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"The invaders and their main business partners—loggers and meatpacking companies—make the profits their own while passing on to society the costs of environmental damage," notes one of numerous lawsuits.
A Brazilian judge on Thursday ordered two slaughterhouses and three ranchers to pay $764,000 in combined penalties for trading cattle raised in a protected area of the Amazon rainforest.
The decision by Judge Inês Moreira da Costa in Rondônia—the most severely deforested state in the Brazilian Amazon—came in response to a flurry of lawsuits filed by green groups seeking millions of dollars in damages from defendants including Distriboi and Frigon, two meat processing firms accused of trading cattle in the Jaci-Parana protected zone.
"When a slaughterhouse, whether by negligence or intent, buys and resells products from invaded and illegally deforested reserves, it is clear that it is directly benefiting from these illegal activities," the plaintiffs' complaint states. "In such cases, there is an undeniable connection between the company's actions and the environmental damage caused by the illegal exploitation."
The slaughterhouses and ranchers are but two of numerous parties being sued, including other ranchers and JBS, the Brazilian meat giant that bills itself as the world's largest protein producer.
According toThe Associated Press—whose reporting on the cattle trading documents prompted the lawsuits:
Brazilian law forbids commercial cattle inside a protected area, yet some 210,000 head are being grazed inside Jaci-Parana, according to the state animal division. With almost 80% of its forest destroyed, it ranks as the most ravaged conservation unit in the Brazilian Amazon. A court filing pegs damages in the reserve at some $1 billion.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuits are seeking to put a price on the destruction of old-growth rainforest, asserting that "the invaders and their main business partners—loggers and meatpacking companies—make the profits their own while passing on to society the costs of environmental damage."
The Amazon rainforest is one of the world's most biodiverse ecosystems and is a crucial carbon sink, meaning it absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The world lost around 3.7 million hectares of primary tropical forests last year—a rate of approximately 10 soccer fields per minute, according to data from the University of Maryland's Global Land Analysis and Discover laboratory. While this marked a 9% reduction in deforestation compared with 2022, the overall deforestation rate is roughly the same as in 2019 and 2021. Felling trees released 2.4 metric gigatons of climate pollution into the atmosphere in 2023, or almost half of all annual U.S. emissions from burning fossil fuels.
In Brazil, the government of leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has taken steps to combat deforestation, resulting in a more than one-third reduction in forest loss. Progress in reversing the rampant forest destruction wrought by the previous far-right administration of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro—who was nicknamed "Captain Chainsaw"—were partially offset by a 43% spike in deforestation in the Cerrado region last year.
Earlier this year, Marcel Gomes—a Brazilian journalist who worked with colleagues at Repórter Brasil to coordinate "a complex, international campaign that directly linked beef from JBS... to illegal deforestation"—was one of seven winners of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize.
"When a slaughterhouse, whether by negligence or intent, buys and resells products from invaded and illegally deforested reserves, it is clear that it is directly benefiting from these illegal activities," the plaintiffs' complaint states. "In such cases, there is an undeniable connection between the company's actions and the environmental damage caused by the illegal exploitation."
The slaughterhouses and ranchers are but two of numerous parties being sued, including other ranchers and JBS, the Brazilian meat giant that bills itself as the world's largest protein producer.
According toThe Associated Press—whose reporting on the cattle trading documents prompted the lawsuits:
Brazilian law forbids commercial cattle inside a protected area, yet some 210,000 head are being grazed inside Jaci-Parana, according to the state animal division. With almost 80% of its forest destroyed, it ranks as the most ravaged conservation unit in the Brazilian Amazon. A court filing pegs damages in the reserve at some $1 billion.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuits are seeking to put a price on the destruction of old-growth rainforest, asserting that "the invaders and their main business partners—loggers and meatpacking companies—make the profits their own while passing on to society the costs of environmental damage."
The Amazon rainforest is one of the world's most biodiverse ecosystems and is a crucial carbon sink, meaning it absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The world lost around 3.7 million hectares of primary tropical forests last year—a rate of approximately 10 soccer fields per minute, according to data from the University of Maryland's Global Land Analysis and Discover laboratory. While this marked a 9% reduction in deforestation compared with 2022, the overall deforestation rate is roughly the same as in 2019 and 2021. Felling trees released 2.4 metric gigatons of climate pollution into the atmosphere in 2023, or almost half of all annual U.S. emissions from burning fossil fuels.
In Brazil, the government of leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has taken steps to combat deforestation, resulting in a more than one-third reduction in forest loss. Progress in reversing the rampant forest destruction wrought by the previous far-right administration of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro—who was nicknamed "Captain Chainsaw"—were partially offset by a 43% spike in deforestation in the Cerrado region last year.
Earlier this year, Marcel Gomes—a Brazilian journalist who worked with colleagues at Repórter Brasil to coordinate "a complex, international campaign that directly linked beef from JBS... to illegal deforestation"—was one of seven winners of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize.
One winner said the award "signifies an international recognition that we are facing a new stage in humanity," one in which "human beings understand they are part of nature."
Activists who blocked fossil fuel development, protected vulnerable ecosystems, and helped enact clean air regulations are among the seven winners of this year's prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize.
The San Francisco-based Goldman Environmental Foundation announced Monday that the winners of the 35th annual Goldman Prize—which some call the "Green Nobels"—are:
Goldman Prize winners receive a $200,000 award and can apply for additional grants to fund their work.
Reacting to his win, Gomes said: "This award recognizes the impact that journalism can have to protect the environment and ultimately improve people's lives.Repórter Brasil was able to track the Brazilian meat chain from the farm to supermarkets abroad, which companies said was not possible to do."
Vicente told the AP that the prize "signifies an international recognition that we are facing a new stage in humanity," one in which "human beings understand they are part of nature."
Shukla toldThe New York Times that he hopes his award will inspire frontline communities around the world.
"There is a way," he said, "that local communities can actually resist even the most powerful corporations using just their resolve and peaceful, democratic means."
More than 50 humanitarian and environmental groups from around the world called on Friday for an independent international investigation into the assassination of Honduran Indigenous rights activist Berta Caceres, who was murdered in her sleep at 1 am on Thursday by two unknown assailants.
"Mrs. Caceres' case is the most high-profile killing within a growing trend in the murder, violence, and intimidation of people defending their indigenous land rights in Honduras," wrote the groups in their letter to the Honduran president.
"We know that in Honduras, it is very easy to pay people to commit murders," Zuniga Caceres said of her mother's death to teleSUR. "But we know that those behind this are other powerful people with money and a whole apparatus that allows them to commit these crimes."
The Guardian reported that Caceres was a prominent leader in the Indigenous movement in Honduras against one of Central America's most significant hydropower projects, four enormous dams known as "Agua Zarca" in the Gualcarque river basin. The Indigenous group Caceres founded, the Civil Council for Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), has successfully prevented the project from moving forward.
Caceres was awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize last year for her activism.
"Berta Caceres devoted her life to protecting natural resources, public spaces, land rights, rivers from the privatization process that's underway and that gained speed after the 2009 military coup," said Karen Spring, the Honduras-based coordinator of the social justice network Honduras Solidarity Group, in an interview with Free Speech Radio News on Thursday. "She spent her life defending land and supporting communities, mostly indigenous communities all over the country."
As a result of her activism, Caceres had received death threats and feared for her life, the Los Angeles Times reported, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), a prominent human rights organization, had last year formally called on the Honduran government to put protections in place for Caceres, according to the Guardian. The UN has condemned the Honduran government for failing to protect her, and activists have accused the government of having a hand in her death.
In its most recent report (pdf) released in December, IACHR warned of the violence and threats to their lives that activists such as Caceres suffer under in Honduras. The group blamed "the increased presence of organized crime and drug traffickers, the recruitment of children and adolescents, and an inadequate judicial response that fuels impunity, corruption, and high levels of poverty and inequality. In addition, according to the information received, part of that insecurity comes from the National Police, the Military Police, and the Army, through their illegitimate use of force, in some cases in complicity with organized crime."
Student protesters took to the streets in Tegucigalpa on Thursday to mourn the widely beloved environmentalist's death, the Guardian reported, and the Honduran government, in power since a U.S.-backed coup in 2009, responded with riot police.
The Honduran government confirmed that one suspect had been arrested in a statement to teleSUR on Friday. There were reportedly two assassins involved in Caceres' death. But the Caceres family is demanding "an independent, international investigation [into her death] not led by the Honduran government," teleSUR reported.
"Honduras has the world's highest murder rate," noted School of the Americas Watch, a group that seeks to close the infamous U.S. Army School of the Americas, in a statement on Thursday. "Honduran human rights organizations report there have been over 10,000 human rights violations by state security forces, and impunity is the norm--most murders go unpunished. The Associated Press has repeatedly exposed ties between the Honduran police and death squads, while U.S. military training and aid for the Honduran security forces continues."
The environmental group International Rivers demanded Thursday that "the U.S government, in particular, end its support for the Honduran military through loans and training at the School of the Americas," drawing attention to the United States' significant responsibility for the oppressive regime in Honduras today, in order "to honor Berta Caceres' lifelong struggle and her ultimate sacrifice for rivers and rights."
Democracy Now! remembered Caceres in the following segment on Thursday: