It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) for securing the debate.
I will concentrate on Brazil and the deforestation that has been going on there. I agree with my right hon. Friend that we are a critical friend of Brazil, but we
need to be critical when an area twice the size of Devon was deforested last year alone. While the Brazilians are making good noises about COP26 and the environment, in practice that is not reflected on the ground.
Between 1990 and 2016, the world lost some 502,000 square miles of rainforest—an area larger than South Africa. In 2020 alone, over 11,000 sq km of the Amazon was lost to deforestation, which is the largest area in 12 years. As I said, that is twice the size of Devon. Between 2001 and 2018, Brazil lost almost 55 million hectares of tree cover, at a rate of 5.7 football pitches per minute. Deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon are at their highest in 15 years, and over the past 50 years forest coverage across the Amazon biome has declined by some 20%. There may be warm words, but the actions in Brazil do not show them.
In July 2021, scientists confirmed that the Amazon is a net producer of CO2, emitting more carbon dioxide than it absorbs, as the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) said. We can all work on a cross-party basis to bring about pressure to correct the situation in Brazil.
The importance of the Amazon has been stated before. The Amazon alone contains some 90 billion to 140 billion metric tonnes of carbon. It is significantly more effective to maintain the current tree cover than to replant forests retrospectively. A tree in the Amazon rainforest probably holds as much carbon as two or three trees in this country just because of the rate of growth.
Forests hold 80% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity. They support complex ecosystems such as plant life, animals, soils, bacteria and fungi. They also support our food supply system by ensuring that we have enough pollinators as well as providing pest control. The Amazon holds at least 10% of the world’s biodiversity and accounts for 15% of total river discharge into the oceans. Forest degradation can lead to catastrophic impacts, including increased soil erosion, disruption of water cycles, loss of habitat for endangered animals and increased greenhouse gases. Because the Amazon carries around 15% of the world’s freshwater into the sea, it probably has an impact on the salt in the sea overall.
Forests are home to communities and indigenous people. The Amazon is home to some 34 million people, including almost 3 million indigenous people. Half the Amazon basin is covered by protected areas and indigenous territories. Over 100 communities live in voluntary isolation. Illegal deforestation destroys communities, homes, livelihoods, culture and a way of life. Land that is the ancestral and sovereign right of indigenous communities is being taken by violent force, driven by consumer demand for widely used commodities. A Global Witness report entitled “Last Line of Defence” stated that 227 lethal attacks were carried out on land defenders in 2020—an average of more than four people a week—making this
“the most dangerous year on record for people defending their homes, land and livelihoods, and the ecosystems vital for biodiversity and the climate.”
I welcome the action taken by the UK Government in the Environment Act 2021. The Government have introduced a law that prohibits the use of certain commodities associated with illegal deforestation, and they have placed a requirement on large companies to undertake due diligence and reporting on their supply chains. That will prohibit the use of forest risk commodities
within the UK market and encourage other nations to carry out proper due diligence when sourcing materials. We need only look at major importers of cereal into this country, such as Cargill, to know that much of the soya comes from Brazil. We need to question exactly where it has come from. Has it come from land that has been illegally deforested? The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is carrying out a consultation on secondary provisions that will run until March this year, which is an opportunity to strengthen the Environment Act to ensure that institutions cannot profit from illegal deforestation.
Agrifood expansion continues to drive deforestation in the Amazon. It is the main driver of deforestation, forest degradation and the associated loss of biodiversity. Large-scale commercial agriculture, primarily cattle ranching and the cultivation of soya bean and palm oil, accounted for 40% of tropical deforestation between 2000 and 2010, and local subsistence accounted for another 33%. A Global Witness report from October 2020, entitled “Beef, Banks and the Brazilian Amazon”, found that Brazil’s three largest beef companies were linked to tens of thousands of hectares of illegal deforestation, despite auditors saying otherwise. Over three years,
“beef giants JBS, Marfrig and Minerva bought cattle from a combined 379 ranches containing 20,000 football fields worth of illegal deforestation”.
A study in the Science journal states that
“roughly 20% of soya exports and at least 17% of beef exports”
from Brazil
“may be contaminated with illegal deforestation.”
The Bolsonaro Administration are in the process of implementing legislation that will legalise deforestation on public land for agricultural practices that has taken place since 2017. If granted a land title, businesses that have invaded land will be allowed to deforest public land and sell it for high profits. I say to the Brazilian Government that if they are really mindful that they will stop deforestation, such laws go completely in the opposite direction.
Financial institutions continue to hold the purse strings for illegal deforesting activity. The 2019 Global Witness report entitled “Money to Burn” found that more than 300 banks and investors had provided some $44 billion of finance to six of the world’s worst deforesters over the previous six years. It found that major financial institutions, such as HSBC, Santander and Barclays, have investments in agribusinesses that continue to carry out large-scale illegal deforestation. The investments and pensions of UK consumers may well be being used to fund deforestation.
A further 2021 Global Witness report, “Deforestation Dividends”, has found that financial institutions are bankrolling and profiting from agribusinesses that are destroying rainforest and forest habitats across the globe. Banks and asset management companies based in the EU, UK, US and China have invested $157 billion into firms accused of destroying rainforests in Brazil, south-east Asia and Africa since the Paris climate agreement. Global financial institutions including Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan, BNP Paribas, Rabobank and Bank of China have profited by some $1.74 billion in interest, dividends and fees from financing agribusinesses that carry out the most deforestation.
At a recent sitting of the Liaison Committee, the Prime Minister stated that more than 40 banks have signed up to the voluntary Glasgow declaration on forests and land use at COP26, which he said included Barclays and Aviva. However, no high street bank has, as yet, signed up to the agreement. I urge the Minister and the Government to put pressure on our banks to stop funding illegal deforestation. There is much we can do. If we can starve these major companies of credit, we can stop much of the deforestation.
Finally, I repeat that as we talk and trade with Brazil in the future, we must be absolutely certain that it has put its house in order. There must be no illegal deforestation, and the indigenous populations must not face having their land destroyed or taken from them, or, even worse, being killed. This debate is timely. I have used some strong language today, but I think it is important to highlight the current situation. I hope that it will improve in future, not only for the environment and agriculture, but for those indigenous people who are suffering.
12.7 pm