By Maxwell Radwin
The cattle ranching industry in Brazil is deforesting one of the country’s largest ecosystems without proper authorization, often with the financial backing of major international banks.
Some of the country’s largest meatpackers are clearing parts of the Cerrado at an even faster rate than the Amazon Rainforest, a new report from U.K.-based NGO Global Witness says. The savanna ecosystem covers about a fifth of Brazilian territory and is an important carbon sink helping combat climate change.
“Like its neighbor the Amazon, it is being destroyed to feed the world’s appetite for beef — and it is major financial institutions who are bankrolling the bulldozers,” the report said.
In Mato Grosso, the state with the largest cattle herd in the country, at around 32.8 million cows, beef suppliers cut down the forest to make room for grazing even if they don’t have the required permits, Global Witness found.
The state is home to both the Amazon and Cerrado biomes — as well as Pantanal wetlands — but it’s the Cerrado that’s suffering most. While deforestation in the Amazon has dropped in recent years, it’s been on the rise in the Cerrado, surpassing a record-breaking 750,00 hectares (1.85 million acres) in 2023, according to Brazil’s National Space Research Institute (INPE).
Three major meatpackers, JBS, Marfrig and Minerva, have cut down nearly five times more of Mato Grosso’s Cerrado than they have its Amazon. Around one in three cows that the companies purchased from the Cerrado had grazed on illegally deforested land, Global Witness found through an analysis of trade data and public information from various Brazilian agencies.
The NGO said the companies don’t finance or commission the deforestation but rather fail to adequately monitor their supply chains.
Deforestation in Mato Grosso, Brazil. (Photo by Rhett A. Butler)
In a statement to Mongabay, Marfrig said it doesn’t acquire animals from deforested areas, conservation units or Indigenous lands. It also insisted on its commitment to sustainability. “The company maintains a robust control and monitoring system via satellite in real-time and 24 hours a day,” its statement said.
JBS and Minerva didn’t respond to Mongabay’s request for comment.
Global Witness also found that numerous financial institutions including Barclays, BNP Paribas, HSBC, ING Group, Merrill and Santander have underwritten billions of dollars of bonds for meatpacking companies. Other entities with shares in the beef industry include The Vanguard Group, BlackRock, Capital Research Global Investors, Fidelity Management & Research, according to the report.
“BNP Paribas requires its clients to be ‘zero deforestation’ (legal and illegal) in their production and supply chains, as well as have a full traceability of beef and soy supply chains (direct and indirect) in the Amazon and Cerrado,” a spokesperson for PNB Paribas told Mongabay, adding that it would no longer be providing financial products or services to companies that aren’t aligned with this policy starting in December 2025.
Other financial institutions declined to comment or didn’t respond to Mongabay’s requests.
“JBS, Marfrig and Minerva should not be receiving additional financing while they’re causing deforestation — in the Cerrado, in the Amazon or anywhere,” Global Witness’ report said. “Doing so fails to properly convey to would-be investors the seriousness of the environmental abuses riddling their supply chains.”
The Cerrado has received much less attention from policymakers than the Amazon in recent years, and regulations on beef and other commodities have lagged behind. Right now, one of the strongest deforestation protections is the EU deforestation-free products regulation (EUDR), which requires proof that major commodities like beef aren’t sourced to illegally deforested land. But the Cerrado doesn’t fall under its protection because of the EUDR’s narrow definition of “forest.”
The law is scheduled for review this year, which could allow for changes that would protect additional types of ecosystems. The Global Witness report said the language of the law should be expanded to “other wooded land” that would include the Cerrado.
A report from the World Economic Forum said the Cerrado can offer as much as $72 billion of economic value while also implementing conservation policies that allow Brazil to meet Paris Climate goals that keep global temperatures below 1.5°C (2.7°F).
Global Witness also called on financial supporters of JBS, Marfrig and Minerva to demand higher standards for regulating deforestation in supply chains. Major financial centers in the U.S., U.K., EU and China, it said, should also pass laws against financing deforestation.
“Global financial centers must bring in mandatory due diligence checks against funding deforestation, and strengthen financial regulations to end their firms’ role in tropical forest destruction,” it said.
Banner image: Cattle on deforested land in Brazil. Photo by Wenderson Araujo/Trilux.
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This article was originally published on Mongabay
