European retailers and investors urge Brazil to block land tenure bill
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A group of European companies, including Tesco and Marks & Spencer, has threatened to stop using Brazilian agricultural commodities if Congress passes a bill changing the land tenure rules for federal and National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) lands.
Environmental advocates warn that the bill would encourage deforestation by rewarding land grabbers who illegally occupy properties in the Amazon forest, often clearing areas for agricultural use.
The bill’s proponents say that only by legalizing the properties will the owners be forced to comply with laws that limit Amazon deforestation to 20% for private properties.
Retailers like Metro and John Lewis, as well as investors like Norway’s largest pension company KLP, said Brazil’s environmental protections are increasingly inadequate, while the land tenure regulation law could pose even greater risks to the Amazon.
“If this or other measures that undermine these existing protections become law, we will have no choice but to reconsider our support and use of Brazil’s agricultural commodity supply chain,” the European companies wrote in an open letter to Brazilian legislators released on Tuesday, May 4.
Brazil is the world’s largest exporter of soybeans and beef.
The bill was scheduled for a vote in the Senate last week, but was deferred amid criticism from environmentalists. Congressional leaders said the measure needs further debate and signaled that it could be put to a vote again this week.
This was the government and its allies’ second attempt in Congress to secure approval for the bill. A similar bill was abandoned in May 2020 after a boycott threat from many of the same companies.
The current bill in the Senate would allow much larger and more recently established properties to be granted title deeds. The measure comes at a testing time for the government of President Jair Bolsonaro, after deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon reached a 12-year high in 2020.
Under international pressure led by the United States, Bolsonaro vowed at a leaders’ summit in April to bolster environmental enforcement and reiterated his commitment to end illegal deforestation by 2030.
Source: Moneytimes
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