BRAZIL: FACTS AND FIGURES BEHIND ILLEGAL CATTLE FARMS FUELLING AMAZON RAINFOREST DESTRUCTION
Wednesday, November 27, 2019
Brazil is the world’s largest exporter of beef, with its main markets (in terms of volume in 2018) being Hong Kong, China, Egypt, the European Union and Chile
- An estimated 58.4% of the Amazon rainforest is in Brazil.
- Brazil’s Amazon region lies within the states of Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima, Mato Grosso, Tocantins and part of Maranhão state.
- From 1988 to 2014, an estimated 63% of the area deforested in the Amazon has become pasture for cattle. That is a total of 480,000km², equivalent to five times the size of Portugal.
- Brazil is the world’s largest exporter of beef, with its main markets (in terms of volume in 2018) being Hong Kong, China, Egypt, the European Union and Chile.
- In 2018, the cattle industry accounted for 8.7% of Brazilian Gross Domestic Product, worth an estimated BRL 597 billion (US$149 billion).
- Brazil has more cows than any other country in the world. In 2018, there were 215 million cows grazing on 162 million hectares (or 19% of its land mass). One hectare is roughly the same size as a football pitch
- In 2018, the number of cows in Brazil’s Amazon region exceeded 86 million.
- Between 2008 and 2018, the number of cows in the Amazon region has increased at a rate almost four times higher (20.5%) than the national rate (5.5%).
- Between January and August 2019, the non-governmental organization Imazon registered the deforestation of 4,234km² in Brazil’s Amazon region.
- The number of fires inside Indigenous territories in the Amazon in the first nine months of 2019 is the highest since 2011.
- For the briefing, Amnesty International interviewed 29 Indigenous people and residents of Reserves in five sites across Brazil’s Amazon, as well 22 experts – including public prosecutors, government officials and representatives of non-governmental organizations. Amnesty also obtained official data through Freedom of Information requests and analyzed satellite imagery.
- Data obtained by Amnesty International through a Freedom of Information request shows there were over 295,000 cattle in Indigenous territories and environmentally protected areas in the state of Rondônia in November 2018.
Tags:
BRAZIL,
CLIMATE CHANGE,
rainforest.
