Brazilian authorities have suspended one of the most significant agreements safeguarding the Amazon rainforest, the soy moratorium, raising fears of renewed destruction on a vast scale.
The move, which conservation groups described as a devastating setback, comes less than three months before Brazil hosts the Cop30 climate summit in Belém. The decision could open an area the size of Portugal to clearance for farming, prompting warnings that the country risks undermining its own climate commitments.
The moratorium, introduced in 2006, was a voluntary pact between farmers, traders, environmentalists and multinational food companies including Cargill and McDonald’s. Under the agreement, soybeans grown on land in the Amazon deforested after 2008 were barred from supply chains, regardless of whether the clearance was legal under Brazilian law.
Over the past 19 years, the deal has been hailed as one of the most effective conservation measures of its kind, credited with preventing around 17,000 sq km of deforestation while allowing soy production to expand elsewhere.
Earlier this week, however, Brazil’s anti-monopoly agency, Cade, gave major grain traders such as Bunge, Cargill, Louis Dreyfus and Cofco ten days to suspend the agreement or face fines. Cade’s general superintendent, Alexandre Barreto de Souza, said he had launched an investigation into whether the moratorium amounted to anti-competitive behaviour, noting that it involved the sharing of commercially sensitive information.
Greenpeace Brazil condemned the suspension as a “terrible mistake” and accused powerful farming interests of exerting political pressure. “Without the soy moratorium, soy will once again become a major driver of Amazon deforestation, and this will bury any chance of Brazil meeting its climate targets,” said Cristiane Mazzetti, the group’s forest campaign coordinator.
The timing of the decision has embarrassed the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, which had hoped to showcase progress on rainforest protection at Cop30. The conference will be the first to take place in the Amazon.
Brazil’s agribusiness lobby succeedes in pushing legislation
In recent months, Brazil’s agribusiness lobby has succeeded in pushing legislation through Congress that weakens indigenous land rights and environmental licensing rules. Conservationists say the suspension of the soy moratorium compounds what they describe as the biggest reversal in environmental protections in four decades.
“Tearing up this agreement on the eve of the Cop30 climate talks sends completely the wrong signal to the world,” said Tanya Steele, chief executive of WWF-UK. “This is a perilous development that would have a far-reaching impact on global companies. This suspension has to be reversed.”
The industry group Aprosoja Mato Grosso, representing farmers in the state that is Brazil’s soy capital, welcomed the decision, calling the moratorium “a private agreement without legal support” that imposed unfair restrictions.
Analysts estimate that as much as 10m hectares, roughly the size of Portugal, could now be legally cleared for soy, potentially increasing land values fivefold.
