By Ashley Phillips
Green Right Now
In June, Greenpeace released “Slaughtering the Amazon,” a three-year investigation into deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Greenpeace found that people were taking over protected lands in order to expand their cattle ranches. This was not only illegal, but large quantities of greenhouse gases were being released into the atmosphere as a result of the rapidly depleting forests.
[caption id="attachment_6233" align="alignright" width="200" caption="Adidas, Nike and Timberland have committed to cancel supplier contracts unless their products were guaranteed to be free from Amazon destruction."]
[/caption]
Deforestation accounts for around one fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than all the world’s trains, planes and cars combined, and Greenpeace estimates that the cattle industry is responsible for 80 percent of all deforestation.
Now, just four months after the release of “Slaughtering the Amazon,” positive steps are being taken by some of the big companies implicated.
