of the world’s soya one of the most biodiverse Silva came to power in January commodities giants – Archer production is fed to the regions on earth. It is home 2003, nearly 70,000km2 of Daniels Midland (ADM), livestock industry.12 to nearly 10% of the world’s the Amazon rainforest has Bunge and Cargill – are mammals1 and a staggering been destroyed.4 responsible for about 60% Spiralling demand for 15% of the world’s known of the total financing of soya animal feed from land-based plant species, Between August 2003 and soya production in Brazil. European agribusiness is with as many as 300 species August 2004, 27,200km2 – Together, these three driving the expansion of of tree in a single hectare.2 an area the size of Belgium companies also control more the agricultural frontier – was lost. Three-quarters than three-quarters of the into the Amazon rainforest. The region is also home to of this destruction was soya crushing capacity in Europe buys half the soya about 220,000 people from illegal.5 That’s an area 10km Europe that supplies soya exported from the Amazon 180 different indigenous long by 7.5km wide lost meal and oil to the animal state of Mato Grosso, 3 nations who live deep in the every day. More than 3km2 feed market.10 where 90% of rainforest rainforest, along with many every hour. A football pitch soya is grown. Meat reared more traditional forest- every eight seconds.6 With an estimated 13 silos on rainforest soya finds dependent communities. and an illegal port facility its way onto supermarket The rainforest provides In 2004–05 around 1.2 already built into the Amazon shelves and fast food these people with million hectares of soya rainforest, Cargill is leading counters across Europe. everything from food (5% of the national total) soya’s invasion of the region and shelter to tools and was planted in the Brazilian – spurring the incursion of 7 medicines, and plays a Amazon rainforest. illegal farms and building crucial role in the spiritual infrastructure to deliver It is well documented that life of indigenous peoples. Amazon soya to global slave labour is used to clear markets. Bunge and ADM are forest for agriculture. Mato All this is threatened by following Cargill’s lead, with Grosso and Pará – the two deforestation and related an estimated six and four silos Amazon states at the leading crimes, committed for the respectively in the Amazon.11 sake of the profits to be edge of the soya frontier made from agricultural – are responsible for more commodities such as soya. than half of all the slaves reported in Brazil.8 Between 2003 and 2004, the Brazilian Government reported nearly 8,700 slaves in the two states. Up to 75% of Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions result from deforestation – with the majority coming from the clearing and burning of the Amazon rainforest.9 Amazingly, relative to its industrialised size, Brazil is the world’s fourth largest climate polluter. 6 EATING UP 7 THE AMAZON Since 1998, Greenpeace has been working alongside Amazon communities to investigate and expose the threats to the Amazon, and to confront the major actors driving the criminal destruction of this globally critical rainforest. In order to improve our effectiveness, we set up a satellite mapping team in the Amazon to track and identify those responsible for opening up illegal roads and driving deforestation. This work is coupled with on-the-ground investigations and aerial surveillance. 8 INTRODUCTION: THE TRUTH BEHIND THE BEAN SOYA’S INVASION OF THE AMAZON Europe is a key market for Amazon soya. Nearly 18 million tonnes of In early 2003, the Brazilian Government launched a plan to soya beans and meal are imported into Europe from Brazil annually.14 combat deforestation in the Amazon. By 2004–05, the rate Almost all the soya exported in 2005 from the Amazon port of of deforestation – which had leapt to a ten-year high – had Santarém, built illegally by Cargill, was destined for Europe. returned to its 25-year average of about 18,000km2 a year.13 In 2004, however, Greenpeace started to document a powerful GREENPEACE’S INVESTIGATION newcomer beginning to operate at the frontier of Amazon Since 1998, Greenpeace has been working alongside Amazon destruction: the soya industry. Through field investigations, communities to investigate and expose the threats to the aerial surveillance, interviews with affected communities, Amazon, and to confront the major actors driving the criminal industry and political actors, analysis of Brazilian Government destruction of this globally critical rainforest. Together, we satellite and export data, tracking of shipments to the are pushing for environmentally responsible and socially just international market and a host of other research techniques, solutions for the people of the Amazon. Greenpeace has built up a preliminary picture of this devastating new industry. This report represents our initial findings. In order to improve our effectiveness, we set up a satellite mapping team in the Amazon to track and identify those At the heart of Amazon destruction, Greenpeace has identified responsible for opening up illegal roads and driving deforestation. three US-based agricultural commodities giants – Archer Daniels This work is coupled with on-the-ground investigations and aerial Midland (ADM), Bunge and Cargill. These same three companies surveillance. Our evidence has been presented to the Brazilian have a virtual monopoly of soya crushing capacity (for meal authorities to compel them to act, and also has been shared with and oil) in Europe, supplying the lucrative animal feed industry local communities and other NGOs. with this cheap, high-protein ingredient – so fuelling Europe’s intensive meat and dairy production, and feeding its ever- The results speak for themselves. Our campaigns in Brazil, in global growing demand for cheap meat. political forums, and critical market areas such as Europe and the USA, have persuaded the Brazilian Government to act on a number These companies also control other aspects of the food supply of fronts – closing illegal logging operations, ending the illegal chain such as – in the case of Cargill – large-scale livestock farming mahogany trade, marking the legal boundaries of indigenous lands, and meat processing, making them not only buyers, suppliers creating new protected areas as a buffer against deforestation, and processors but consumers of soya. They are building up their and creating community reserves – all of which allow traditional presence in the Amazon by constructing storage and processing forest people to regain control of their land for genuinely sustainable facilities and encouraging the development and expansion of illegal development. But much remains to be done if the Amazon, its farms hacked out of the rainforest, whose operations are made peoples and its wildlife are to be safeguarded in the long term. viable by the infrastructure the companies have put in place. In this report we illustrate the soya crisis through the example of two key global players: Cargill (possibly the largest private company WHY IS SOYA IN THE AMAZON? in the world) in the Amazon and McDonald’s (the largest fast food Giants such as ADM, Bunge and Cargill have established themselves company in the world) in Europe. We document the path taken by in the Amazon because they know they can make easy money out soya from illegally cleared farms, sometimes with the use of slave of the destruction of the rainforest. By providing everything from labour, to Cargill and its competitors, through the ports, processors seeds and agrochemicals to the transport and storage infrastructure and meat producers of Europe, and finally into the Chicken needed to access global markets, ADM, Bunge and Cargill act as a McNuggets sold under the golden arches across the continent. magnet drawing farmers into the Amazon rainforest. While we focus on McDonald’s, our investigations have also shown While soya is being planted in areas previously deforested for cattle that the same crimes are likely to be on the menu of the majority ranching, in large areas of Mato Grosso and Pará, the Amazon of European fast food retailers and supermarkets. If we can track rainforest is also being converted directly to soya monocultures. soya beans more than 7,000km from farms in the Amazon to Soya farmers deforest the land, usually planting rice for the first chicken products in Europe, there is no excuse for the whole of the year to prepare the soil, and then grow soya.

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