FIRE SaLES – FURTHER TRaDE LINKS TO THE PaNTaNaL BLaZES

© Greenpeace Further links between fires in the Pantanal and ranchers supplying Brazil’s largest beef processors were made in Repórter Brasil’s September 2020 investigation.384 Their analysis focused on five rural properties in the state of Mato Grosso where the Instituto Centro de Vida identified ignition points for fires in this part of the Pantanal in 2020 (see ‘Under fire’ above).385 It revealed that two of the cattle ranches on these properties have trading links to Brazil’s largest beef processing companies – JBS, Marfrig and Minerva.386 According to Repórter Brasil, Raimundo Cardoso Costa – owner of Fazenda Comitiva, where fires began (accidentally, according to Costa) that ultimately destroyed 25,188 ha – is also listed by the Mato Grosso State Secretariat of Finance as the owner of an adjacent property, Fazenda Recanto das Onças.387 The investigation identified this ranch as having sold cattle to the Bom Futuro group, which reportedly supplies all three processing companies. Repórter Brasil also investigated Fazenda Espírito Santo, which it identified as the ignition point for fires that led to the destruction of 14,292 ha. Its owner, José Sebastião Gomes da Silva, reportedly owns another ranch, Fazenda Formosa, that supplies cattle both to Amaggi Pecuária – part of the Amaggi group, which has 10 ranches in Mato Grosso and also reportedly supplies all three leading meat processors – and to Fazenda Rio Bonito, which supplies JBS and Marfrig.388

Some of the facilities discussed above have also recently been linked to environmental destruction in other biomes. For example, an earlier Repórter Brasil investigation found that JBS’s Diamantino (SIF 3000) facility was supplied by two ranches allegedly engaged in illegal deforestation in the Cerrado, including one that the INPE monitoring system reportedly showed had cleared 835 ha without authorisation in 2015 and 2016. According to Repórter Brasil, the owner of the other ranch had been accused by the Public Ministry of the State of Mato Grosso (Ministério Público do Estado do Mato Grosso) of having illegally cleared 616 ha of native vegetation between 2011 and 2016 in this property, located in an area of high biodiversity in a transition region between the Cerrado and the Amazon and close to Indigenous lands. The investigation also determined that this ranch had supplied cattle to Marfrig Paranatinga (SIF 2500) and indirectly to two other Marfrig processing facilities in Mato Grosso.389