To Prevent Deforestation, Brazilian Supermarkets Ban Amazon Meat

Hugh Pickens writes writes "BBC reports that the Brazilian Association of Supermarkets, representing 2,800 members, says it will no longer sell meat from cattle raised in the rainforest, a step they hope will cut down on the illegal use of rainforest where huge swathes have been turned into land for pasture and soy plantations. Public Prosecutor Daniel Cesar Azeredo Avelino says consumers will benefit from the deal. 'The agreement foresees a series of specific actions to inform the consumer about the origin of the meat both through the internet and at the supermarkets,' says Azeredo. 'We hope that the big chains will quickly take action.' The supermarkets' pledge comes as part of an initiative by the Public Prosecutor's Office to deprive the meat producers of outlets and an internet campaign aimed at informing Brazilian consumers of the ethics of boycotting meat from Amazonian sources is also planned. Brazil's Greenpeace advocacy group says the growth of the cattle industry in the Amazon is the single biggest cause of deforestation. For decades now, Brazilian authorities have battled illegal logging and other activities that continue to reduce the rainforest and in January the Brazilian government announced it plans to prepare an inventory of the trees in the Amazon rainforest. The Forestry Ministry said the census would take four years to complete and would provide detailed data on tree species, soils and biodiversity in the world's largest rainforest. The last such exhaustive survey was conducted more than three decades ago but didn't help stop deforestation."

Answer isn't less cattle, but more.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a recent TED talk where, counterintuitively, using more livestock instead of less is an actually proven way to fix desertification:

http://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change.html

Re:Answer isn't less cattle, but more.

[necro81]

A better way to fix desertification is to not cut down the rain forests in the first place! The risk to the Amazon basin isn't coming from the presence of the cows per se, but from the fact that a well-established, thriving rainforest ecosystem was there one day, then destroyed for cropland the next.

Re:Closing the door a little too late?

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

No, you are right. But there's a bigger, probably unsolvable issue that caused all this. By American standards (I'm American), Brazil has really weird property laws. In fact, I'd argue that a lot of Brazilian laws in general are weird based on my understanding of them. But specifically to this article, private property is really strange there. See, nobody owns those lands in the Amazon rain forest and the law prevents the government from owning them. Brazil also has some crazy laws that give squatters rights that I've just never heard of in any developed country. In the US, somebody owns all the land. It may be the US government, but somebody owns all American land. There is no American land that is not owned. If people just started clearcutting American national forests and putting cattle farms on them, they'd wind up in jail as soon as Uncle Sam found out about it. In Brazil, such things are just met with shrug from the government, a sigh and a "What can we do?" sort of response. The government doesn't own that land, so they are powerless to stop such things. Also, probably as an overreaction to abuses by dictatorial governments in the past, Brazilian law is really weak at punishing people. Someone could go to Brazil, kill a million people, go to jail for 29 years and then get out in time to do it all over again. Brazilian cops can legally shoot you down and kill you under circumstances that are completely illegal in the USA, but once you are in the system, you are safe. You can't get more than 29 years for any crime and Brazilian prisons are rather notorious for being run by the inmates. So the lack of effective punishment deterrents, a justice system that more often than not actually feels sorry for the perp rather than the victim (this is very common in countries that are strongly anti-death penalty), the lack of default government ownership of land and unusually strong squatter's rights laws have led to a situation where the only response is an indignant "We're not going to sell your meat" from the grocers. I suspect that the farms will continue to deplete the rainforest and they'll simply ship the meat to China.