UK (Commonwealth Union) – Environmental destruction with deforestation continues to have a serious impact on our survival. Tropical forests are responsible for a huge proportion of the world’s oxygen supplies.
Researchers have urged corporations to do more to implement zero-deforestation supply chain commitments to bring down deforestation and save diverse ecosystems. Corporate pledges to avoid purchase of soybeans produced on land deforested after 2006 have lowered tree clearance in the Brazilian Amazon by only1.6% between 2006 and 2015.
This was discovered by monitoring traders’ soy supplies back to their source. The study was conducted by a team from the University of Cambridge, Boston University, ETH Zurich and New York University.
The study further saw that in the Cerrado, Brazil’s tropical savannah, zero-deforestation commitments are not implemented properly, leaving more than 50 percent of soy-suitable forests and their biodiversity with no protection.
Brazil has the biggest remaining tropical forests in the world, but rapid clearance is occurring to rear cattle and grow crops including soybean. Demand for soy has increased worldwide, and roughly 4,800 km2 of rainforest is cleared annually to grow soybeans.
By 2021, almost 94 corporations had committed zero-deforestation, with pledges to do away with deforestation from their supply chains. However, the study demonstrated that most of these commitments do not materialize.
The study further indicated that adoption of zero-deforestation commitments is falling behind among small and medium sized food corporations.
Professor Rachael Garrett, who is Moran Professor of Conservation and Development at the University of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute, and a joint senior author of the report said: “Zero-deforestation pledges are a great first step, but they need to be implemented to have an effect on forests – and right now it’s mainly the bigger companies that have the resources to do this.”
The COP26 in Glasgow last year saw Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use pledging to stop and reverse deforestation by 2030. Over 100 countries, are signatories representing 85 percent of the world’s forests.
