Brazilian Supermarkets Require Deforestation-Free Meat

The major supermarket chains stepped forward to protect the rain forest. A crucial step. WalMart, Carrefour and Pão de Açúcar will work with certificates of origin for beef which they offer on the shelves of their stores. Recently, Greenpeace released a study showing that the biggest slaughterhouses in Brazil, which receive financial funds from the BNDES (Brazilian Development Bank) and other public banks, buy from farmers in illegally deforested areas. The NGO studied the entire distribution chain. (see also my yesterday's post: The Folly of an Economy Going Against the Environment)

Last week in an interview with Míriam Leitão the president of Abras, Sussumu Honda, said that the supermarket chains were taking the denunciations very seriously and would take a decision. Decision taken! The supermarkets published the following statement:

*
Wal-Mart, Carrefour and Pão de Açúcar suspend purchases from farms involved in the deforestation of the Amazon, and will work with audits and certificates of origin.

In a meeting of the Brazilian Association of Supermarkets (Abras), on June 8, the three largest supermarket chains in the country, Carrefour, Wal-Mart and Pão de Açúcar decided to suspend purchases from farms involved in the deforestation of the Amazon. The action is a repudiation of practices condemned by Greenpeace. The supermarket sector, by means of Abras, can’t associate itself with the denounced wrongdoings and will act vigorously.

The position defined by the supermarkets includes notification of the slaughterhouses, suspension of purchases from farms denounced by the federal public prosecutor of the State of Pará and the requirement of Certificates of Origin attached to the invoice/transport bill. As an additional measure, the three supermarket chains require an independent and internationally recognised audit to ensure that the products they sell are not from deforested areas of the Amazon.

This is a joint sectorial response to the report published by Greenpeace earlier this month and the subsequently civil action by the federal public prosecutor of Pará, who sent a recommendation to the large supermarket chains and 72 other buyers of animal products so that they should recede buying meat products originating from the destruction of the rainforest. *
end of statement

At least some companies take their ‘social responsibility’ seriously.

Photos from top to bottom: Hypermarché Carrefour Pinheiros - São Paulo - Meatproduct section; WalMart's Nacional store Brazil and Carrefour Bairo Santo Amaro - São Paulo. - Courtesy: WalMart and Carrefour

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Indians Tembé-Ténêtéhar: The Guardians of the 'Carbon Storage' in the Amazon

The indigenous Tembé-Ténêtéhar people, who live in the north-west of the federal state of Pará ,will sign the first carbon credit contract to preserve their forests.
The Indians living in Terra Indígena Alto Rio Guamá will receive money from a foreign company to keep the forest within their reserve standing as it is.

The contract for the sale of carbon credit was due to be signed last Friday, World Environment Day. Only heavy rain postponed the ceremony, which was planned to take place in Belém. The agreement will bring together the American company C-Trade and the Indians of Terra Indígena Alto Rio Guamá.

C TRADE, is an international developer of Carbon Trade Credits (aka CERS - Certified Emission Reductions) for renewable energy projects that offset the use of fossil fuels, such as solar, wind turbines, energy efficiency, forest carbon sequestration and waste-to-energy power plants.

Ronald Shiflett, C-Trade’s Director, International Utility Efficiency Partnership, is in Belém and will meet his new partners in a traditional business suit, as the Indians will show up in their traditional outfit, with cocares (feather headdress) and body paintings, done based on the jenipapo (black) and annatto (rood) fruit pulps representing their ethnic traditions.

”The C-Trade proposal is beneficial for us,” says Valdeci Tembe, community leader of Susuarana, one of 14 villages in the south of the Terra Indígena Alto Rio Guamá on the banks of the Rio Gurupi, and with Muxi Tembe, leader of the Tekowau village, one of the promoters of the proposal.

Considered one of the poorest Indian people in Pará, according to the National Indian Foundation (Funai), the Tembé-Ténêtéhar live permanently under threat from illegal loggers. Without hardly any source of income, the sale of logs from illegal cutting is one of the only income sources for some of the 216 families. Furthermore (illegal) loggers invade the reserve, and part of the reserve is already taken by marijuana plantings run by drug traffickers.

Conservative calculations of the C-Trade project show that the Indians could have a financial return of BRL 1 million (€ 350.000) annually. The offer stipulates that the Indians will receive 85% of the value of the sales of carbon credit in the international market, while the remaining 15%, will stay with the company. Only one quarter of the reservation will be subject to the contract. For each hectare of preserved forest, it is estimated that four tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) will be avoided in the atmosphere.

In Terra Indígena Alto Rio Guamá some 145.39 tonnes of carbon are stored per hectare. The volume is so large that it turns the Tembé-Ténêtéhar people in real guardians of a huge "carbon storage" of the Amazon rain forest: 40.8 million tonnes of carbon stored in an area of 279 hectares, on the border with Maranhão.

The Tembé-Ténêtéhar with their 281 indigenous lands scattered throughout the Amazon and their more than 61 extractive reserves in the region stock a total of 15 billion tons of carbon. This signifies 30% of the 47 billion tons of carbon stored in trunks, branches, leaves and soil of the Amazon forests, according to calculations of the Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia (Ipam = Environmental Research Institute of the Amazon). Experts warn that if this volume is released to the atmosphere, the effect would be a further worsening of the climate crisis.

Defining the key target of the negotiations, Juscelino Bessa, the regional administrator of Funai (Fundação Nacional do Índio is the Brazilian National Indian Foundation, or protection agency for Indian interests and their culture) said in Belém: “We are selling the idea of preservation. In addition to profit, the contract may add a social and ethnic content to the products of the forest.”

Felício Pontes, federal prosecutor with the Public Ministry in Pará, who was crucial to the negotiations, concluded: “If Brazil is a signatory of the Kyoto Treaty, nothing more is just then that the Indians receive payment for environmental services rendered to the country.”

The Federal University of Pará, also an important partner in the negotiations, established a management model for the use of the sold resources of carbon credits. The project envisages the creation of a Bolsa Floresta, similar to the Bolsa Familia, which will supply the Indians monthly with money to develop sustainable projects in the reserve.

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Wrong Choices

This is a (translated and edited) text of the blog of Miriam Leitão, economist and columnist for O Globo
The response of Lula’s government to the financial crisis has serious defects: some market sectors are benefiting but not the entire economy, and incentives are given without something in return. The car, a product for the middle class and the rich got a tax waiver, the employees of the automakers received an employment guarantee, but the sugar-alcohol sector has neither, not even a guarantee of the labour laws.

In the United States, aid to the automakers was given under the condition of environmental improvements. Here, nothing was requested from the automakers, except to keep labour employed, which creates a distortion in the economy: all Brazilians can be dismissed, except employees of the automotive sector and public officials.

March 30 was the “Day of Cars”, here and in the US. There, the president of General Motors fell in disgrace because the government refused his plan for the adjustment and adaptation to the requirements. I do not want to compare the aid of billions of direct tax-dollars to the coffers of the auto-industry in the US, to the tax waiver here, but insist that this was a great opportunity to induce changes upon the Brazilian auto-manufacturers.

The new president of GM will have 60 days to submit a new plan, but already started to say that the new cars will be different. Frederick Henderson said that the automaker is one or two generations behind in green technology for cars and that the company will have to learn to make money on light cars, and not just SUVs. Another requirement is that of a fiscal adjustment in the company, which will separate good assets and problematic liabilities difficult to digest, such as the employees’ pension fund.

Over in the U.S. it is entirely different, but it is important to see the attitude of governments, in helping the industry. The Obama administration has asked something in return. The Lula government extended the reduction of the IPI-tax for cars and trucks requiring only keeping employment at the same level. It is worth remembering that the manufacturers of trucks did not meet the requirement, from the beginning of 2009, to manufacture only trucks with clean diesel engines. After seven years of delay, they said they were not prepared and needed three more years to deliver here in Brazil, what they deliver in other countries already for years. This, for example, could have been a consideration, a quid pro quo.

The complete absence of concern of the Lula government for the environment is shocking. Yesterday the government reduced the IPI-tax to zero for electric showers, high consumers of energy, and a product which has been abandoned in other countries. Electric showers have had a reduction of the IPI before and have now been set to zero along with other conventional building materials such as cement and brick. The Ministry of the Environment had asked to equalize the tax for the electric shower (which was 5%) with solar panels (which pay 18%). The decision "has not yet been taken” and is still in consideration by the Treasury.

End of March Banco do Brasil got authorized to extend the credit line of the FAT Giro Rural for two years. The credit line is BRL 4 billion (USD 1,8 billion) and the first trance will be paid from April 1. The agribusiness is getting an aid package for the sugar-alcohol sector and the production of meat, two flagrant champions of slave labour. Livestock breeding is directly related to the deforestation of the Amazon. The BNDES (Development Bank) will make a classic rescue operation, supplying BRL 200 million (USD 87 million) for a bankrupt slaughterhouse, which operates in a deforested area. In none of the aid programmes any change in conduct was negotiated, neither in relation to the workers, nor in regard to the environment. This all happens as if the Brazilian government is not of this world.

The vehicle per capita in Brazil, according to Anfavea (Automobile Manufacturers Association), is one vehicle for every eight inhabitants. This is the overall average, taking into account the population and the fleet of 25.5 million cars. Just to compare, the same density in the US. is one vehicle for every 1.2 inhabitants, in Japan it is one vehicle for every 1.7 inhabitants, in Mexico it is one for 4.7 inhabitants, in Argentina it is a car for every 5.2 inhabitants, all data from Anfavea.

The 2000 census said that 54.4 million Brazilians lived in households that had one or more cars, which then represented 32% of the population. Imagining that this percentage has grown a bit, as the sales of vehicles increased - though most new cars have been bought by the same families who had cars before, but some new entered the market - who owns a car belongs to the middle class and from there upwards. The two figures show that the motorized do not reach 40% of the population. The ones who buy a new car are exactly the ones who have a higher income.

The government did something that will benefit only the middle class and the rich, protected only employees of automakers and support the agribusiness without requiring any change of conduct.

Lula is losing the chance to change opened up by the crisis.

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