[HN Gopher] See brands' supply chain linkages that are contribut...
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See brands' supply chain linkages that are contributing to Amazon
deforestation
Author : giuliomagnifico
Score : 74 points
Date : 2021-12-03 18:41 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.stand.earth)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.stand.earth)
| framecowbird wrote:
| If anybody is interested in learning more about this issue check
| out the documentary "Grazing the Amazon"
| karmelapple wrote:
| Here's a related recent video from Kurzgesagt, discussing how
| space for beef cattle drives deforestation in Brazil.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1Hq8eVOMHs
| saxonww wrote:
| I'm sort of surprised that the focus is on the leather industry,
| which I assumed was a byproduct of raising cattle for beef. Are
| cattle raised specifically for their hides?
| jwagenet wrote:
| My understanding is Amazon deforestation is to accommodate
| other land uses, in this case presumably cattle. The cattle
| maybe be used for beef and leather, but whatever the end use
| the forest impact is the same and focused on a shortsighted
| incentive.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| A viewpoint I've never seen addressed - if the people of this
| country have unmet economic needs they can only meet by using
| some land from the Amazon, is it really more important to
| preserve it as a landmark than for the land to go to use? I'm
| all for conservation but there must be some reason everyone
| down there wants some of this land as opposed to going
| elsewhere.
| slymon99 wrote:
| > is it really more important to preserve it as a landmark
| than for the land to go to use
|
| The Amazon has 10% of the worlds biodiversity, I wouldn't
| exactly call it a landmark, this isn't historic
| preservation - and the land is already "in use". Also I'm
| not sure that "the people of the country" are buying and
| farming cattle on large chunks of the Amazon, I'd assume
| the economic gains are highly concentrated amongst a few
| companies (this is conjecture). Either way, lowering demand
| for cattle raised in the Amazon would be one way to make
| this less common.
| framecowbird wrote:
| Very true that it's focused on just a few companies.
| Mostly JBS: they are massive.
|
| However while these companies take the lion's share of
| the profit it is poor people who are doing the
| deforestation to improve their standard of living, often
| hired by those companies via various intermediaries to
| hide their links to deforestation.
| framecowbird wrote:
| A lot of the people doing deforestation in the Amazon are
| incredibly poor, and deforestation is the only option to
| them to increase their standard of living.
|
| However, to say we are preserving the Amazon as a
| "landmark" is not quite right. Globally speaking the best
| use for the Amazon is as a carbon sink and biodiversity
| hotspot. What should be happening is that the global
| community should be paying for this benefit: a big capital
| flow from the whole world to Brazil. But they are not, they
| are just free-riding.
| nielsbot wrote:
| They state the number one driver of Amazon deforestation is
| cattle ranching.
| framecowbird wrote:
| It isn't quite true that cattle is the biggest driver of
| deforestation in the Amazon. The number one driver is soy.
| However, landowners will typically deforest and then place
| cattle on land for five years, before converting to soy to
| circumvent regulation. This creates the impression that
| cattle was the driver, when it was in fact soy.
|
| That said, a lot of the soy does feed cattle too!
| gffrd wrote:
| Reading this surprised me ...
|
| How much is soy worth per acre? I assume the
| demand/payoff must be sizable to justify the cost of
| converting forest to agricultural land?
| framecowbird wrote:
| Soy is exported at about 380 USD per ton, and yield is
| something like 3 tons per hectare.
|
| I'm not sure how much the farmer doing the deforestation
| gets though. But deforesting the Amazon is sadly very
| cheap. Much cheaper than it should be given the value of
| the Amazon. It's a disastrous market failure.
| thepete2 wrote:
| It states that amazon deforestation is driven by demand for
| beef and leather. Presumably leather is easier to transport and
| hence global leather demand plays a role here? Just a guess
| though.
| framecowbird wrote:
| It's not really about transportation. Cattle are transported
| live to slaughterhouses near the port, before global export.
| However leather "subsidies" the industry because it makes the
| cows more valuable: this is how it contributes to
| deforestation.
| klyrs wrote:
| Yeah, it's interesting. I was under the impression that the
| majority of leather is used for cars and furniture. But I don't
| see any auto brands here. This appears to be focused on the
| _shoe_ industry.
|
| I tried to find a breakdown of what leather is used for, and
| came up with this instead:
|
| https://blog.bizvibe.com/blog/top-10-largest-leather-produci...
|
| Italy imports _and_ exports more leather than anybody?
| framecowbird wrote:
| It's surprising but true that shoes come out top! A breakdown
| is hard to come by because supply chains are proprietary
| information but see this article:
| https://medium.com/trase/european-and-us-companies-need-
| defo...
| nielsbot wrote:
| The actual brands are shown on Slide 31.
| rajangdavis wrote:
| https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/KDFLe-kvVS34briUiLj2nhQXkP...
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(page generated 2021-12-03 23:02 UTC)