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Not many of us link our soy chai latte or our occasional fast food splurge with Amazon deforestation. However, travel up the Amazon river and you’ll be greeted not by endless lush forest, but by soy farms and cattle ranches.

We’re all familiar with the statistic: every minute, an area of forest the size of five football fields is clear-cut in the Amazon. But a report just released from Brazil’s National Space Research Agency (INPE) reveals unparalleled deforestation in the last part of 2007. To make things worse, this follows three years of some of the heaviest clear-cutting ever. Despite world-wide attention, the Amazon rainforest is disappearing faster and faster.

In the wake of the report, Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, called an emergency meeting to formulate a plan for saving what’s left of the Brazilian rainforest.

The plan introduces a number of measures that will hopefully succeed in saving one of the greatest natural wonders on Earth. It includes a 25% increase of federal police and environmental protection officers to prevent illegal logging and clear-cutting. In addition, farmers on cleared land will be asked to prove that the land was not illegally cleared and will be forbidden from any further deforestation.

On top of these measures, the government plans to publish a blacklist of companies and landowners who have illegally cleared land.

If the plan does not work, Brazil may fear economic as well as ecological devastation. At the same time, how can Brazilians be convinced to forgo the profitable development of the country’s most vast natural resource?

About the plan, the director of Friends of the Earth’s Brazilian Amazon program, Roberto Smeraldi, sums up, “The main action that the government can take is not to stop deforestation - which is beyond its control - but to stop stimulating deforestation, with credit, infrastructure, settlements, land offers and impunity.”

The current emergency plan follows Lula’s 2005 conservation attempt. Then, 90 people–half of them forest protection officials–were arrested in connection with illegal logging.

Blame it on Multinational Agrobusiness?

The battle for Brazilian farmland is a violent one. Indigenous people are losing land to farming, the world’s greatest biodiversity treasure is going up in smoke, and some of Brazil’s poor are finding themselves working at gunpoint in remote soy and cattle farms. The effects of this battle are being felt throughout the global food market.

Despite some moves to change suppliers, multinational fast food chains, for one, are still at partial fault for the Amazon’s rapid destruction. Soy and corn from the Amazon is an abundant food source for animals sold to these companies.

Two years ago, many multinational soy traders caught that deforestation in the press was bad for business. Most Brazilian soy passes through the hands of US commodities moguls Cargill, ADM, and Bunge, as well as French-owned Dreyfus, and Brazilian-owned Amaggi. The companies signed an agreement–set to expire this July–that placed a moratorium on buying soy from newly deforested land. It’s a step in the right direction.

On a down note, there’s a chance that Lula’s emergency plan will also impact the Landless Peasant Movement, or MST. Two-thirds of Brazil’s arable land is owned by just 3% of the population. About 1.5 million strong, the MST takes a stance against poverty and slave-like conditions on some of Brazil’s large farms. They try to win back farmland from big business by forming co-ops and building schools on land that’s sometimes squatted.

Take Action

Write to your favorite supplier of soy products asking them where their soy comes from. Express your concern over deforestation and human rights. Politely ask that they work to ensure fair trade prices for farmers as well as sustainable farming methods.

Also, write to your fast food chain of choice to ask if and of their animal feed comes from newly deforested areas of Brazil. They may not know the answer. Politely express your concern over deforestation and human rights. Ask that they record your opinion as a customer and suggest that they closely inspect their supply chains to ensure that farmers used sustainable growing methods and were paid fair prices.

References and Resources

Brazil to act over acceleration in deforestation | Telegraph, UK

Deforestation of Brazil’s Amazon rises sharply | MSNBC

The 7,000km journey that links Amazon destruction to fast food | Guardian

Soya Traders Agree to A Moratorium On Amazon Deforestation Following Customer Pressure | Organic Consumers Association

The Amazon Can’t Be a Soy Farm | The Christian Science Monitor

Soybean Production Threatens Rainforests and Indigenous People | Rainforest Relief

About Brazil’s Landless Peasant Movement | Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST)

Despair in the soy plantations | World Wildlife Fund