Latest news with #AmazonSoyMoratorium
The Star
a day ago
- Science
- The Star
Greenwashed and growing
BRAZILIAN soy farmers are pushing deeper into the Amazon rainforest, threatening a landmark deal meant to slow deforestation. Many are capitalising on a loophole in the Amazon Soy Moratorium, a voluntary pact signed in 2006 by the world's top grain traders, pledging not to buy soy grown on land deforested after 2008. The moratorium protects old-growth rainforest, but excludes secondary forests – vegetation that regrew after land was previously cleared. Though crucial to the Amazon's health, these areas can be legally razed and planted with soy, all without violating the deal's terms. The resulting crops can even be marketed as 'deforestation-free'. The most recent moratorium report, covering the 2022–2023 season, showed soy planted on virgin forest had nearly tripled since 2018 to reach 250,000ha – 3.4% of all soy grown in the Amazon. But the actual figure may be much higher. Xiaopeng Song, a University of Maryland geographer who has tracked soy expansion, found more than 1.04 million hectares – or 16% of soy-planted land in the Brazilian Amazon – had been deforested since 2008. His satellite data suggest four times the forest loss reported. 'I would like to see secondary forest and recovered forest included in the moratorium,' Song said. 'It creates loopholes if we only limit it to primary forest.' Abiove, the soy industry body overseeing the agreement, said the moratorium was designed to curb destruction of old-growth forests. Broader definitions used by other studies could lead to 'inflated interpretations', it added. The report's figures are based on data from Brazil's National Institute for Space Research, which is internationally recognised and independently monitored. Abiove admitted some soy is planted on land where regrown forests had been cleared – but has defended the current framework. A chain, normally used connected to tractors to fell down trees at the last stages of clearing land, lying in a field. — Reuters Shrinking buffer The distinction between primary and secondary forests carries serious consequences. Secondary forests may be younger and initially less biodiverse, but they play a critical role in absorbing carbon and restoring damaged ecosystems. 'Secondary forests are crucial to limiting global warming,' said Viola Heinrich, a researcher at the GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences. 'We cannot achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement without actively increasing the carbon sink.' While they store less carbon than primary forests, secondary forests absorb it faster, making them vital in slowing the Amazon's drift towards a tipping point – when deforestation, heat and drought could trigger its irreversible transformation into a dry savannah. Most scientists now argue that stopping deforestation alone isn't enough; reforestation is essential. 'Stolen again' Late last year, under blistering heat on the edge of Santarem, a port city on the Amazon River, farmers were clearing land – stacking tree trunks in neat rows, ready to burn. Satellite images showed this was once cattle pasture that had regrown into secondary forest over three decades. 'What can be stolen once can be stolen again,' said Gilson Rego, of the Pastoral Land Commission, a church-linked group that works with locals impacted by deforestation. He pointed to nearby soy fields that had been planted in the past five years. The area's rapid transformation is largely due to the Cargill grain terminal, which offers easy export access – cutting logistics costs and fuelling the soy boom. Cargill did not respond to requests for comment. The surge helped Brazil overtake the United States in 2020 as the world's top soy exporter. About two-thirds of Brazil's soy goes to China, where major buyer Cofco, a signatory to the moratorium, claims it remains committed to the deal. Nearly all the soy is used as animal feed for global meat production. Still, Song estimates that without the moratorium and related conservation efforts, an additional six million hectares of forest might have been lost to soy in Brazil. By comparison, neighbouring Bolivia, which lacks such controls, has become a deforestation hotspot. A rural cemetery surrounded by a soy field where soybean farming expanded in the Amazon. — Reuters Pressure to backslide Brazilian farmers have long opposed the moratorium, arguing it unfairly penalises them. Even minor infractions can lead traders to block purchases from entire farms – a policy Abiove is considering relaxing. Roughly 10% of Amazon soy farmland is currently blacklisted. 'It's not fair that countries in Europe can deforest to grow, and now we're held back by laws that aren't even ours,' said Adelino Avelino Noimann, vice-president of the soy farmers' association in Para state, which includes Santarem. Farming groups allied with right-wing politicians have ramped up legal and legislative attacks on the moratorium in Brasilia and across several agricultural states, seeking to dilute its protections. In April, a Supreme Court justice said Brazil's largest soy-growing state, Mato Grosso, could withdraw tax breaks from companies that honour the moratorium – a move yet to be confirmed by the full court. Abiove president Andre Nassar told senators that the agreement's rules might need to be watered down to placate growers: 'The solution is not ending the moratorium or keeping it as it is. Something needs to be done.' Global traders – including ADM, Bunge, Cargill, Cofco and Louis Dreyfus Company – have remained tight-lipped. But Greenpeace, which takes part in some discussions, said there's pressure behind the scenes to weaken the deal. Even so, environmentalists say the moratorium remains vital. 'We still see the expansion of soy in the Amazon,' said Andre Guimaraes, executive director of IPAM, an environmental research group. 'But it could be worse.' Soy vs schools The rich soil and ample water of the Amazon have drawn farmers from across Brazil, particularly from Mato Grosso, the soy heartland. 'Here, we can have as many as three harvests,' said Edno Valmor Cortezia, head of the local farmers' union – rotating soy, maize and wheat on the same plot in a single year. In Belterra, near Santarem, soy fields have crept up to a school and even a cemetery. Raimundo Edilberto Sousa Freitas, the school principal, showed court records from two pesticide incidents last year that affected 80 students and teachers. One farmer was fined, but soy continues to sprawl through the area. Occasionally, a few lone trees – protected by law – stand in vast expanses of soy, the last hints of the vibrant biome that once covered the region. — Reuters
Japan Today
01-07-2025
- Science
- Japan Today
Policymakers often ignore forest regeneration in fight against climate change, research finds
A drone views shows fallen trees in a secondary forest where farmers (not pictured) were in the last stages of clearing land as soybean farming expanded in the Amazon, in Santarem, Para state, Brazil. By Stefanie Eschenbacher Naturally-regenerating forests are often ignored by policymakers working to curb climate change even though they hold an untapped potential to rapidly absorb planet-warming carbon from the atmosphere, scientists write in a new research paper. These so-called secondary forests, which have regenerated themselves after being razed, often for agriculture, can help bring the world closer to the net-zero emissions target needed to slow global warming, the research published in the journal Nature Climate Change shows. That is because these young forests, which are made of trees between two and four decades old, can remove carbon from the atmosphere up to eight times faster per hectare than forests that were just planted, they found. It comes as companies worldwide are raising millions of dollars to regrow forests from scratch to generate carbon credits they can sell to polluting industries seeking to offset their greenhouse gas emissions. Secondary forests, on the other hand, are often not allowed to regenerate themselves for long enough to benefit the climate, either because they are cleared or because they fall prey to fires or pests. Across the tropics, they found, only 6% of secondary forests reach two decades of regrowth. "It's a constant cycle of deforestation," said Nathaniel Robinson, one of the authors and a scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry. He added that their vulnerability "is likely tied to policy loopholes." Robin Chazdon, a research professor at the Forest Research Institute of the University of the Sunshine Coast, in Australia, who was not involved, said the refined evaluation of the global carbon mitigation potential of regrowing forests had important implications that could shape new climate policy. Last week, Reuters revealed how a loophole in the Amazon Soy Moratorium, an agreement signed by the world's top grain traders that they would not buy soy grown on recently deforested land, has allowed Brazilian farmers to market soy grown in razed secondary forests as deforestation-free. The Moratorium, like many conservation policies around the world, protects old-growth rainforests, but not regrown ones. In the Brazilian Amazon, half of secondary forests are cleared within eight years of regrowing, the scientists found. "The most rapid and largest carbon removal comes from these young secondary forests," said Susan Cook-Patton, a reforestation scientist at The Nature Conservancy, and one of the authors. But, she added, these forests "just aren't often appreciated." © Thomson Reuters 2025.
The Star
24-06-2025
- Science
- The Star
Policymakers often ignore forest regeneration in fight against climate change, research finds
FILE PHOTO: A drone views shows fallen trees in a secondary forest where farmers (not pictured) were in the last stages of clearing land as soybean farming expanded in the Amazon, in Santarem, Para state, Brazil October 6, 2024. REUTERS/Amanda Perobelli/File Photo (Reuters) -Naturally-regenerating forests are often ignored by policymakers working to curb climate change even though they hold an untapped potential to rapidly absorb planet-warming carbon from the atmosphere, scientists found in a research paper published Tuesday. These so-called secondary forests, which have regenerated themselves after being razed, often for agriculture, can help bring the world closer to the net-zero emissions target needed to slow global warming, the research published in the journal Nature Climate Change shows. That is because these young forests, which are made of trees between two and four decades old, can remove carbon from the atmosphere up to eight times faster per hectare than forests that were just planted, they found. It comes as companies worldwide are raising millions of dollars to regrow forests from scratch to generate carbon credits they can sell to polluting industries seeking to offset their greenhouse gas emissions. Secondary forests, on the other hand, are often not allowed to regenerate themselves for long enough to benefit the climate, either because they are cleared or because they fall prey to fires or pests. Across the tropics, they found, only 6% of secondary forests reach two decades of regrowth. "It's a constant cycle of deforestation," said Nathaniel Robinson, one of the authors and a scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry. He added that their vulnerability "is likely tied to policy loopholes." Robin Chazdon, a research professor at the Forest Research Institute of the University of the Sunshine Coast, in Australia, who was not involved, said the refined evaluation of the global carbon mitigation potential of regrowing forests had important implications that could shape new climate policy. Last week, Reuters revealed how a loophole in the Amazon Soy Moratorium, an agreement signed by the world's top grain traders that they would not buy soy grown on recently deforested land, has allowed Brazilian farmers to market soy grown in razed secondary forests as deforestation-free. The Moratorium, like many conservation policies around the world, protects old-growth rainforests, but not regrown ones. In the Brazilian Amazon, half of secondary forests are cleared within eight years of regrowing, the scientists found. "The most rapid and largest carbon removal comes from these young secondary forests," said Susan Cook-Patton, a reforestation scientist at The Nature Conservancy, and one of the authors. But, she added, these forests "just aren't often appreciated." (Reporting by Stefanie Eschenbacher; editing by Manuela Andreoni and Aurora Ellis)
Straits Times
24-06-2025
- Science
- Straits Times
Policymakers often ignore forest regeneration in fight against climate change, research finds
FILE PHOTO: A drone views shows fallen trees in a secondary forest where farmers (not pictured) were in the last stages of clearing land as soybean farming expanded in the Amazon, in Santarem, Para state, Brazil October 6, 2024. REUTERS/Amanda Perobelli/File Photo Naturally-regenerating forests are often ignored by policymakers working to curb climate change even though they hold an untapped potential to rapidly absorb planet-warming carbon from the atmosphere, scientists found in a research paper published Tuesday. These so-called secondary forests, which have regenerated themselves after being razed, often for agriculture, can help bring the world closer to the net-zero emissions target needed to slow global warming, the research published in the journal Nature Climate Change shows. That is because these young forests, which are made of trees between two and four decades old, can remove carbon from the atmosphere up to eight times faster per hectare than forests that were just planted, they found. It comes as companies worldwide are raising millions of dollars to regrow forests from scratch to generate carbon credits they can sell to polluting industries seeking to offset their greenhouse gas emissions. Secondary forests, on the other hand, are often not allowed to regenerate themselves for long enough to benefit the climate, either because they are cleared or because they fall prey to fires or pests. Across the tropics, they found, only 6% of secondary forests reach two decades of regrowth. "It's a constant cycle of deforestation," said Nathaniel Robinson, one of the authors and a scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry. He added that their vulnerability "is likely tied to policy loopholes." Robin Chazdon, a research professor at the Forest Research Institute of the University of the Sunshine Coast, in Australia, who was not involved, said the refined evaluation of the global carbon mitigation potential of regrowing forests had important implications that could shape new climate policy. Last week, Reuters revealed how a loophole in the Amazon Soy Moratorium, an agreement signed by the world's top grain traders that they would not buy soy grown on recently deforested land, has allowed Brazilian farmers to market soy grown in razed secondary forests as deforestation-free. The Moratorium, like many conservation policies around the world, protects old-growth rainforests, but not regrown ones. In the Brazilian Amazon, half of secondary forests are cleared within eight years of regrowing, the scientists found. "The most rapid and largest carbon removal comes from these young secondary forests," said Susan Cook-Patton, a reforestation scientist at The Nature Conservancy, and one of the authors. But, she added, these forests "just aren't often appreciated." REUTERS Find out more about climate change and how it could affect you on the ST microsite here.
Canada News.Net
23-06-2025
- Science
- Canada News.Net
Soy crops push deeper into Amazon as pact faces political pressure
SANTAREM, Brazil: As Brazil cements its position as the world's top soy exporter, a new wave of deforestation is spreading across the Amazon, despite a key industry pact aimed at protecting the rainforest. Farmers are clearing large swathes of land to plant soy, using a loophole in the Amazon Soy Moratorium, a 2006 voluntary agreement signed by major grain traders not to buy soy grown on land deforested after 2008. The Moratorium protects untouched, primary rainforest but excludes "secondary forests"—vegetation that regrew on previously cleared land. These areas, though ecologically important, can legally be razed for soy, allowing the grain to be marketed as "deforestation-free." According to the moratorium's latest report for 2022-23, soy cultivation in virgin forests has nearly tripled since 2018, reaching 250,000 hectares, 3.4 percent of all soy grown in the Amazon. However, independent research shows that the real footprint is likely far larger. Satellite data analyzed by Xiaopeng Song, a geography professor at the University of Maryland, found that 16 percent of soy-producing land in the Brazilian Amazon—about 1.04 million hectares—had been cleared after the 2008 cutoff. "It creates loopholes if we only limit it to primary forest," he said. The soy industry body Abiove, which oversees the pact, acknowledged that some soy is being planted where secondary forests were cut. Still, it defended the Moratorium's narrow definition, arguing broader interpretations could lead to "inflated" assessments of deforestation. Scientists warn that even regrown forests play a crucial role in carbon capture and biodiversity. "We cannot achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement without actively increasing the carbon sink," said Viola Heinrich of the GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences. Secondary forests absorb carbon faster than primary ones, she noted. Near the Amazon port city of Santarem, soy farming is accelerating. "What can be stolen once, can be stolen again," said Gilson Rego of the Pastoral Land Commission, observing soy fields replacing secondary forest. Farmers are drawn by easy access to Cargill's shipping terminal, which reduces transport costs. Cargill declined to comment. China is the top buyer of Brazilian soy, primarily for animal feed. Cofco, China's leading grain trader, remains a signatory to the Moratorium and says it remains committed. Despite this, political pressure is growing to weaken the pact. Some right-wing lawmakers and farm groups have filed lawsuits and proposed laws to soften the rules. In April, a Supreme Court justice backed Mato Grosso's plan to revoke tax benefits for signatories. That ruling awaits full court approval. Even Abiove president Andre Nassar hinted at reform: "Something needs to be done." Soy farmers say current rules are unfair. "It's not fair that other countries in Europe could deforest and grow, and now we are held back by laws that are not even ours," said Adelino Avelino Noimann, a soy association leader in Pará state. However, environmentalists say that removing protections could lead to far greater damage. "We still see the expansion of soy in the Amazon," said IPAM director Andre Guimaraes. "But it could be worse."
