"Since 2007, Marcelo Salazar has been living in the place that is the king of deforestation in Brazil: Altamira, in the state of Para. About the size of Florida, the Amazonian municipality was the fastest deforester in the country for several years in a row. Drivers of deforestation there range from land grabbing, cattle ranching, mining and hydroelectric dams to large infrastructure projects. Since August, Salazar, an activist and sustainable entrepreneur, however, has had a new headache: soya."
"Soya is approaching our region, says Salazar. This isn't a common area for soya, but it is rapidly pushing north from the state of Mato Grosso, one of the biggest soya producers in Brazil. One of the reasons behind this expansion is an attempt to suspend the soya moratorium, a voluntary agreement between soya trading companies, NGOs and Brazilian government agencies, that was established in 2006."
"At the end of August, however, the Brazilian competition regulator CADE decided to open an investigation into the soya moratorium, suggesting it might be a company cartel. In expectation of the results, the moratorium was suspended. A judge, in turn, lifted that suspension. CADE then agreed to delay the suspension. But on November 6, right as the COP30 is starting, Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Flavio Dino suspended the investigation of CADE"
Brazil is presenting itself as an Amazon defender at COP30 while a key tool to slow deforestation faces legal peril. The soya moratorium, a 2006 voluntary pact preventing purchase of soya from land deforested after 2008, created monitoring using satellite imagery. CADE opened an investigation into the moratorium as a potential cartel, prompting a suspension that was later lifted and delayed. Supreme Court Justice Flavio Dino suspended CADE’s investigation pending a court decision scheduled mid-November. The moratorium remains in limbo, and the uncertainty is already enabling soya expansion into frontier municipalities such as Altamira, accelerating drivers of deforestation.
Read at www.aljazeera.com
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