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.

Adidas, Nike and Timberland have committed to cancel supplier contracts unless their products were guaranteed to be free from Amazon destruction.

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.

“Each of the companies, JBS-Friboi, Grupo Bertin, Minerva and Marfrig, declared the adoption of environmental and social standards to ensure their products are free from cattle raised in newly deforested areas of the rainforest,” according to a Greenpeace statement.

Greenpeace says there now will be a strong monitoring of supply chains and clear targets for the registration of farms that both directly and indirectly supply cattle. There also will be steps taken to end the purchase of cattle from protected land and from farms that use slave labor.

Bertin, one of the largest leather traders named in the report, supplies shoe manufacturers such as Adidas, Nike and Timberland. Since the release of the investigation, all three manufacturers have committed to cancel supplier contracts unless their products were guaranteed to be free from Amazon destruction.

“This is an important step in the fight to stop the destruction of one of the world’s most critical rainforests and vital to helping tackle climate change,” said Paulo Adario, Greenpeace Amazon campaign director, in a statement.

Gov. Blairo Maggi of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, which has the largest cattle herd in Brazil, has also announced that the state would support efforts to protect the Amazon and would provide high-resolution satellite images for monitoring.

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