The Soybean That Destroyed The Amazon - Guardian

[hatrack]

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In the past three years, nearly 70,000 square kilometres of the Amazon rainforest have been destroyed. The smoke from burning trees pushed Brazil into the top four of global greenhouse gas producers in 2004. Despite commitments from the government of President Lula da Silva, the destruction of the Amazon rainforest continues.

Almost three-quarters of it occurs illegally. Brazil's award-winning Environment Minister, Marina da Silva, speaking at the RSE symposium, was keen to point to progress being made in slowing the rate of deforestation. According to government figures based on a satellite survey, there was a 32 per cent decrease in the rate of deforestation last year. With satellite monitoring stations now in place and providing an annual overview of the Amazon basin to the general public, the deforestation is no longer taking place unknown to the authorities. But that may not be enough, she admitted.

"We need to create the feeling that we are being watched all the time and that those who are doing something wrong will be caught and punished. In some countries it is already too late. It's not too late here. We can still save it," Ms da Silva said. But the cycle of deforestation where state-owned reserves are infiltrated by loggers and ranchers looking for "free land" now has a third and more lethal phase, where the cleared land is sold to soya producers who intensively farm the soil until it can no longer bring a harvest. The cutters then move to new areas and the process is repeated. Within as little as three years, rich and fertile rainforest supporting incredible biodiversity can be reduced to a desert.

Cargill's giant silos now dominate the shore in Santarem, on a site which used to be a beach used by local fishermen. The food multinational has been accused by Greenpeace of illegally setting up this conveyor belt facility which delivers exclusively to the European market, and caters for more than one-third of the UK's imports of soya. The family-owned behemoth, with a turnover of more than $7bn (£3.8bn) and offices in a replica French chateau in Minnesota, is the undisputed ruler of the global grain trade. As the company website says: "We buy, trade, transport, blend, mill, crush, process, refine, season, distribute and deliver around the clock and around the globe." It also owns British-based Sun Valley foods, which processes a million chickens a week into fresh and frozen, supermarket wrapped products. Its major clients are McDonald's and the Morrisons chain.

Later this summer the Brazilian high court is due to rule on whether Cargill's facility should be shut down. Already, two lower courts have ruled against Cargill on the grounds that the company did not complete the necessary environmental impact study before opening the facility. But orders to temporarily suspend operations have been overturned by a barrage of appeals to higher courts.

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http://www.ecoearth.info/articles/reader.asp?linkid=58465

[flvegan]

1. Just one more good reason to not eat meat.

Considering the route of those soybeans...

[regnaD kciN]

2. But most vegetarians/vegans I know...

...consume a lot of soybeans and soy products, as an alternative to meat. So it could be equally argued that the best way to stop having rainforest destroyed to produce soybeans is to eat more meat and less soy.

:shrug:

[flvegan]

4. What do you think they feed many animals

that become meat?

Seriously, look into where a large portion of soy production goes. It's an incredibly inefficient caloric transformation.

If you can look into that and still equally argue that, as suggested, I'm game.

[NNadir]

5. Here's a new place for soy to go:

Rawhide Gold. My favorite color.

[nam78_two]

3. kick /nt

[blueinchicago]

6. Just say no

to monolithic monocultures.

As a flexitarian, I eat meat (grass fed beef, bison) OCCASIONALLY, poultry, and lots of vegetarian. I'm eating this way, because I try to practice moderation (so I'm not into extreme measures), because I want to support the grass-fed meat companies, and because I think consuming is political--I won't drink Silk soymilk, cause they are owned by Dean Foods, a repubican company.

So eat more veggies, more unpackaged foods, more locally grown foods, and no corporate foods.

By the way, did y'all know that 32 percent of the energy used for food comes from home storage-yep a big culprit of GW is our own refrigerators.