Belém Declaration: Meat Industry is still off the hook

Mighty Earth argues that the Belém Declaration, the outcome of the inaugural Amazon Summit, misses a critical opportunity to combat deforestation by ignoring the role of the meat industry. The author highlights that land conversion for pasture accounts for approximately 80% of the region's deforestation and notes the lack of a unified regional target date for achieving zero deforestation. The document calls for the implementation of a public farm-level traceability system and the use of mobilized climate finance to regulate agribusiness land use to prevent the Amazon from reaching an irreversible tipping point.

• The meat industry is the primary driver of deforestation in the Amazon, with land conversion to pasture accounting for approximately 80% of the region's forest loss, often involving land grabbing for cattle rearing or soy production for intensive farming.
• The Belém Declaration lacks a unified regional target date for zero deforestation, relying instead on varying national objectives; while Brazil, Colombia, and Peru have pledged zero deforestation by 2030, Bolivia and Venezuela have no such distinct targets.
• Mighty Earth advocates for a public farm-level traceability system to identify deforested meat products in supply chains, which would enable pressure on global food companies to block suppliers linked to deforested areas.
• The author suggests that a portion of the $100 billion in annual climate finance that Amazonian countries intend to mobilize should be used for the regulation and supervision of agribusiness land use.

APA

Gonçalves, J. (2023). Belém Declaration: Meat Industry is still off the hook. Mighty Earth. https://mightyearth.org/article/belem-declaration-meat-industry-is-still-off-the-hook/

Chicago

Gonçalves, João. Belém Declaration: Meat Industry is still off the hook. Mighty Earth, 2023. https://mightyearth.org/article/belem-declaration-meat-industry-is-still-off-the-hook/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Gonçalves |first1=João |title=Belém Declaration: Meat Industry is still off the hook |publisher=Mighty Earth |date=11 August 2023 |url=https://mightyearth.org/article/belem-declaration-meat-industry-is-still-off-the-hook/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{gonalves2023belm, author = {Gonçalves, João}, title = {{Belém Declaration: Meat Industry is still off the hook}}, publisher = {Mighty Earth}, year = {2023}, month = aug, url = {https://mightyearth.org/article/belem-declaration-meat-industry-is-still-off-the-hook/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }