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Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters are getting frustrated. The whole world can see that the direction the country is taking is extremely dangerous. Rather than changing tack they have decided to silence the detractors.
Whether environmental researchers, academics or officials, it seems that no one is safe. Increasing numbers of these professions are being forced to seek safety abroad to avoid threats to their lives.
This is not the behaviour of a democracy leader, and it wont work
Much of the deforestation that is occurring in Brazil is to make more room for cattle grazing. The promise of a beef giant to stop deforesting in 14 years is not worth anything. Apart from anything, it is likely that the have calculated that it will take 14 years to clear the land that they currently have access to.
A promise to reform your bad behaviour in 14 years is worth nothing. Indeed in a new Soy and Cattle deforestation tracker, JBS scored 1 point out of 100. As a point of context, its nearest competitors scored 40 and 46 out of 100.It has congratulated itself as the first company in its industry to make commitments, but no one else is impressed. They have had to many chances, now we must move away from buying their product.
The fact that they felt they needed to make a commitment would suggest that market pressure is working, clearly there has not been enough pressure bought to bare on this group. A boycott would likely be a good move. Morrisons Aldi Sainsbury and Lidl all buy meat from this company. My suggestion is that you buy your meat from companies which actually worry about things like this – If one of these companies are forced to drop this beef supplier, it is likely to force the others to do the same. They managed to get good converge last September, when they remade a commitment that they originally made in 2009 to halt deforestation through its suppliers – the bigger question should have been why havent you lived up to your 2009 pledge. It should be noted, the forests they are clearing are not grown for wood, they are old growth natural woodland, coming with it are the tens of thousands of species that are endangered or eradicated as their forests are lost.
JBS has consistently worked to keep their supply chain as opaque as possible, presumably to avoid being held accountable. They have now had enough time, and so it is time for action. If you shop at any of the food chains above, ask about where the meat comes from, and avoid any beef that does not have its origin clearly labelled.
We may not have rainforests to cut down in the UK, but if you continue to eat JBC meat, you may as well have got out the axe yourself.
Over 2 million acres of forest was lost from the Amazon this year, with 76% of this falling within the boundaries of Brazil.
Nearly 95% of deforestation is found within a small distance of roads or rivers. As a result, Bolsonaro and similar politicians can claim to build roads to help with developments, when actually their primary aim, is deforestation so that the land can then be used for more valuable purposes.
Most areas that have been deforested have then been burned, which gives way for grazing pasture.
If something is not done fast, it will not matter what Jair Bolsonaros replacement wishes to do, as there will be little rainforest left to protect.
There are increasingly worried noises coming from former world leaders and other people about the marches taking place in Brazil.
These marches appear to be modelled after the US insurrection, and the ground work which Donald Trump laid – suggesting that it would be impossible for him to loose in a fair fight. In the USA Donald Trump did indeed try hard to stop it being a fair fight, he tried to cheat in many ways.
Continue reading “Are we expecting Bolsonaro to give up power if he loses”While palm oil plantations are not currently the people doing the clearing in this part of the Amazon, the fact that they are desperate for land means that other people (be them soya farmers or or cattle farmers) find the risk of clearing land is worth it as they know they will be able to sell it to the palm oil plantations.
Much of the invaded land is actually indigenous areas. This has many issues. These invasions bring them into close proximity with people from outside, leading to regular outbreaks of illness. They are also extremely worried about the large quantities of pesticides these palm oil plantations use. Given that much of this land is actually indigenous, it would seem that it should be an incredibly simple legal matter to throw them off it.
Continue reading “Palm oil plantations are growing in the northern Amazon and the army seems to be in charge of the forest.”There are often arguments, that indigenous people need to be removed in order to balance nature back out. It is true that in some wilderness areas, so called indigenous people have moved into wilderness areas within the last 50 years. These people should not be called indigenous or be given rights over the land that their parents seized.
On the other hand, there are tribes in the Amazonian rainforest (as in the Congo and other rainforests) that have lived largely identical lives for 5000 years. Whats more, there is little evidence of damage to the ecosystem throughout the fossil record.
We need to be careful, as we try to protect these wild areas, There is a big difference between modern humans moving into the forest and clearing land for crops, and indigenous people who have lived in harmony with the forest for millenia.
Dams are often talked about as a fantastic way to cut carbon emissions. Aside from the fact that many dams in the world are more like a battery (water is pumped up when electricity is cheap and then flows down when it is expensive creating electricity) dams built in rainforests have such a huge initial carbon footprint from the destruction of the rainforest that sat on the land that in some cases the carbon savings will never make up for the carbon loss.
I am not saying that dams are useless. Far from it. However, if your dam is there to cut carbon emissions, it is in the wrong place.
Brazil has gone into dams in a large way. Unfortunately, these are so poorly constructed that they are collapsing. This means that land downstream gets hit twice – firstly loosing most of their water supply as the dam fills and then again as they are deluged with months or years of water in one go. What is worse here, is that many dams here are holding back toxic mud, left over after mining work. As such even after the flood of water has gone down, much of the land it has touched will be less productive.
It is not an either or choice for countries like brazil. They aim to cut carbon emissions by 45% by 2030, however 28-33% of that will come from non-hydropower sources (70%). Indeed in Brazil wind power is generating increasing amounts of their power. Indeed, in terms of installed wind power, Brazil now ranks just 8th in the world. Also given it is a country lying in the tropics, it gets a great deal of sun – there are currently 8.5GW of solar installed meeting 1.5% of Brazils needs. However 3.4GW were added just in 2020. It is therefore highly likely that assuming this acceleration continues perhaps 20% of Brazils electricity needs could come from solar by this date.
We need to cut our emissions dramatically in the next 10 years, however political pressure is often meaning that these efforts are going in the wrong direction.
The latest move by Brazil’s president, while expected, goes against all of Brazil’s past agreements. Indigenous lands were given back- they are not a gift from the Brazilian government. Indigenous people have lived in the Brazilian rainforest for millennia longer than Europeans have been in South America.
Brazil has changed its tack under bolsonaro. He has been astoundingly derogatory about the indigenous Brazilian people ( indeed the way he talks you would only think he wanted the rule for the Descendants of European settlers) and this has been shown by his increasing support and push for invasion of their lands either forgiveness afterwards or promises beforehand that nothing will happen.
Throughout the exploration of the last few centuries meetings between indigenous people’s and the explorers have really been good.
