New film shines light on cattle industry link to Amazon deforestation

Documentary director, Marcio Isensee e Sá in action aboard an IBAMA environmental agency helicopter during a federal operation to crack down on illegal deforestation inside Jamanxim National Forest, Novo Progresso municipality, Pará state. Image by Bernardo Camara. “The cow is the worst environmental problem in the Amazon, and in the world,” says Greenpeace’s Paulo Adario, speaking out in a new documentary which this April won the One Hour prize at the Film Research and Sustainable Development” (FreDD) festival earlier this month. In his ground-breaking documentary, Grazing the Amazon, director Marcio Isensee e Sa alerts audiences to the fact that approximately one fifth of the Amazon has already been cut down, and attests that nearly 80 percent of this deforestation is attributable to the cattle industry. The film traces the history of the Amazon’s invasion by entrepreneurial ranchers, and examines the responsibility of all major actors in the supply chain, including livestock growers, slaughterhouses and government. Throughout the documentary, Amazonian ranchers operating in deforestation hotspots voice a recurring theme: a sense of entitled impunity which flies in the face of government land use restrictions and imposed environmental fines. According to analysts, ranchers’ flaunting of the law is largely facilitated by the bancada ruralista, the agribusiness lobby which has a huge influence on Brazilian politics — this powerful caucus includes just under half of all deputies in the lower house of congress, dominates policymaking by the Temer administration, and often panders to ranchers’ interests. In perhaps the most explosive revelation of the…

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