I may be in the middle of the Pacific Ocean right now, but I’m very excited to take a break from campaigning for marine reserves to bring you some HUGE news about our campaign to stop deforestation in the Amazon.

Sao Paulo, Brazil – In a major step forward for climate protection, today four of the biggest players in the global cattle industry — Marfrig, Bertin, JBS-Friboi and Minerva — joined forces to ban the purchase of cattle from newly deforested areas of the Brazilian Amazon from their supply chains, backing Greenpeace’s call for zero deforestation in the rainforest.

The move follows the release of the Greenpeace report ‘Slaughtering the Amazon’ in June, which exposed the link between forest destruction and the expansion of cattle ranching in the Amazon. This prompted calls for action from key international companies, including Adidas, Nike and Timberland, which committed to cancel contracts unless their products were guaranteed to be free from Amazon destruction, encouraging today’s move.

The announcement was made at a high-level event in Sao Paulo organized by Greenpeace, where each of the companies declared the adoption of environmental and social standards to ensure their products are free from cattle raised in newly deforested areas of the rainforest.

Measures include the monitoring of their supply chains and clear targets for the registration of farms that both directly and indirectly supply cattle as well as measures to end the purchase of cattle from indigenous and protected areas and from farms using slave labor. “This is an important step in the fight to stop the destruction of one of the world’s most critical rainforests and vital to helping tackle climate change,” said Paulo Adario, Greenpeace Amazon campaign director.

The Brazilian cattle sector, which occupies 80 percent of all deforested areas of the Amazon, is the country’s leading carbon polluter.

As the press release quoted above notes, this is not just a victory for the Amazon, but a victory for the climate as well. Deforestation is responsible for more global carbon emissions than all the planes, trains, and automobiles in the world combined.

I’m personally very glad to see that these companies have agreed to help safeguard the rights of indigenous communities as part of the deal. For more info, read the full list of minimum criteria these companies have committed to, and the full press release.

If you haven't already seen the 2008-2009 Annual Report for Greenpeace, please explore it! After months of working on it, picking the highlights from 2008 and trying to pick out a few photos from the amazing ones we have,  like this one:

The Annual Report is done! I couldn't be happier! 

Thanks in great part to all of the emails and calls activists like you sent to the company, Timberland has announced a new policy agreement with Greenpeace that will help ensure the leather used in its boots and shoes is not contributing to new deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest or global warming. The policy will not only guide Timberland’s leather procurement from Brazil to ensure it’s not supporting deforestation, the policy also sets a deadline for Timberland suppliers to publicly commit to a moratorium on cattle expansion in the Amazon.



Timberland worked with Greenpeace to craft a policy that will require its leather suppliers to commit to a moratorium on purchasing any cattle raised in newly deforested areas within the Amazon Rainforest. Given the cattle industry is Brazil's top source of greenhouse gas emissions and the largest driver of deforestation in the world, a moratorium on cattle expansion is a critical component of any Zero Deforestation policy in Brazil that aims to reduce forest-related greenhouse gas emissions. Brazil has committed to achieving Zero Deforestation by 2015.

Thank Timberland for stepping it up a notch with its suppliers to help eliminate Amazon destruction from the leather sector in Brazil. Every step counts in the fight to save the Amazon and our climate!

Today Greenpeace was glad to be part of the announcement that the Amazon Soy Moratorium has officially been extended to July 2010. This is a crucial piece of Amazon protection, so its extension is welcome news indeed.

Approximately 100 km (62 mi) above Manaus, in Brazil's Amazonas state, the Anavilhanas is the largest river archipelago in the world with over 400 islands. © Greenpeace / Daniel Beltrá

The Soy Moratorium is essentially a commitment not to trade soy from areas in the Amazon Biome that were deforested after July 24, 2006. The moratorium is enforced by the Soy Working Group (abbreviated as GTS based on its Portuguese name), which was established in 2006 to implement the moratorium and is made up of representatives from the soy growing and exporting industry as well as various NGOs, including Greenpeace, WWF, and the Nature Conservancy.

Originally, the Soy Moratorium was an initiative of the private sector and various environmental and conservation NGOs, but the Moratorium received the support of the Brazil's Minister of Environment, Carlos Minc, who formally joined the initiative last year. Thanks to the Soy Moratorium, soy is no longer the chief driver of Amazon deforestation. That distinction belongs to cattle ranching, which is responsible for 80% of deforestation in the Amazon. Greenpeace is calling for a cattle moratorium to match the protect the Amazon.

Prior to the Soy Moratorium, large swaths of Amazon were clearcut for soy plantations, while tiny islands of intact rainforest such as this one were left behind to meet lax government standards. © Greenpeace

Read more about this great news here, as well as what the GTS says about the new challenges it is facing in monitoring deforestation and flagging new soy plantations for the industry groups to add to their Do Not Buy lists.

Responding to concerns that its demand for leather is fueling deforestation of the Amazon and contributing to climate change, Timberland has taken a major step toward protecting the Amazon rainforest today. While the company's announcement of a new policy is a positive and welcome step, Timberland needs to put its foot down and tell Bertin, one of Timberland’s leather suppliers and one of the dirtiest companies in Brazil, that it will no longer purchase leather made from Amazon destruction, period.

Bertin supports the deforestation and burning of the Amazon to graze cattle. According to our report, “Slaughtering the Amazon,” that’s not all that’s wrong with Bertin:

Greenpeace has identified hundreds of ranches within the Amazon rainforest supplying cattle to Bertin’s slaughterhouses in the Amazon state of Pará. Where Greenpeace was able to obtain mapped boundaries for ranches, satellite analysis reveals that significant supplies of cattle come from ranches active in recent and illegal deforestation. Trade data also reveal trade with ranches using modern-day slavery. Additionally, one Bertin slaughterhouse receives supplies of cattle from an illegal ranch occupying Indian Lands. (p. 66)

The Brazilian Federal Prosecutor based in Para State has opened a billion-dollar lawsuit against Bertin and other cattle companies for illegal deforestation. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private lending arm of the World Bank, has withdrawn a $90 million dollar loan to Bertin. It’s time for Timberland to take the next step and let Bertin know that it will cancel its contract if Bertin doesn’t stop supporting Amazon deforestation and global warming.

Please write to Timberland now and thank them for taking the first step, but ask them to put their foot down once and for all by establishing a policy of accepting absolutely no leather from Bertin until Bertin commits to a moratorium on any new deforestation for cattle expansion. If Timberland does not take a hard line with suppliers who are destroying the Amazon and our climate for cattle, who will?

Yesterday I posted about an amazing victory for the Amazon, that being Nike's precedent-setting new policy to ensure that its demand for raw materials to make shoes isn't contributing to deforestation and global warming. I also wrote about the fact that the other companies we've been urging to establish such protections have not taken meaningful steps to do so, and specifically mentioned Timberland and the automated response they’re sending to everyone who emails them about their lack of a policy to protect the Amazon.

Although Timberland is responding to the emails they're getting from concerned consumers and activists, and in that response they mention an interest in engaging with Greenpeace, Nike and Timberland are in drastically different places. It's actually been rather disappointing to see Nike, a true sustainability leader, move forward with a policy to protect the Amazon, while Timberland, a company that is more than happy to tout its environmental record, has failed to make similar commitments. Timberland buys leather for its shoes from one of the nastiest slaughterhouses in Brazil, Bertin. Yet Timberland has refused to do anything beyond recommending to Bertin that they follow the law and stop illegally deforesting the Amazon and using slave labor.

The bottom line is, we need to stop deforestation altogether, not just what's currently considered "illegal." And to stop Amazon deforestation, we need to stop the expansion of cattle. Cattle expansion is not only destroying pristine rainforest that is critical to the health of the planet, but the emissions from the deforestation are contributing to global warming and therefore wreaking havoc on our climate.

Fire season has started in Brazil. Acres upon acres of Amazon are going up in flames right now (as much as an acre every 8 seconds, according to our report), while Timberland sits on its proverbial hands and just makes recommendations about the illegal actions of its suppliers. Brazil’s federal government is suing Bertin to the tune of $1 billion. The IFC canceled a $90 million contract with Bertin. The slaughterhouse giant Marfrig has committed not to support cattle expansion into the Amazon. Yet Timberland can’t decide if the shoes you’re wearing should or should not have come from cattle raised on acres and acres of land that has been cleared in the Amazon?

Timberland is parsing words about what’s legal or illegal while knowing that anything that happens in the middle of the rainforest as big as the Amazon is difficult to track or enforce. There is no good system of knowing what is legal or illegal on the ground in the middle of the rainforest.

But that's not what it's about. It's not about what’s legal and illegal, it's about what's right and wrong. Is it wrong to set acres of the Amazon rainforest on fire to raise cattle for your Timberlands? Is it right for Timberland to pressure its suppliers until they agree not to unnecessarily destroy the Amazon — which releases many tons of greenhouse gas emissions, making Brazil the world's fourth largest emitter?

Timberland says they want to engage, but the company has made no meaningful progress or overtures.

So, Timerbland, we’re looking at you. Where you at?

Not to toot our own horn, but here at Greenpeace, we’ve run our share of successful campaigns. Still, I think we’ve all been pleasantly surprised by the speedy response to our report, “Slaughtering the Amazon.”



The latest success in our campaign is Nike’s announcement today that it has established a new policy to ensure that its demand for shoe leather is not contributing to Amazon deforestation and global warming (read the Greenpeace press release here). You can help us thank Nike for protecting the Amazon and the climate. This is a huge victory, as it sets a great precedent to be followed by the other shoe companies named in our report, many of whom continue to greenwash their own corporate policies rather than take meaningful action.

I’ll say more about that in a bit. But I think, for now, I want to continue with the positivity. With that in mind, thought I’d run down a quick list of the biggest successes our campaign to save the Amazon has had:

• On June 1st, we released the “Slaughtering the Amazon” report, and the very next day, the Public Prosecution Office in Brazil’s Para State announced that it was opening a billion-dollar lawsuit against several farms and various companies operating there, including one slaughterhouse owned by Brazil’s cattle giant Bertin, a company named in our report as one of the major corporations backed by the Brazilian government who are purchasing hides from cattle ranches involved in deforestation of the Amazon, as well as engaging in slave labor practices and other crimes. That same day, the environment minister of Brazil said that he agreed with our report and echoed our assertion that the Brazilian government should not be funding Amazon destruction.

• On June 12th came news that several major grocery store chains in Brazil, including Wal-Mart and Carrefour, had banned beef purchased from the ranches accused by the Para state prosecutor’s offfice of being involved in illegal deforestation.

• The very next day, June 13th, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private lending arm of the World Bank, announced that it was withdrawing a $90 million dollar loan to Bertin.

• Then, on June 22nd, the world’s fourth largest beef trader, Marfrig, announced a moratorium that would prevent the company from buying cattle raised in newly deforested areas within the Amazon.

As you can see, the move by Marfrig came after the “Slaughtering the Amazon” report had really thrust an international spotlight on Marfrig, Bertin, JBS and other leading cattle companies who are driving Amazon deforestation and climate change, as well as companies like Timberland, Adidas, Reebok, and Clarks who buy cattle products from those cattle companies.

Like I said before, these shoe companies continue to be evasive rather than talk with Greenpeace about how they can ensure that their demand for leather isn’t fueling Amazon deforestation and climate change. Even if you’ve already emailed them once, you can email these shoe companies again and tell them you expect them to ensure they’re not part of the problem.

One thing I’d like to note: After you take action, you’ll most likely get an automated response from Timberland — a response that amounts to nothing more than pure greenwashing. But this post is already gone on long enough, and like I said, I’m more in the mood to dwell on the good things going on right now. So I’ll write about that more in the next couple days. Just wanted to say: Don’t be fooled by Timberland’s greenwashing in the meantime.

This Reuters article, published yesterday, does a great job of laying out the progress we’ve made so far in stopping deforestation in the Amazon thanks to our report, “Slaughtering the Amazon.”

SAO PAULO/RIO DE JANEIRO, June 29 (Reuters) - In a victory for conservationists, Brazil's huge cattle industry is bending to demands to curb destruction of the Amazon forest after heavy criticism of its leading role in deforestation.

Reforms by Brazil's big slaughterhouses could move the industry toward increased productivity and away from the practice of burning trees to clear land in the world's largest rainforest, industry officials and conservationists say.

…

In the past month, since the release of a 40-page Greenpeace report detailing links between Brazil's meatpackers and deforestation, the World Bank has withdrawn a $90 million loan to one firm. And supermarket chains said they would stop buying beef from 11 producers in the Amazon state of Para.

Big beef firms announced steps to ensure their cattle come from legal ranches. Beef exporters pledged not to accept meat from illegally deforested areas and to set up an electronic tracing system to guarantee the animals' origin.

"There have been very good decisions," said Andre Muggiati of Greenpeace, whose report used satellite data to show that beef for Brazil's domestic market and exports often comes from farms with recent deforestation.

"Now it is about implementation of deals. You have to monitor these commitments. If not, you lose it."

Like my colleague Andre says, making a commitment and following through on that commitment are two different things. We’ll be monitoring the situation in the Amazon closely to ensure that those companies who have committed to making changes actually follow through.

We’re still waiting to hear back from several of the shoe companies named in the report as to what they plan to do to make sure that the leather in their shoes is not coming from Amazon destruction. If you haven’t taken action yet, write to Nike, Adidas, Timberland, Geox, and Clarks right now and tell them to support solutions to deforestation and global warming. And if you’ve read any of the PR spin these companies have put out in the wake of our report release, you can read our responses here.

Late last night the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private lending arm of the World Bank, withdrew the $90 million dollar loan to Brazil’s cattle giant Bertin. The loan was used for the company to further expand into the Amazon region, which was causing destruction of the rainforest and fuelling global climate change.  While on one hand Lula’s government was making commitments to reduce deforestation rates in the Amazon, on the other hand the IFC was helping to expand the Brazilian cattle sector which is now the largest single source of deforestation in the world.  

Globally forest destruction accounts for almost 20 percent of global warming causing emissions, which is more climate pollution than all the world's cars, trucks, trains, planes, and ships combined. Brazil ranks as the world’s fourth biggest climate polluter, largely because of Amazon destruction. Although the IFC published a benign statement on its website late last night about the terms of the cancellation, this announcement comes just two weeks after the release of the Greenpeace report “Slaughtering the Amazon.”

The Greenpeace report revealed how the financial backing of the Brazilian cattle industry by the IFC and President Lula’s government via its national development bank (BNDES) has led the industry to become the largest single source of deforestation in the world and a major source of global greenhouse gas emissions. The report also shows how cattle products from ranches involved in illegal deforestation in the Amazon rainforest --as well as in the invasion of indigenous lands and slavery--contaminates the supply chains of top brands such as Adidas, Reebok, Timberland, Geox, Clarks, Nike, Carrefour, Gucci, IKEA, Kraft, and Wal-Mart.

By helping Bertin to expand into the Amazon, the IFC has been driving further destruction of the rainforest for products that often make their way into global meat or leather products while undermining Brazil’s commitments to reducing deforestation. For a bank that portrays itself as the “knowledge bank”, this was a very ill conceived and thoroughly destructive use of international resources. The last $30 million dollar  hand-out from the IFC will no longer be given to Bertin and it is anticipated that the IFC will ask Bertin to return early the $60 million dollars it has already invested in the company. The World Bank Group is set to lend another $1.3 billion dollars to Brazil for “environmental protection.”

At Greenpeace we are calling for a commitment to Zero Deforestation and global solutions that will protect forests and reduce forest related emissions that are making global warming worse. In the fight to save the Amazon, every step will count so we are asking US consumers to join us in taking on companies like Nike, Timberland, and Adidas which cannot demonstrate that the leather in our shoes is not driving deforestation in the Amazon.

 -Lindsey 

As you may know by now, Greenpeace released a report June 1 called Slaughtering the Amazon, which demonstrated the connections between the cattle sector and deforestation. Today we saw one of our first major victories as Brazilian retailers banned meat from cattle that were raised in deforested areas in the Amazon.

As the Reuters piece points out:

"CBD, Wal-Mart and Carrefour will ban beef purchased from farms accused by the Para state prosecutors office of deforestation and will demand documents from slaughterhouses related to the transit of the cattle, Abras said.

The companies also intend to conduct an independent audit to assure that meat that they buy is not from deforested areas."

Here in the US we are not a large importer of Brazilian beef that could be driving deforestation in the Amazon but we do suspect ties to US companies using leather from illegal cattle ranching in the Amazon.  While we focus on the campaign to get Nike, Timberland, Adidas, and others to prove the leather in our shoes is not from destroyed Amazon, our colleagues in Brazil are keeping the pressure on the their domestic meat sector which is the other half of the cattle-related deforestation equation.

- Lindsey