How Beef and Leather Supply Chains Pose Threat to South America's Last Forest

[Judi Lynn]

Bulldozer clearing Chaco forest in Paraguay, December 2019. Photo credit: Earthsight PDF



ALEX ROBINSON 04/27/22

They came from the forest.

In early 2021, a settled Indigenous Ayoreo community living in the Gran Chaco region of Paraguay reportedly started hearing songs and shouting during the night. The singing came from an uncontacted Ayoreo tribe, who traveled close to the settlement to bring a message of struggle. From a distance, they sang of the vanishing forest they depend on and how much harder life was becoming for them.

And then they left.

The Gran Chaco is South America’s second largest forest biome and spans vast tracts of Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay. The subtropical region doesn’t receive the same amount of international attention as its northern neighbour, the Amazon, but it’s a vital carbon sink teeming with threatened wildlife. It’s also home to dozens of Indigenous tribes, including some of the last uncontacted tribes in South America. Fueled by global demand for beef, leather, and soy feed, millions of hectares of its forest have been cleared away for pastureland and crops in recent decades, pushing out the Ayoreo and other tribes in the region.

Activists say multinational corporations such as Cargill are historically to blame. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been pushing governments and agribusiness to do more to rid supply chains of the deforestation that is threatening the region. There is hope that some commodity traders are starting to get their act together in an effort to meet “deforestation-free” pledges.

And lawmakers are now proposing regulations in the European Union and the United States that will force companies to rid their supply chains of deforestation. But after a decade of empty promises, a dozen South American Indigenous groups have united to demand urgent protection for the region’s uncontacted tribes.

More:
https://whowhatwhy.org/science/environment/how-beef-and-leather-supply-chains-pose-threat-to-south-americas-last-forest/

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