These exports carry nearly five times more deforestation risk per ton than beef exports from the rest of Brazil.Īnalysis by Gabriel da Silva Medina at the University of Taubaté in São Paulo state puts Brazilian participation in Minerva even lower, at a mere 7.6%. Minerva specializes in exporting live cattle to the Middle East, mostly sourced from the severely deforested Amazonian state of Pará.
The Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment Company (SALIC) currently holds 33.83% of Minerva share capital, while Brazil’s Vilela de Queiroz family, who founded Minerva in 1992, holds just 17.6%. Minerva is now more Saudi-owned than Brazilian. Sovereign funds from China and the Middle East also play a major role in fueling Amazon tree loss. Global beef company investments driving deforestation Image © Kevin Arnold/The Nature Conservancy. Brazilian beef is helping feed the world, even as it destroys forests and leaves behind a vastly altered landscape. BlackRock alone has $408 million in shares in the Big Three.
That includes leading financial players such as BlackRock, Vanguard, Fidelity, State Street, Aviva, Legal and General, Columbia, Thomas White, Boston Private Wealth, and Pharus. and EU citizens save for retirement through international asset management companies that administer holdings in the Big Three. It is likely these workers have no idea their respective pension funds are invested in a company complicit in deforestation.Ĭountless more U.S. rail workers, and Illinois teachers among its shareholders. Minerva, the smallest of the Big Three, lists Los Angeles firefighters, California and Ohio public employees, U.S. This means that many ordinary working people outside Brazil are unwittingly helping fuel Amazon deforestation through their indirect investments in these companies. While press reports often portray Brazil as taking over the world’s beef sector, it is the Big Three that have been taken over by international investors. These foreign investments have turned Brazil into the world’s second-largest beef producer and leading exporter. stock exchanges, academic studies, company reports and court cases. That assertion is based on evidence unearthed by Mongabay’s survey of Brazilian and U.S. In fact, foreign capital - in the form of shareholdings, loans and bond purchases - today outweighs Brazilian capital in JBS, Marfrig and Minerva, the country’s Big Three meatpackers. That devastation is likely to increase in 2022, undermining the Amazon’s vital carbon storage capacity.įar less recognized outside financial circles is the key role international capital, particularly from the United States, plays in driving Amazonian destruction through its investments in Brazil’s beef sector. Between August 2020 and July 2021, 13,235 square kilometers (5,110 square miles) were lost, the highest level since 2006. It’s largely accepted that clearing land for cattle accounts for 70% of Amazon deforestation, with the rate of rainforest cutting accelerating drastically since President Jair Bolsonaro took office at the start of 2019. However, most small-scale investors, including working people, have no awareness they’re investing in the destruction of the Amazon, one of the world’s most crucial carbon sinks. means they are now subject to greater scrutiny from authorities and NGOs.
0 kommentar(er)
