Putting soya impacts on the map

Community mapping

Our team in Brazil has been working with the local community to map the impacts of the soya industry in the Santarém region of the forest, the heart of soya production in the Amazon. This is a collaborative project with the Brazilian organisations Projeto Saude e Alegria (Health and Happiness Project) and the Rural Workers Unions of Santarém and Belterra. The community mapping project focuses on training people to use GPS technology to pinpoint the damage caused by intensive agriculture practices and empowering the local community to defend its land and the rainforest. Even though there's a moratorium at present on forest being cleared for new soya plantations, current farming in these areas is still damaging the environment and the communities who live in the region.

Research collected for the map between May 2007 and June 2008 shows damage has spread along the highways carved through the forest. Soya farming has affected rivers as well: herbicides used on the crops have leeched into the water. Some rivers have even been dammed by farmers, affecting water supplies for those downstream. Others have silted up when wetland forest cover has been removed.

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Local groups take control

As their environment deteriorates, the future of local communities is at stake. Traditional routes through the forest are blocked by expansive soya plantations and people have been forced to sell their land as a result of pollution from agrochemicals.

The information collected for the maps even documents cases where entire communities have disappeared due to the destruction that has made their former way of life impossible.

The communities that continue to exist in spite of the destruction are also on the community map. Many rural communities that have managed to somehow adapt to the destruction are included in this project – for some, this is the first time they have ever been formerly identified on a map.

Documentation of the land in this region is an important step in the fight to save the Amazon. By helping local communities document what's happening to the forest and rivers around them, control is finally back in their hands. Ever since US company Cargill announced its plans to build a controversial soya processing and port facility in Santarém, these communities have fought to show the detrimental effect a growing soya industry has on the region. The Cargill facility was built without the environmental impact assessment required by the government. Cargill finally submitted the assessment to the authorities at the end of last year and we are currently awaiting the announcement of the public hearing where further discussions will take place on this issue.

And finally, this mapping project could also provide a model for how the money from global funding mechanisms needed to stop dangerous climate change could be spent to ensure that local people are the guardians of their forests. This will be essential if we are to save the climate and protect forests in the Amazon and around the world in the long term.

View the map.