The Zero Deforestation Agreement was signed by
JBS/Bertin, Marfrig and Minerva after the release of the Greenpeace
report "Slaughtering the Amazon," which exposed the
links between cattle ranching in the Amazon region and
deforestation. Following the release of the report and a campaign
run by Greenpeace, big supermarket chains such as Wal-Mart and
Carrefour, as well as international shoe companies like Nike,
Adidas, Clarks, Geox, and Timberland, made clear that they would
not purchase leather or meat from the Brazilian slaughterhouses
unless the companies could prove they were not sourcing from newly
deforested areas. The agreement was signed on October 5, 2009. (You
can read more about the "Slaughtering the Amazon"
report release and campaign on our blog.)
Brazil is the fourth largest climate polluter in the world,
largely due to deforestation of the Amazon rainforest. Cattle
ranches occupy 80% of all deforested areas in the Brazilian
Amazon.
First Zero Deforestation Agreement deadline not met
The first phase of the Zero Deforestation Agreement required the
registration and mapping of all ranches supplying Amazon cattle
directly to the slaughterhouses (what are known as the "fattening
farms"). They would, then, have a 2-years period to do the same
with their indirect suppliers (rearing and setten farms). These
steps are necessary for proper monitoring of the cattle
supply-chain, which is crucial for the Brazilian slaughterhouses to
be able to ensure that their consumers are not receiving products
that are contributing to Amazon deforestation. Two of the three
Brazilian cattle giants, Marfrig and Minerva, presented their
progress yesterday during the meeting, which was held at the
Brazilian Association of Meat Exporters (ABIEC) in Sao Paulo. Their
results did not match the commitment the companies had agreed to in
October 2009.
Though they failed to meet their first deadline, all of the
companies who signed the Zero Deforestation Agreement reaffirmed
their intent to clean up their supply chain and asked for more time
to fulfill their obligation.
Despite the insufficient results, both Marfrig and Minerva
presented on the significant progress that they have made during
the last six months. Marfrig, for example, reported that 80% of its
suppliers operating in the Amazon have been identified, but maps of
the ranches are still missing. ABIEC, Marfrig, and Minerva asked
for an additional three months to complete the tasks of identifying
the cattle ranches and committed to having all ranches fully mapped
and registered by November.
The world's largest slaughterhouse, JBS (which is no longer an
ABIEC member), did not attend the meeting. A representative of the
company met Greenpeace separately and presented a report in which
JBS pledged to have 80% of their Amazon production mapped by the
end of April. According to the JBS report, only 43% of Amazon
production is mapped. To complete the work in all Amazon states in
which they operate, JBS also asked for a 3-month extension.
(Bertin, originally a Zero Deforestation Agreement signatory,
merged with JBS since signing the agreement.)
"In a region like the Amazon, where the great majority of the
farms are not registered at the official public agencies and land
grabbing, violence, slave labor, and invasion of protected areas
and indigenous lands are common, the regulation of the cattle
industry, including mapping cattle ranches so that they can be
monitored, is a matter of national interest," says Paulo Adario,
director of Greenpeace Brazil's Amazon Campaign.
Nearly 95,000 more acres have been burned since October
2009
According to Imazon, a Brazilian NGO that independently
monitors Amazon deforestation, from October 2009 (when the Zero
Deforestation Agreement was signed) to January 2010 some 94,888
acres (38,400 hectares) of the Amazon were deforested. Around
35,000 acres (14,000 hectares) of that deforested land - 40% of the
total - occurred within the areas under direct influence of the
slaughterhouses.
Greenpeace has made it clear to JBS/Bertin, Marfrig and Minerva
that they must move more quickly to ensure that their cattle
products are not contributing to deforestation of the Amazon. We
will continue to work with the slaughterhouses and report on their
progress.
Brazil has become one of the world's leading exporters of beef,
leather, and other cattle products, and the country's government is
fostering further development of this sector. If they want to keep
leading the global market, it is in the Brazilian slaughterhouses'
best interest to ensure cattle do not come from newly deforested
parts of the Amazon or ranches that profit from the use of slave
labor.