the United Nations will descend on the city of Belém
Brazil in an attempt to solve climate change
The 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference
Brazil cut down portions of the Amazon rainforest to build a four-lane highway and make it just a little easier for those 50,000 people to arrive
As reported by the BBC
the state government of Pará cleared out eight miles of Amazon rainforest to build the highway
The BBC’s article has pictures of the clear-cut forest floor where logs have been piled up along a stretch of road that will soon hold concrete and passing cars
Forests, in general, and the Amazon Rainforest, in particular, are instrumental in fighting rising global temperatures. André Aranha Corrêa Do Lago, a career Brazilian diplomat who is heading up the COP30, eloquently made the case for forests in a letter he published earlier this week that laid out his vision for the conference
“When we get together in the Brazilian Amazon in November
we must listen to the latest science and re-evaluate the extraordinary role already played by forests and the people who preserve and rely on them,” Do Lago wrote
Local resident Claudio Verequete lives near the highway and previously made a living harvesting açaí berries
cut down to make way for the UN Climate Conference
“Our fear is that one day someone will come here and say: ‘Here’s some money
or to build a warehouse.’ And then we’ll have to leave,” he told the BBC
cutting off access to animals and people who have lived in the forest for generations
What was once a whole area will soon be two halves blocked by pavement
Verequete told the BBC his village won’t even have an onramp to the highway
They will just live abutting its looming noise-blocking walls
those who know the extraordinary role of the Amazon well
told the BBC they fear the new highway will devastate the local ecology
Pará has wanted to build a highway to Belém
But environmental protections around the Amazon rainforest have always prevented it
the upcoming climate conference has given the state the authority to build infrastructure to support it
The highway will be called Avenida Liberdade or “Liberty Avenue.”
Avenida Liberdade is part of a much bigger infrastructure project that Pará hopes will revitalize Belém
It’s spending $81 million to expand the airport and build a five-million-square-foot park
and organizers are planning to sail high-capacity cruise ships into the city’s port to house people who can’t find room in the hotels
“Forests can buy us time in climate action in our rapidly closing window of opportunity,” Do Lago said in his letter
“If we reverse deforestation and recover what has been lost
we can unlock massive removals of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere while bringing ecosystems back to life.”
Too bad his country just cleared eight miles of Amazon Rainforest to make way for the conference he’s preparing for in this letter
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Andre Cabette Fabio
Fisherman Dil Maiko Marinho stands by a felled tree and fence poles marking an area claimed by American grain trader Cargill on in Xingu Island
Thomson Reuters Foundation /André Cabette Fábio
As a land deal involving the US grains trader is investigated
forest communities say new ports threaten their rights and way of life
ABAETETUBA, Brazil - For centuries, riverside communities, including the "quilombola" descendants of enslaved Africans who escaped from plantations and ranches
have shared Xingu Island in Brazil's Amazon Basin
Its inhabitants live in brightly painted wooden houses overlooking rivers where small boats crisscross between islands and Abaetetuba city on the mainland to trade fish
seeds and fruits gathered from the Amazon forest in their backyard
and staked it out with something unfamiliar: concrete fence posts
Felled trees now rot on the ground by the posts marking out nearly 359 hectares (887 acres) of Amazon rainforest - land that was later bought by U.S. grain-trading giant Cargill and earmarked for a 700-million-reais ($143 million) port project that is bitterly opposed by many Xingu Island residents
"I'm being harmed by this," fisherman João Assunção dos Santos
gesturing towards Cargill's land parcel demarcated by the posts just a few meters (feet) from his house
cupuaçu trees are all on their side," said dos Santos
His family is one of 180 whose land rights over Xingu Island were recognized in 2005 by Brazil's federal government when it established a community agricultural and forest reserve
Boys play soccer on Caripetuba Island in Brazil's Amazon Basin
Residents in the region are fighting a planned Cargill grain export terminal
saying the company was wrongly sold land from a protected reserve
Retired fisherman João Assunção dos Santos shows a fence post erected near his home on Xingu Island
which marks an area claimed by American grain trader Cargill
A man eats in the Santo Afonso PAE reserve
grains trader Cargill wants to build a port in Xingu Island
The islanders say Cargill never should have been able to acquire the land for the planned grain export terminal as it was part of the PAE reserve - a 2,705-hectare (6,680-acre) area used to source farm and forest products such as prized açaí berries
Dos Santos and other Xingu inhabitants are pinning their hopes of stopping the port project on a lawsuit involving federal prosecutors who found "irregularities" in the chain of documents and procedures that led to the land's sale to Cargill
Prosecutors said in June that the process by which Cargill acquired the plot - which was originally public land - without consulting the local community "strongly resembles illegal practices" of land-grabbing
They also requested that Cargill put on hold any measures to advance the project
Prosecutors joined the lawsuit after the judiciary asked if they wanted to act on it - a common practice in legal cases with social impacts in Brazil
In August, a criminal probe was launched by the federal prosecutors' office in Pará state
the world's largest grain trader and the biggest privately owned company in the United States
told Context it bought the land "in good faith and following all company protocols to ensure the legality of the operation"
Land tenure is a persistent source of disputes in Brazil's Amazon, with speculation and "grabbing" of public or communal land - often for infrastructure development, agriculture or mining - linked to deforestation and Indigenous grievances
A 2005 entry in Brazil's Federal Official Gazette states that Xingu Island
was designated as a community agriculture and forest reserve named PAE Santo Afonso
As well as using this land to plant crops and collect wood
locals said they fish from a set of three lakes called Piri
"When I was a kid and my parents were young
we went there in December to catch fish (and) shellfish," said Cleonice Araujo Cavalheiro
But Piri is now partially enclosed by the concrete fence posts
Cargill said it had signed an agreement with port developer Brick Logística in 2015 in which it committed to buy the area where it wants to build its port
Notary registries and Cargill's response show the government officially sold the land to Brick Logística in 2019 for about 1.38 million reais
Brick Logística resold it to Cargill for 53.2 million reais
Brick Logística said official documents show the land had been privately occupied "for at least 60 years"
It was only used by locals for agriculture or ranching in that period with permission from those controlling it
Cargill said the property it acquired had already been sold privately before the land was designated as part of the PAE
agribusiness giant faces additional legal action over its planned Abaetetuba port
which would be used by boats transporting up to 9 million tonnes a year of mainly corn and soy through the Amazon from Brazil's northern and midwest regions as an alternative to saturated roads and southern ports
a Pará state court ruled that islanders must be consulted as part of the port's licensing process
the case was transferred to the federal justice system which has yet to rule on the issue
a leader of the Bom Remédio "quilombola" community on Xingu Island
said its members live just a few kilometres from the planned port and "demand to be consulted"
"In their (Cargill's) environmental studies
it is as though there was no one here," she said
showing a brochure outlining a community protocol for consultation on projects that affect it
Cargill told Context it had "spared no effort to dialogue with all social actors related to the project"
adding that it was complying with the environmental licensing process for the port terminal
"We have not and will not build a terminal until all required permits are in place and we have consulted with local communities," it said in a written statement reported by Reuters after the criminal investigation was made public
Fisherman José Rosivaldo Rodrigues Cardozo
The lakes are part now partially enclosed by fence posts marking land claimed by the U.S
Paulina do Carmo Praxedes gives an interview expressing her opposition to a planned Cargill port on Xingu Island
Fisherwoman Natalina Silva Ferreira and her daughter at her home in the Santo Afonso PAE reserve
Thomson Reuters Foundation/André Cabette Fábio
A boy in a public-school classroom on Caripetuba Island
Local communities say Cargill’s planned port will badly impact them
The prosecutors' criminal probe comes as Cargill and other companies face local and international calls to prevent their port and rail infrastructure - existing and planned - from harming Indigenous and other communities
The grain trade in Brazil's Amazon Basin is expected to increase sharply if the region is connected to two planned railways - Ferrogrão ("Grainrail")
and the Pará Railway supported by China
Mathew Jacobson, campaign director at U.S.-based environmental advocacy group Stand.earth
said Cargill is "dramatically increasing the infrastructure that drives deforestation" while making "public promises ..
to phase out deforestation from their entire supply chain"
Cargill says on its website it has pledged to end deforestation across its entire agricultural supply chain by 2030
It did not respond to a request for comment on the impact of its infrastructure
Barges belonging to a separate company are already docking on the strait where Cargill wants to build the Abaetetuba port
between Xingu and the smaller island of Capim - which locals say is driving fish away and putting them in danger
"Traffic is getting ugly - one boat after another..
afraid that they will run us over," said Santo Afonso fisherman José Rosivaldo Rodrigues Cardoso
He worries that larger waves from Cargill's grain ships could sink fishing boats if the port project goes ahead and starts operating as initially slated by 2025
Others said they were concerned that its construction would destroy rocks that are a spawning and fishing area
Asked about the complaints relating to its land acquisition
Cargill told Context its port project would use only a portion of the land it controls on Xingu Island
The rest will be conserved "and may even continue to be used by residents"
the firm said in a written response to questions
The criminal probe is connected to a lawsuit filed in 2021 by Catholic aid agency Caritas
which argues that the sale of the land now controlled by Cargill was based on illegal documents and procedures by government agencies
municipal officials and the companies themselves
Lawyers for Caritas argue that means the land's transfer into private control should be reversed
calling for Cargill and Brick Logística to compensate local families for collective damages "because of fraud in public registers" and the ensuing "economic
Cargill said land titles issued by a local notary and signed by Abaetetuba mayors in 2001 and 2016 showed the municipality had verified the area's "occupation in good faith"
paving the way for it to pass into private hands
said those documents were illegal as the municipality never formally owned the federal island land and so was not in a position to authorize its transfer into private control
The Abaetetuba mayor's office told Context the municipal attorney was re-examining relevant documents and would "act immediately ..
if any irregularity in the titling is found"
There is also disagreement over the legitimacy of the process setting up the PAE
Cargill argued in its response to the Caritas lawsuit that the PAE Santo Afonso had not been formally established in accordance with government rules
The National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) told Context it signed an agreement in 2005 with the federal government's property office (SPU)
which led to the creation of about 320 PAEs in the Amazon including Santo Afonso
INCRA excluded the land acquired by Cargill from the PAE Santo Afonso - a move it has since said it will reassess and which could be reconsidered
The prosecution told Context that Xingu Island communities have a constitutional right to the area and should not be penalized by any shortcomings on the part of the state when it established the PAEs
Researchers see the legal case over the land acquisition as having wider implications for Amazon forest communities
Caritas said in the lawsuit that the land rights of more than 113,000 families living in Brazil's PAE settlements could be weakened if the arguments used to sell off the Santo Afonso land parcel are accepted by the courts
the PAE projects cover 9.8 million hectares - an area bigger than Austria or the U.S
It is now reassessing all requests for "enterprises" overlapping with PAE areas
a law doctorate student at the Federal University of Pará and author of the research underpinning the Xingu lawsuit
said there is "a movement to overrun" the PAE projects
using "the same modus operandi" across the Amazon
Indigenous and other traditional communities are at loggerheads with Cargill over two of its other Amazon river ports - Santarém and Itaituba - saying they were not consulted during the licensing process in compliance with Brazilian and international law
Cargill told Context it followed legislation in force on Indigenous studies and consultation at the time of its licensing process and "cannot be accused of not having complied with standards that came into force or were regulated" afterwards
With Itaituba, in operation since 2017, Cargill said Amport, the association representing port terminals in Brazil's Amazon region, had filed a preliminary plan to consult local Indigenous communities but it was still awaiting government approval
The Munduruku Indigenous people say ports managed by Cargill and other private firms in Itaituba harm their fishing and navigation activities
invasions and land-grabbing within their territory - something they fear could be exacerbated by the planned Ferrogrão railway
a 21-year-old leader from the Amazon Sawré Muybu territory
travelled to Cargill's head office in Minneapolis on Oct
to hand-deliver a letter to the Cargill-MacMillan family
urging them to stop destruction of her people's forest
Cargill did not respond to a request for comment on the letter. In August, the company's president in Brazil, Paulo Sousa, called opposition to the Ferrogrão railway "an irresponsibility"
"What is irresponsible is for your company to make promises to end deforestation while continuing to expand into our territories and giving license to others to do the same," the young Munduruku representative wrote in the open letter
(Reporting by Andre Cabette Fabio; Additional reporting by Avi Asher-Schapiro in Los Angeles; Editing by Megan Rowling
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hitting harder – why young Brazilians are dying of CovidThis article is more than 4 years oldHighly transmissible variant and behavioural factors blamed as intensive care units fill with younger patients
the coronavirus infection has receded but the nightmares persist
In them the 31-year-old father relives the spine-chilling scenes he witnessed as his Covid-hit body battled for survival in a Rio ICU
The six-month-old baby who appeared to be suffocating right next to him
The man urinating blood after his kidneys failed
The unnerving bleep-bleep-bleep of machines warning doctors that yet another life was on the line
“It was agony. When you closed your eyes – God forgive me – but it was as if you were in hell,” said Castro, a systems analyst and devout Christian who fell ill in early March as Brazil was thrust into the deadliest month of a coronavirus disaster that has killed more than 365,000 people.
All of them going through the same thing,” Castro recalled
rubbishing the idea that only elderly people were in danger
“If you’re a human being you’re at risk,” he said
“This disease is a total game of Russian roulette.”
Brazilians have been particularly shocked by the case of Paulo Gustavo
a 42-year-old television star who has spent the past month fighting for his life in a Rio ICU despite being previously fit and healthy
the Brazilian Association of Intensive Care Medicine said that for the first time
most Covid patients in ICU were under 40 – a finding echoed by frontline doctors
Clarisse Bressan, a tropical medicine specialist working at Rio’s Fiocruz Covid hospital, said she had detected a similar shift in the last three weeks, including a disturbing rise in the number of pregnant women being admitted. “The average age really has gone down. One Friday we had more patients in their 40s than over-80s.”
“The patients seem to be suffering a more drawn-out illness. They deteriorate later – after 12 or 14 days rather than 10 – and I’ve seen young people with more symptoms,” Bressan added. “They don’t necessarily end up with more serious conditions but I’m seeing fewer completely asymptomatic young people than I did at the start of the pandemic.”
Read moreThe explanation for the generational shift remains unclear, although some suspect a highly transmissible new variant linked to the Brazilian Amazon may be partly to blame. “It’s clearly connected to the P1 variant,” said Marcos Boulos
a infectious disease specialist from the University of São Paulo who believes the virus is now both spreading faster and hitting young people harder
Boulos said the vaccination of older Brazilians partly explained the increasing proportion of younger patients in ICU
“But there’s no doubt young people are being [physically] more affected by this new variant
“Sometimes … these young people will die after just a few hours or days with very acute, severe illnesses – and you won’t find any comorbidity or factor to explain why. It’s dramatic,” added Boulos, pointing to similar suspicions that the South African variant might be affecting the young more
Bressan suspected behavioural factors were also at play
with younger Brazilians more likely to be frequenting places where they might be exposed to greater doses of the virus
“It’s younger people who are going out to work
adding that many of the patients she was now seeing in their 40s were domestic workers
“People who absolutely have to leave home to work.”
View image in fullscreenEverton Nascimento de Oliveira
lies in an emergency unit bed of a field hospital in Ribeirao Pires
Photograph: André Penner/APCastro has no idea which variant brought him to the casualty of a hospital on Rio’s northern outskirts last month
with a raging temperature and a respiratory system on the verge of collapse
recalling how one doctor told him it was a miracle he had made it there at all
“You should be drowning on dry land,” the doctor said as Castro was rushed into an improvised ICU
“It’s terrifying,” he said of what he saw inside
“It’s like those war films where you see a warehouse full of wounded people and say
‘No this is just a scene from a movie – The Walking Dead.’ Only it’s for real
Castro was moved to a specialist Covid unit where he came within a whisker of death
His oxygen levels plummeted and he suffered a series of cardiac arrests
with his heart rate shooting up to 140 beats per minute
View image in fullscreenMichel Castro
his wife Juliana and one-year-old son Arthur
‘If you’re a human being you’re at risk,’ he said Photograph: Michel Castro“I remember feeling something so strange that I’d never felt before
The feeling I had was that I was going to die
I stopped feeling everything … it was as if my body had switched off … I felt I was dead.”
More than 66,000 Brazilians lost their lives last month and as many as 100,000 are expected to die in April with their country now the global epicentre of the pandemic
the inflammation and infection suddenly clearing over the next four days before he was allowed to return to his home in the Chatuba favela
this is a miracle,” Castro remembered his doctor telling him as he was discharged into the arms of his overjoyed wife and 20-month-old son
“Your lungs are really badly damaged but you’ve beaten the disease.”
Castro said he still suffered occasional panic attacks and fatigue and was relearning how to breathe
A childhood friend was also struggling to recover after being taken off a ventilator
She was so weak she was using a walking frame to get around
eats well … and doesn’t have any major health problems and now she’s debilitated like a 90-year-old woman.”
who believes he was infected at a small family gathering
said he hoped telling his story would convince other young Brazilians to take fewer risks
“Maybe with you it won’t be so aggressive – maybe you’ll feel nothing
your aunt – they might never make it home.”
COSTA RICA'S LEADING ENGLISH LANGUAGE NEWSPAPER
Under the oppressive heat of the Amazon summer
Brazilian Jose Diogo climbs a palm tree nimbly and cuts a cluster of black fruits: the açaí harvest is beginning
the livelihood of his community descended from Afro-Brazilians who were once enslaved
The açaí boom has economically benefited traditional producers in the Amazon
but at the same time threatens the biodiversity of the tropical jungle due to increased monoculture
is a rural hamlet on the banks of the Itacuruçá River
an area of floodplains where açaí grows naturally
“When the harvest starts (from August to January)
things get a lot better for us,” says 41-year-old Diogo
who thanks to his work managed to start building his house
the fifth municipality with the largest “quilombola” population in Brazil
as descendants of runaway slaves from the 17th and 18th centuries are called
Abaetetuba has become an important hub for açaí in the state of Pará
which concentrates more than 90% of Brazilian production
Diogo scrapes the cluster and lets the fruits fall into a basket
which he sells for between 12 and 25 reais each (2.4 to 5 dollars)
Intermediaries buy the fruits from the community and take them by boat to the great Amazonian city of Belém, to sell them no later than the next day at the century-old Ver-o-peso market and prevent the fruit from perishing
there is great bustle next to the pier: dozens of sweaty men unload the fruits from the boats to sell them to pulp
“On a night when all our customers come
I earn between 250 and 300 reais (between 50 and 60 dollars),” says 30-year-old Maycon de Souza
after stacking three baskets on his head and two more wedged on his right shoulder: 70 kg in total
pure açaí has always been part of the diet of Pará natives
who enjoy it along with fried fish and other local dishes
Due to its nutritional and antioxidant properties
in the last two decades it has become popular as a “superfood” in Brazil and countries such as the United States and Japan
shakes and desserts with granola and fruits
This has driven up demand and benefited local producers
placing açaí as an example of “bioeconomy,” which allows generating income for Amazon inhabitants without deforestation
But studies show that expansion is causing biodiversity loss in some regions due to replacement of other species
60 or up to 100 açaí plants grow per hectare (…) When it goes past 200
60% of the diversity of other native species of floodplains is also lost,” as told by biologist Madson Freitas
a researcher at the Emílio Goeldi Museum of Pará
The loss of plant species even affects açaí
which becomes less productive due to the loss of pollinators
himself originally from a quilombola community in Pará
believes that strengthening conservation rules and oversight can help combat monoculture
But it is necessary to give producers incentives to “keep the jungle standing,” he points out
which represents quilombola communities in Pará and community leader of the village of Igarapé São João
admits that monoculture “can become a problem.”
“Those of us who live in the Amazon do not live on a single species,” says this man
who fears that açaí will cease to sustain them
as already occurred with the economic cycles of sugar cane
Brazil’s quilombola communities – which according to the census number 3,500
with around 1.3 million people – often feel invisible in the eyes of society
“We provide a great environmental service to the world
“Now we want the State and all those who benefited from the sweat and blood of those who were enslaved
Paula Mejia is a reporter and culture writer
either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter
or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources
Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content
Antioxidants such as blueberries and green tea have long been viewed as beneficial for health
and perhaps even to bear preventative implications for cancer
But a new study published this week in Nature might refute that belief: Researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern Center have found that antioxidants may in fact accelerate cancer's spreading and growth in mice
"The idea that antioxidants are good for you has been so strong that there have been clinical trials done in which cancer patients were administered antioxidants," Dr
CRI Director and Mary McDermott Cook Chair in Pediatric Genetics at UT Southwestern Medical Center
"Some of those trials had to be stopped because the patients getting the antioxidants were dying faster
Our data suggest the reason for this: cancer cells benefit more from antioxidants than normal cells do."
Related: Why Elephants Don't Get Cancer—and What That Means for Humans
Researchers discovered that mice that had received antioxidants actually saw cancerous tumors spread more quickly throughout their bodies
and the tumors were also larger as compared to those in mice that hadn't been treated with anything
This isn't the first study to show that some cancer patients had tumors that actually increased in size when being treated with antioxidants
but this research is alarming given that the metastasis seen in mice is indicative of how these same cells would metastasize in humans
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The study's authors posit that cancer be treated with pro-oxidants
"We discovered that metastasizing melanoma cells experience very high levels of oxidative stress
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"Administration of antioxidants to the mice allowed more of the metastasizing melanoma cells to survive
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company for alleged 'biopiracy,' accusing it of illegally using genetic components of the tropical berry açaí in nutritional supplements it sells.The federal prosecutors office for the northern state of Amapá
said that the company Sambazon Inc had used the genetic material of the fruit without permission.Biopiracy is the unlawful appropriation or commercial use of biological materials
that are native to a particular country without providing fair financial compensation to its people or government.Sambazon representatives in Brazil and its headquarters in California did not immediately reply to requests for comment.Privately-held Sambazon makes fruit juices
powders and energy drinks based on açaí imported from Brazil
the company's website says.Rich in antioxidants and amino acids
açaí is thought to be one of the most nutritional fruits of the Amazon basin and has become a favorite for health-conscious Californians.The Brazilian government's environmental agency Ibama fined Sambazon 75,000 reais ($20,000) last year for not obtaining permission to use açaí genetic material for technological development
the company said its products were made by simply adding ingredients to açaí pulp.The new investigation seeks compensation for the communities that produce açaí in the Amazon rainforest in Amapá state
the federal prosecutor in charge of the investigation
told Reuters.Besides failing to get authorization from Brazil's council for the management of genetic biodiversity
Sambazon had not fulfilled a promise to share profits from using açaí genetic material with the communities that picked the berries
he said.Lopes said a pickers association complaint in 2008 had led to the fine and now the seeking of civil damages.Founded in 2000
Sambazon began by processing açaí into packs of frozen pulp mixed with guaraná
another berry from the Amazon that contains natural stimulants
and selling it to juice bars and fitness clubs in Southern California.Açaí smoothies supplanted wheatgrass protein shakes as the drink of choice among athletes and body builders
Sambazon now sells its products in grocery stores across the United States.Reporting by Anthony Boadle
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