Despite hopeful reports of a deforestation decrease in the Brazilian Amazon, the situation has worsened in the less protected and less scrutinised Cerrado territory, reveals a new factsheet published by Friends of the Earth Europe and Reporter Brasil.
Meanwhile, the EU will try to make progress on the ratification of the EU-Mercosur deal during the EU-CELAC summit with Latin American leaders, including President Lula of Brazil, on 17th-18th July. If ratified, the trade deal will further fuel environmental destruction in the region.
As President Lula has taken ambitious measures to reduce deforestation in the Amazon, agribusiness, and particularly the soy industry, has shifted its predatory activities to the Cerrado, which is seen as Brazil’s ‘last agricultural frontier’. The industry lobby, through their strong allies in the Brazilian parliament, has launched a counter-offensive against the country’s new environmental policies to facilitate agribusiness expansion. The parliament recently adopted bills attacking Indigenous lands and undermining climate goals.
Both the dire situation in the Cerrado and the backlash from agribusiness against Brazil’s environmental agenda are extremely worrying. The ratification of the EU-Mercosur deal would only accelerate this tendency by further boosting trade in products linked to deforestation.
Main findings
- The destruction of the Cerrado was the highest recorded since 2017, with a 21% increase of deforestation alerts in the last six months. This is largely canceling out any progress made in the Amazon.
- Forest fires have consumed 185 million hectares of land in Brazil between 1985 and 2022, with the Cerrado accounting for 43% of this area.
- The Cerrado has been subject to more pressure from agribusiness expansion than the Amazon, as only 8% of its territory is protected.
- Suppliers of multinational agrifood company Bunge have cleared more than 11,000 hectares of Cerrado in the last two years to plant soy for export. Soy sourced by the north-american trader has connections with the supply chain of European companies including Carrefour, Ahold Delhaize, Jumbo and Aldi South.
- Meanwhile, a business lobby group – funded by agrifood multinationals including Bayer, BASF, Syngenta, Cargill, and Bunge – successfully pushed for a bill in the Brazilian Congress attacking Indigenous Lands and jeopardising the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
Julie Zalcman, trade campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe, said:
“The focus on the Amazon rainforest must not distract us from the dire situation in the Cerrado. Neither the EU deforestation directive nor the additional instrument of the EU-Mercosur deal will be sufficient to stop the environmental destruction of the Cerrado, or the wider Mercosur region. What’s more, the constant lobbying attacks of agribusiness in the Brazilian Congress gravely undermine Lula’s efforts on the deforestation front.”
This factsheet is the third in a series that monitors the ongoing situation of human rights violations, carbon emissions and deforestation in the Mercosur region. Read the first one here and the second one here.
