The justice system in the state of Rondonia found them guilty of raising and marketing cattle in the Jaci-Parana rainforest, now… transformed into pasture. Dozens of other cases are under investigation. Among the accused is JBS, the world leader in beef processing.
5 min
A $764,000 fine for environmental damage. This is the sentence handed down to three cattle breeders and two slaughterhouses on Wednesday, September 4, the AP news agency reported in Brazil on Friday, September 6. The former for illegally grazing cattle, the latter for buying them, all linked to the same farm. Traceability documents, sometimes provided by the breeders themselves, prove that the animals were transferred directly from their breeding area to slaughter.
The livestock area, Jaci-Parana, is theoretically protected, but it has been deforested to make way for pasture. There is an undeniable link between corporate activities and the environmental damage caused by illegal logging “, said Judge Inês Moreira da Costa. Most of the fine will be used to restore about 232 hectares of forest area. The companies deny their role in the deforestation and the five defendants can still appeal the judgment.
Some 210,000 head are raised in Jaci-Parana, according to state figures, while Brazilian law prohibits commercial breeding in protected reserves. With 80% of its surface deforested since its creation in 1996, Jaci-Parana is the most devastated reserve in the country, for a total damage estimated at around a billion dollars that the Brazilian state is partly seeking to recover.
JBS, a corrupt behemoth at the gates of Wall Street
This is one of the first times that such a sentence has been issued in Brazil. Several dozen other lawsuits have already been launched since December 2023. Last July, A rancher from the state of Amazonas was sentenced fined $50 million by the federal courts. He had cleared his land with a chainsaw, then lit fires and then planted grass for his herd, replacing 5,600 hectares of forest. He was ordered to restore the precious carbon sink.
In the ongoing litigation in Rondonia, four slaughterhouses are currently involved. One of them belongs to JBS, a global giant in the processing and trading of beef, poultry and pork.
The multinational, which exports to more than a hundred countries, is the largest buyer of meat from the Amazon rainforest. The controversial Batista brothers, Wesley and Joesley, sons of the company’s founder, were ousted from the company’s management in 2017, which was involved in the sprawling Petrobras scandal. The company admitted in 2020 to having paid $186 million in bribes to nearly 1,800 politicians. Despite this history, the Batistas were able to return to the board of directors on April 26.
The firm has been trying to enter the New York Stock Exchange since last year, in order to raise more capital. But it has had to face resistance from a curious mix of citizen and environmental groups, like Ban the Batistasand players in the powerful American meat industry.
In January, a group of Democratic and Republican senators asked the American financial markets regulator (SEC) not to grant him this access. Dozens of journalistic and NGO investigations have shown that JBS is responsible for more destruction of forests and ecosystems than any other Brazilian company. “, they wrote in a letter. They are concerned about the risks that the multinational would run ” to potential shareholders because of its history of corruption, human rights abuses, meat market monopoly and environmental hazards “.
Amazon not far from the ‘breaking point’
In 2021, livestock farming accounted for 75% of Amazon deforestation. The state of Rondonia is probably paying the heaviest price in Brazil. For several weeks, it has been suffocating under the smoke of fires, most often criminal because this is how cattle ranchers proceed to nibble away at land in the forest and expand their farms. The practice, although prohibited by law, remains widespread.
The population of Rondonia, about two million people, has increased forty-fold in 60 years, calculated Hervé Théry, research director at the CNRS, who has been studying the “anthropization” of this State since the 1970s. This growth is mainly linked to the construction of the road, which brought hundreds of thousands of migrants. Families of farmers and ranchers settled by clearing vast areas of tropical forest. »
According to a study publicized by the prestigious scientific journal Nature in 2021, the deforestation of the Amazon, accelerated under the presidency of Jair Bolsonarohad made it a source of carbon dioxide emissions. After a spectacular fall in the last 15 monthsShe experienced a rebound in July 2024The planet’s “green lung”, 10% of global biodiversity and 400 billion trees, is close to a point of no return, affirmed again an international group of researchers, still in Natureat the beginning of the year.