Protection deal for Amazon rainforest in peril as big business turns up heat

Exclusive: With Brazil’s politicians, agribusiness organisations and global traders piling on the pressure, the highly successful 2006 Soy Moratorium is under threat

Jonathan Watts Global environment editor
Tue 3 Dec 2024 17.30 EST



One of the cornerstones of Amazon rainforest protection – the Soy Moratorium – is under unprecedented pressure from Brazilian agribusiness organisations, politicians, and global trading companies, the Guardian has learned.
Soy is one of the most widely grown crops in Brazil, and posed a huge deforestation threat to the Amazon rainforest until stakeholders voluntarily agreed to impose a moratorium and no longer source it from the region in 2006.

The voluntary agreement brought together farmers, environmentalists and international food companies such as Cargill and McDonald’s, and decided that any detection of soy planted on areas deforested after 2008 would result in the farm being blocked from supply chains, regardless of whether the land clearance was legal in Brazil.

In the 18 years since, the moratorium has been hailed as a conservation success story that improved the reputation of global brands, enabled soy production to expand significantly without Amazon destruction and prevented an estimated 17,000 square kilometres of deforestation.

But next week the main soybean body – the Brazilian Association of Vegetable Oil Industries (ABIOVE) – will ballot its members about a reform that conservation groups say would gut its effectiveness and embarrass the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ahead of next year’s COP30 climate conference in Belém.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/03/exclusive-protection-deal-for-amazon-rainforest-in-peril-as-big-business-turns-up-heat