Brazil: The Brazilian soy industry’s moratorium is proving effective at slowing deforestation for soy production in the Amazon rainforest, reveals a new study published in the journal Remote Sensing. Conducting aerial surveys, ground inspections, and satellite image analysis, Brazilian researchers found that only 0.4 percent of soy established in the Amazon biome since 2006 has occurred in areas deforested since the implementation of the soy moratorium.
The moratorium was established by the Brazilian Association of Vegetable Oil Industries (ABIOVE) and the National Association of Cereal Exporters (ANEC) bodies.
The soy moratorium was the direct result of a 2006 Greenpeace campaign, which linked animal feed used by fast food chains, supermarkets and retailers in Europe to deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. The main target—McDonalds, which had been stung by the McLibel case of the 1990s and other activist campaigns—immediately demanded its suppliers provide deforestation-free soy, presenting the industry with a daunting dilemma: move towards environmental respectability or lose one of its biggest, and most influential, customers.
The largest soy players—whose vast portfolio of commodities are sold globally—chose the former, agreeing to a moratorium on soy grown on newly deforested lands that has changed the way commodities are produced in the Amazon. The moratorium has been extended every year since.
Source: news.mongabay.com
