{"id":78353,"date":"2025-09-05T16:40:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T14:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/?p=78353"},"modified":"2025-09-10T15:54:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T13:54:10","slug":"amazon-day-2025-after-the-fires-pastures-take-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/story\/78353\/amazon-day-2025-after-the-fires-pastures-take-over\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon Day 2025: After the Fires, Pastures Take Over"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Due to better weather conditions and increased preventive efforts by Brazil\u2019s government, the 2025 Amazon fire season is currently milder than those experienced in recent years. But that doesn’t mean the Amazon is safe. Once the flames die down, the destruction continues. Quieter and slower, but just as deadly. Land grabbing, pasture expansion, and toxic smoke threaten both forests and frontline communities.<\/p>\n\n

Because the Amazon isn\u2019t just being burned. It\u2019s being sold, cleared, fenced, and fed into the global industrial agriculture machine. And at the centre of that machine is Big Ag.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

\"Fires
Indigenous Territories in the Amazon are facing a devastating combination of extreme drought and forest fires, driven by the intensification of climate change and criminal activities from illegal mining and other exploitative actions.
\u00a9 Marizilda Cruppe \/ Greenpeace<\/div><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

What happens after a fire? Pastures. Cattle. Cash.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n

In 2024, according to MapBiomas, the Amazon recorded its largest burned area in 40 years, with 15.6 million hectares affected, 117% above average.<\/a> That figure shocked the world. However, even when fire activity slows, land-grabbing and deforestation persist, driven by farms that feed into an industrial system of meat. Pasture expansion for cattle remains the leading driver of deforestation in the Amazon<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n

One of the industry\u2019s biggest players, the meat giant JBS, has been repeatedly linked to deforestation across its massive supply chain. Investigations have found that JBS is connected to over 1.5 million hectares of deforestation<\/a> in its indirect cattle supply chain. Furthermore, JBS admitted to purchasing 8,785 head of cattle from three ranches owned by Chaules Volban Pozzebon<\/a>, following a complaint by Greenpeace Brasil, Rep\u00f3rter Brasil, and Unearthed. The rancher was arrested and initially sentenced to 99 years in prison for multiple crimes, including illegal logging, and is considered the country\u2019s most prolific deforester. He was also convicted of using labour analogous to slavery on one of his properties. The purchases were registered as coming from another farm, also owned by Pozzebon, which had been cleared according to socio-environmental criteria. Meanwhile, analysis from Mapbiomas shows that in 2024, 55% of the burnings in the Amazon started in pasturelands<\/a>, further evidence that fire is a tool, not an accident.<\/p>\n\n

This is not restoration. It\u2019s extraction.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

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