It's great that Brazil is finally starting to take action against the destruction of their own country from greedy americans who like hamburgers. what I'm disappointed in is that you are still putting most of the blame on the shoe companies? Really? Why not advocate for veganism? Why not look at the real problem instead of pointing the blame on companies who use the by-products of the meat industry?

Veggal, I feel that this is largely a great thing, the fact that there is some progress actually gets me hope that things could change (Now, only if we could get the "Idiot Capitalist America" to realize that headuprectumizm and money worship is a moronic train of thought, we could get somewhere).

What I DON'T agree with is the fact that to blatantly push someone's ideals onto another. Vegetarianism is something that one does by choice. It would be like pushing a religion on another person, they won't do it unless THEY want to. To do this usually equates into a backlash of some sort...Which, oddly enough, seems to be like me trying to push my friends/family/co-workers, to take energy conservation/environment issues seriously (Idiot Capitalist America syndrome).

@veggal: it is a common misconception that leather is merely a "byproduct" of the cattle industry. there are several so-called "cattle products" that make cattle ranching so profitable, and hides for leather is certainly one of them, as is beef.

your other mistake is in reading this as us "putting most of the blame on the shoe companies." perhaps you need to check out the report we released before you pass any more judgments. we don't put "most of the blame" on anyone -- there's plenty to go around.

what we did do is make a strategic decision to target these shoe companies and try to build them up into champions for solutions to Amazonian deforestation and climate change. i assure you, this decision was based very much on an analysis of the "real problem." not sure why you think we'd base it on anything less. we're not in the habit of creating campaigns for fake problems...

Paul L is right when he says that preaching veganism would be ineffective. we could try to push veganism on folks, but where would that get us? you can't honestly believe that we'll be able to convince enough people to up and quit eating meat quickly enough to save the Amazon by 2015, which is when Brazil has pledged to achieve Zero Deforestation as part of its commitments to stopping global warming. people simply love their meat; and i say that as a vegetarian for the past 8 years.

but everyone, or at least most everyone, can agree that it's wrong to chop down the Amazon rainforest to make leather for shoes. there are plenty of acceptable alternatives out there, including, for better or worse, leather shoes made from cows that weren't grazed on deforested Amazon. and if we mobilize enough people to call for it, then the shoe companies will respond. and if they start pushing the companies who supply them with leather to ensure that they're not getting any hides from Amazonian deforestation, then it suddenly becomes much less profitable for these cattle ranchers to cut down the Amazon for their cattle.

that is the bottom line: it shouldn't be profitable to cut down the Amazon and contribute to global warming. and that's what we're trying to achieve.