Controlling the ranching boom that threatens the Amazon

“In my hometown, one of the traditional centres of cattle ranching, they have a saying: ‘The cow walks, and the earrings fly,’” said Sergio Abranches, a Brazilian environmental journalist.

However, in the aftermath of the report, the Brazilian government has expressed keen interest in improving environmental performance. Beyond that, if such schemes successfully provide a financial carrot in the form of higher prices for beef and payments for reforestation, ranchers will be encouraged to become part of the system. But standards can be taken too far, becoming so burdensome for producers that they drop out if incentives can’t sufficiently sweeten the deal.

And there are grander issues in play. Brazil has committed to spending roughly $300 billion on new infrastructure projects, a prospect that could negate gains from a commodity tracking system and dwarfs the $21 billion the country seeks to raise for protecting the Amazon. Further, a new law, approved last month by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, could outweigh the value of improved stewardship by ranchers. The law grants title to hundreds of thousands of farmers, ranchers, and squatters who have illegally occupied more than a quarter million square miles of protected forest. At present it is unclear whether the law will spur increased deforestation or bring some semblance of governance to the region, making it easier to control deforestation.

To some, these issues may suggest that curbing beef consumption is the ultimate solution to deforestation in the Amazon. In the meantime, however, it is clear that industry can play a critical role in turning the tide in the Amazon. And time, Carter and others point out, is short.

“If we don’t do something soon,” said Carter, “the whole forest is going to go up in smoke”.