Opinion: We Can Do More Than Watch The World Burn

This week, I'm taking a short break from talking about Berlin to discuss an issue that is weighing heavily on everyone's minds, here: the Amazon rainforest fires. Who's to blame and what we can do to stop them?

It's easy to forget when you're watching emotive videos of people helplessly fleeing the hellscape of the burning rainforest, but figuring out who has caused these fires - and stopping those people - is as important as putting the fires out. Otherwise, the destruction will begin all over again the moment the world looks away.

Most reports will have you believe that it's Bolsonaro or greedy ranchers acting on their own who are doing all the burning. The truth is, they are all just agents of a bigger, much uglier enemy of our global environmental health. No, I don't mean Trump, but the Brazilian beef and chicken industry. It's an industry that many of us innocently  support whenever we buy a burger or a chicken salad sandwich on the way from work.

The most corrupt and criminal corporation that could be implicated in this crisis would be JBS, the biggest meat producer in Brazil, and also one of the world's biggest exporters of beef and chicken. More than half of its sales go to America, and it has been working with ranchers who burn the Amazon illegally for years: that is a well-documented fact.

Undercover investigations by the Guardian and others have also found ranches belonging to JBS which were situated on freshly cleared, "protected" areas of the Amazon that are supposedly off limits to ranchers. Another website, Quartz, reported that, "In 2017, JBS was fined nearly $8 million for buying cattle that they knew was raised on illegally deforested Amazon land."

Basically, JBS is athe paymaster who is providing financial incentives for ranchers to set fires, offering its business as a reward to anyone bold enough to set them. So if you're looking for someone to point the finger of blame at, it's them. JBS and their dirty business partners are pouring metaphorical fuel on the fires, even as Bolsonaro aids them by loosening protection for the rainforest and ignoring the fires once they're set. But, the inconvenient truth we aren't being told, here, is that they're doing this all to satiate the appetite for cheap beef and chicken in North America, Europe and Britain.

"The largest meat producer in the world, JBS, has close ties to Bolsonaro’s cabinet and in recent years has been found guilty of bribing at least 1,829 politicians with $150 million. The company has been fined $3.2 billion as a result," reads an illuminating quote from a CNLC  report. It shows how JBS acts as a sort of puppet master, pulling the strings behind the horror show of Brazilian political corruption which led to these fires.  Undoubtedly these bribes have played a huge role in Bolsonaro turning a blind eye to JBS's criminal negligence toward the Amazon. 

So, what can be done? Cutting back on one's own beef and chicken are two of the simplest ways an average person can help stop the burning, since less pressure on the meat industry equals less pressure on the Amazon. Another option would be to target JBS's global subsidiaries in your area, as well as pressuring your government to sanction Brazilian leader Bolsonaro, who is himself criminally complicit in allowing these fires to go on unchecked.

And who exactly are JBS's global cohorts, and how can ordinary people make sure they pay for their recklessness? In Ireland, JBS owns Moy Park, the largest chicken producer in the UK. Those chickens are sold to fast food giants including those usual suspects, such as McDonalds. Why are they still being allowed to sell such products, when the UK and the EU are supposedly committed to rainforest protection? That's a question we should not let go unanswered, at times like these.

For instance, most corned beef in the UK comes directly from Brazil too. According to Quartz website,

"In 2018, the UK, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain bought nearly 90% of JBS’s 55,000 metric tons of European beef exports."

The group Amazon Watch published an excellent and detailed report (PDF download link) in spring 2019, listing some of the international financiers who covertly fund the Brazilian rainforest destruction. Some names that jumped out at me during a quick peruse were HSBC and Santander bank, but there were other high profile funders from the EU, France and the UK, too. All of these seem like perfectly valid targets for venting our global indignation and outrage... using only legal and legitimate means, of course!

More importantly, why are you / your friends / your family still buying chicken or beef if they are committed to saving the Amazon, too? For the time being, Brits, Europeans and Americans who are worried by Bolsonaro's ruthless attacks on the Amazon would be well advised to stay away from meat, leather and soy products from Brazil. Unfortunately, that is most of them! Locally farmed animals fed on locally sourced feed would be safer, but pricier alternative until the situation in the Amazon is sorted out.

If the thought of constantly checking the source of your beef, chicken and the soy that they are fed upon daunts you, though, then the Rainforest Partnership has a suggestion for you: "How can people around the world help in saving the rainforest? The easiest answer is to cut down on the consumption of beef."