OUGD505 STUDIO BRIEF TWO - RESEARCH - GREENPEACE "EATING UP THE AMAZON" REPORT

The Amazon rainforest is home to around 220,000 people from 180 indigenous nations who live deep in the rainforest, alongside many more forest reliant communities. The rainforest is a source of food, shelter, and provides tools and medicines to these people.
Between 2003-4 an area the size of Belgium was cleared in the Amazon rainforest, and almost 3/4 of this was done illegally. In 2004-5 1.2 million hectares of soya crops were planted in the Brasilian Amazon rainforest. Slave labour is used in the clearing of the rainforest, with Mato Grosso and Para (the two leading states in the soya frontier) responsible for more than half of all the slaves reported in Brasil. Between 2003-4 the Brasilian government reported nearly 8,700 slaves in the two states.
Up to 75% of Brasil's greenhouse gas emissions are a result of deforestation, with most coming from the clearing and burning of the Amazon rainforest. Brasil is the world's 4th largest climate polluter.
Three US-based agricultural giants (Daniel's Midland, Bunge, and Cargill) are responsible for about 60% of the total financing for soya production in Brasil. Together, these three companies control more than 3/4 of the soya crushing capacity in Europe that supplies soya meal and oil to the animal feed market. Cargill is the company invading the most into the Amazon, with an illegal port facility already built in the rainforest. This spurs on illegal deforestation and soya plantations, to deliver soya to international markets. Daniel's Midland and Bunge are following in Cargill's footsteps, with four and six silos respectively already in the Amazon.
80% of the world's soya production is fed to the livestock industry. Increasing demand for soya animal feed from the livestock industry is fuelling the expansion of the agricultural frontier far into the rainforest. Europe buys half the soya exported from Mato Grosso, where 90% of soya is grown. Meat fed with rainforest soya easily finds it's way onto supermarket shelves and fast food restaurants across Europe.

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