The lower house of Brazil's Congress passed a bill that allows the paving of highway BR319, which crosses the heart of the Amazon basin and which scientists and environmentalists claim threatens the future of the world's largest tropical rainforest. The bill still has to be approved by the Senate.
Some of the world’s largest food companies and grocers urged commodity suppliers including Archer-Daniels-Midland Co, Bunge Ltd, Cargill Inc and Louis Dreyfus Co. to stop trading soybeans associated with deforestation in Brazil’s Cerrado region, a savanna that is a hive of biodiversity and one of the country’s most important carbon sinks.
Brazil hit back Tuesday at European reluctance to finalize a trade deal between the EU and Mercosur blocs over concerns about Amazon deforestation, saying a French report on the issue was motivated by “protectionist interests.”
Brazil plans to deploy its armed forces to fight deforestation and fires in the Amazon jungle, Vice President Hamilton Mourão said on Wednesday; in an effort to protect the world’s largest rainforest where destruction has surged since last year.
Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in northern Brazil soared 85% in 2019, compared with the previous year, official data showed Tuesday. The 9,166 square kilometers cleared was the highest number in at least five years, according to Brazil's National Institute for Space Research.
In the tropical Bolivian city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, a wealthy farming hub on the edge on the Amazon rainforest, President Evo Morales gathered with ranchers late last month to celebrate a maiden shipment of beef to China.
The two most sizeable investors in Norway have told global companies to make sure they are not contributing to environmental destruction in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil.
Norway has suspended funding that was supporting measures to curb deforestation in Brazil after the country blocked the operations of a fund receiving the aid, the Norwegian ministry of climate and environment said on Thursday.
Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil sped up in May to the fastest rate in a decade, according to data from an early-warning satellite system, as experts pointed to activity by illegal loggers encouraged by the easing of environmental protections under President Jair Bolsonaro.
Norway will pay Brazil US$ 70 million for reducing deforestation in the Amazon in 2017 but is concerned over a more recent surge in the destruction of the world's largest tropical rainforest, according to a Norwegian government statement.