Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s transition team has held meetings with the soy industry to discuss a new pact to end deforestation in the Cerrado savannas along the lines of an Amazon deal, a Lula adviser said on Wednesday.
he Cerrado, the world’s most biodiverse savannah, borders the Amazon and is known as the inverted forest for its deep, carbon-rich roots. Deforestation there is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change.
In 2006, soybean traders voluntarily agreed to stop buying soy from deforested areas of the Amazon by a certain date. Since then, soybean cultivation has expanded rapidly in the Cerrado, where environmentalists have lobbied for a similar pact.
“There are all the pacts that have been made in the past – the soy moratorium, the legal timber pact, legal minerals. This needs to be renewed, including yesterday and the day before we spoke with the soy sector about making a pact on sustainable soy at the Cerrado,” former Environment Secretary Carlos Minc said in a news conference alongside Lula’s top environmental advisers.
“We had this in the Amazon and it works well and should be an example.”
Minc gave no further details, and the transition team said it was still finalizing its first report, which would detail Lula’s likely future environmental policies.
Brazil’s agribusiness and global commodity traders have previously resisted attempts to forge such a cerrado pact, even as major companies have in recent years set targets to eliminate deforestation everywhere in their supply chains by 2025.
Deforestation in the Cerrado rose 8% to a six-year high in 2021, according to government data.
Bloomberg
https://www.independent.ie/business/farming/forestry-enviro/environment/lula-proposes-pact-to-curb-brazilian-soy-linked-to-savanna-deforestation-42187419.html Lula proposes a pact to curb Brazilian soy linked to savannah deforestation
