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…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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