makes a packet from soy, what is it going to do with the profits? It just uses it to clear more land.’ The notion that companies may think it wise to allow forest to recover so that they can continue to harvest it, much in the way of fisheries – is naive, he says. ‘You would think that if there was just 20 per cent forest left in a region, they’d leave it, but they don’t. They just take it all out,’ says Hansen.
In Brazil, argues George, national and international companies that make money from food sustained by the rainforests must now stand up to the new regime. ‘Companies that produce beef and soy feed need say that they need the Amazon protected,’ he says. ‘It’s not in their interests for the Amazon to be trashed – if that happens, where will they source their feed?’
Data source: FAO (2019) & own calculations Forests and deforestation in South America
Data source: FAO (2019) & own calculations Forests and deforestation in South America
Colombia
Guyana
French Guiana
Venezuela
Suriname
EcuadorEcuador
Peru
Countries along the Amazon basin
250,000
Countries along the Amazon basin
100,000
Circle sizes (thousand hectares)
250,000
10,000
100,000
10,000
Bolivia
Paraguay Brazil
Chile
Argentina
Forest extent (1990) Deforestation extent (1990-2016) [thousand hectares]
Uruguay
Forest extent (1990) Deforestation extent (1990-2016) [thousand hectares]
(Chile and Uruguay have recorded no net decline in forest loss)
He feels that the major food companies are facing the same kind of investor crunch that now confronts the oil and gas industry: that those businesses who choose to invest in unsustainable exploitation of natural resources risk having their assets stranded in a few years’ time.
‘There’s a superficial willingness by companies to notionally commit to tackling their supply chains,’ says George. ‘But when you get away from the rhetoric to the realpolitik of the situation they are faced with the reality that they can’t just source palm oil whenever they want if it is to be sustainable. The two approaches are incompatible. If you are sustainable it means there will be times when there is no shipment of palm oil to be made. So they still make the choice, that they still want to make as many biscuits as they can.’
DAMAGE CONTROL For the rainforests, an unpalatable choice is looming, suggests Hansen. We may, he says, have to brace ourselves to simply give up on large tracts of rainforest, accept they will be lost for good, and focus on areas where there is a fighting chance of preserving them. This might mean concentrating efforts on the Amazon rainforest that lies north of the great river, parts of central Borneo and West Papua and accept that other areas, such as swathes of Cambodian and other Southeast Asian rainforest, will be lost for good. The meaningful progress made in Brazil in recent years, says Baldwin-Cantello, gives grounds for optimism. ‘We saw a dramatic decline in deforestation rates in Brazil between 2003 and 2014,’ he says. The soy moratorium, an increase in law enforcement and monitoring and incentive scheme that black-listed municipalities linked to deforestation all played their part. ‘There were hard-line incentives and rewards to do things differently,’ he says. ‘We know what needs to be done and how to do it but when power and interests don’t align it becomes diffi cult.’
Seymour is optimistic that progress will come and draws parallels with the American civil rights movement. ‘I take heart from the experience of my father. He dedicated his life to the civil rights movement and social justice. Social change doesn’t happen in a linear way. We are near a tipping point, where something acceptable becomes unacceptable. That can happen very quickly. We’ve seen that with plastic straws. Their impact is pretty limited but it shows how things can change very quickly. When that happens we have a tool kit to deploy. It’s down to political will.’
Baldwin-Cantello believes that much of the effort to reverse deforestation in recent years have occurred below the radar and that benefits will become apparent sooner rather than later. ‘It’s a bit like putting money in the bank – we’ve not yet seen the profits. There’s been good progress on financing, on shifts in consumer behaviour but the result aren’t yet measurable.’ The reality, says Greenpeace’s George, is that ‘there is no more road to kick the can along.’ A profound change in how we consume and how we are provided with what we consume looms large. ‘We have to start tackling the existential challenges. It’s diffi cult for policy makers to ignore it. It won’t be a smooth journey but there is now no dispute about what needs to happen. The only question is who decides to make the first move.’ ●
September 2019 • 23
