Illegal deforestation: Pará, Brazil is starting to break the right kind of records

When it comes to global deforestation rates, Pará State in Brazil has consistently risen to the top this century.

For the past 15 years, forest clearance in this northeastern corner of the country’s Amazon has been relentless: More than 60,000 sq km have been razed, equivalent to 8.5 million football pitches, or the whole of Switzerland.

Illegal cattle ranching is by far the biggest culprit. With around 26 million cattle, what happens in Pará has global repercussions on the environment.

But that can be a good thing too.

Because the State is on the cusp of a genuine transformation: last year, it announced plans to reduce illegal deforestation to zero.

Zero.

And by 2030.

It’s either ludicrous or completely inspired.

I’m gunning for the latter.

The Bezos Earth Fund is fully on board, with a series of new grants from the Future of Food Program aiming to support partners in Pará to make its vision a reality.

It centers on what’s set to be a world-leading system for cattle traceability.

All 26 million cattle in Pará will be tagged with an radio frequency identification (RFID) “earring.” This will connect digitally to a system that tracks each animal’s movement over its lifetime. If a tracker shows an animal has grazed on illegally cleared land, its meat will be rejected by traders, processors, and all of Brazil’s major supermarkets.

Given that around 80% of beef production in Brazil is consumed domestically, the system would wipe out the market for beef or leather produced from animals raised on illegally deforested land almost overnight.

It would also provide assurance to consumers that every piece of beef – whether it’s steak, mince, a burger, or prime rib – and every piece of leather, is certified deforestation-free.

The ear tags are only part of a much more comprehensive package of interventions to incentivize sustainable beef production in Pará.

The package will also bring training and technical assistance to cattle farmers and other stakeholders on how to access carbon credits in exchange for “forest-positive” practices.

It will support the use of special databases and the development of new policies, and encourage collaboration across Pará’s beef and leather value chains. And it will identify companies and financial institutions linked to illegal deforestation and make them publicly accountable, working with them to provide sustainable finance.

Efforts will extend as far as China – the largest importer of Brazilian beef and soy – seeking opportunities to “green” supply chains.

The Future of Food Program is funding all of these elements.

And while there are no silver bullets, there is a magic ingredient: I call it heroic leadership. And that is what we’re seeing from Helder Barbalho, Pará’s State governor, and his willingness to make big decisions on his watch.

This is what being brave looks like.

This is what being bold looks like.

Hopefully, the next year or so in Pará will demonstrate that when heroic leadership, funding, and innovation align, we can create the conditions to reverse an environmental catastrophe and transform an entire sector for the better.

It’s a situation in which everyone wins: farmers, middlemen, retailers, consumers, and of course, nature, bringing about positive impacts on forests and climate change that will be felt not in a few decades, but in a single year.

It could be the most powerful agriculture-related intervention to combat climate change and protect nature to date – and one delivered in record time.

At a time when time itself is in short supply, it’s a good bet for the future of food and the planet.

And that’s the kind of positive, global repercussion that we can all get behind.