Rural-to-urban migration is a worldwide phenomenon and the Amazon is no exception a very large proportion of its immigrants are small farmers who originally came from the High Andes and Northeastern Brazil wagering their future on the frontier landscapes of the Pan Amazon This flow of people into rural communities slowed dramatically after about 2000 when rural families began to move their primary place of residence to urban centers they are more likely to move to cities in the highlands or on the coast the relative proportion of rural and urban residents in the Legal Amazon was approximately equivalent before 1990; however by 2000 more than seventy per cent of residents resided in what the national census bureau considers urban areas Most of the rural-to-urban migration has flowed to the six largest metropolitan centers: Manaus There has been a similar expansion of intermediate and small cities many of which are the administrative centers for municipalities renowned for their role in agricultural supply chains (Itaitatuba [AM] or cattle landscapes renowned for high rates of deforestation (Altamira Most doubled their populations between 2000 and 2010 and have been growing at two to three per cent annually over the last decade a trend that has been replicated in the large and small town categories that are at the heart of the rural economy of the Brazilian Amazon The Bolivian Amazon has the highest immigration rates of any Amazonian jurisdiction but this statistic is skewed by the phenomenal growth of the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra which has ballooned from about 100,000 residents in 1970 to more than 2.5 million in 2022 Other municipalities that have experienced significant inflows include San Ignacio de Velasco (Santa Cruz) All are located on the agricultural frontier and experience very high rates of deforestation efforts to promote migration into the Amazon are offset by the economic pull of Lima and other coastal cities; consequently the Amazonian population has been expanding slightly above the national rate for the last decade (about 1.4 per cent) The observed expansion of the population of the Peruvian Amazon is the consequence of a relatively high birth rate because emigration currently exceeds immigration in all but one of the lowland departments as its population has increased by about five per cent annually over the last decade Most of the newcomers are rural residents working in mining camps there is a consistent migration of people from the countryside into regional cities and towns; the rural communities of Loreto have approximately the same population today as in 2000 increasing from 360,000 to 423,000 inhabitants between 2007 and 2020 (1% annually) Higher growth rates are reported for Pucallpa (2.5%) and Yurimaguas (4.1%) both of which are terminus cities for trunk highways the number of emigrants from Ucayali since 2000 has exceeded immigrants; most are probably young people moving to Lima Amazonian Ecuador has the highest population growth rate of any region of the country with a ten-year mean that is approximately double the national average (4% vs This apparently is due to a higher birth rate because migration into the region has essentially stopped with only 1.3% of respondents self-identifying as immigrants in the 2010 census The relatively high birth rates and slow pace of inward migration are juxtaposed with the lagging pace of urbanization as only 29% (compared to 59% nationally) of the region’s residents living in what the census bureau defines as a city or town civil violence pushed millions of rural families into cities The population of Caquetá fell by 50,000 people between 1993 and 2005 while the town of Florencia expanded by 33,000; tens of thousands more fled to safe havens such as Villavicencio The military campaign (Plan Colombia) and the 2016 peace agreement changed this dynamic and Caquetá has been growing at about 3% annually over the last decade The increase in population is driven largely by a land rush and economic boom with settlers and rural investors attracted by cheap land being commercialized by land grabbers in one of the Amazon’s most lawless frontiers local population centers have grown only marginally with this new migratory wave but if trends from other forest frontiers hold true they will soon experience another population boom with most inhabitants residing in cities on the Orinoco River in Venezuela or on the coastal plain of Guyana Census data might not accurately reflect the number of people in the gold fields which have experienced local population booms due to the influx of Brazilian and Venezuelan gold miners in the last decade Guyana suffered from a mass exodus during the last half of the twentieth century Slightly more than half of its native-born citizens – 750,000 individuals – have left the country since 1970 The emigration rate declined from highs of near 15,000 per year in the late 1980s to around 5,000 in the last decade Most emigrants currently reside in the United States and Canada but it is not uncommon to maintain a second home and support family members the total value of remittances ranged from $300 million to $500 million approximately half of the revenue from the wildcat gold mining sector A similar but less acute phenomenon has impacted the population in neighboring Suriname where about 250,000 citizens have emigrated Emigration has slowed to fewer than 1,000 citizens per year which is approximately equal to the number of individuals immigrating or returning to Suriname located on the main course of the Amazon and Solimões rivers between Iquitos and Belém can trace their demographic history back to the ethnic groups that inhabited the river and its tributaries before the arrival of European missionaries and runaway slaves who migrated to the floodplain over the past four centuries Culture and demographic defines the present The “fortress conservation” model is under pressure in East Africa as protected areas become battlegrounds over history and global efforts to halt biodiversity loss Mongabay’s Special Issue goes beyond the region’s world-renowned safaris to examine how rural communities and governments are reckoning with conservation’s colonial origins and trying to forge a path forward […] Gold was central to the colonization of the Mato Grosso state area settlers in Portuguese Brazil from São Paulo they found gold in the upper reaches of the Rio Guaporé which led to the creation of the first capital of Mato Grosso at Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade in 1731 The easily exploitable placer deposits were soon exhausted but the thirst for gold was reignited during the 1970s when wildcat miners rushed to exploit a region with both alluvial and saprolite deposits at four major garimpos: Baixada Cuiabá The gold rush of the 1970s and 1980s attracted tens of thousands of garimpeiros into previously remote regions There are no reliable estimates of the quantity of gold they extracted but it is widely assumed the demographic surge accelerated the development of the state’s agricultural economy Many garimpeiros became small farmers and ranchers particularly in northern municipalities where INCRA sponsored a half dozen settlement projects they have retained both their knowledge and propensity to exploit alluvial gold which has shown a resurgence of activity in the old garimpos located near Alta Floresta and Pontes de Lacerda a dozen moderately large placer mines have transitioned into strip mining operations exploiting primary ore deposits that use cyanide to separate and concentrate elemental gold There are three open-pit mines operating in the Aguapei belt near the Bolivian border and one industrial-scale gold mine is under development in the Alta Floresta-Juruena belt There will likely be more in the near future as several companies hold exploration permits in the region The geological formations that are the source of gold in northwest Mato Grosso extend into the border municipalities of Rondônia where several wildcat mines have encroached upon the Indigenous lands of the Cinta Larga (TI Roosevelt and TI Aripuanã) There were no mass gold rushes in this corner of the Amazon in the 1980s; however the western portion of the state is riddled with hundreds of abandoned placer mines established in the 1960s and 1970s during the cassiterite boom These abandoned mine sites are indistinguishable from placer gold mines; consequently it is difficult to document the historical impact of small-scale gold miners The longest continuous garimpeiro district in Rondônia is the river channel of the Rio Madeira where placer dredges have exploited alluvial gold since the early 1980s This unique ‘garimpo aquático’ is the consequence of the depositional forces of a massive sediment-laden ‘white water river’ and the extraordinary quantity of gold released by erosional processes unleashed during the Pleistocene that gave rise to the gold fields in the Madre de Dios and the La Paz Yungas Prior to the construction of the dams at Santo Antonio and Jirau dredges worked the river upstream from Porto Velho producing an estimated 38.5 tons of gold between 1980 and 2010 and the bulk of the dredge miners now operate downstream from Porto Velho The activities of placer dredges are most noticeable in Humaitá which is the operating base for hundreds of these specialized river barges Virtually all operate outside the law: neither paying royalties nor complying with environmental regulations A series of police investigations in 2017 provoked a backlash from the garimpeiros who burned the offices of IBAMA and ICMBio This focused the attention of elected authorities on the demands of garimpeiro families who reside in more than 170 riverside villages the environmental authorities of Amazonas (SEMA – Amazonas) issued provisional licenses and the dredges proceeded to expand their operations all the way to the mouth of the river there were more than 400 barges operating in a series of ‘chains’ in the river channel in the municipality of Autazes Another police action (Operação Uiara) confiscated and destroyed 130 barges in November of 2021 The garimpeiros responded by protesting to local authorities and their representatives in Congress and were allowed to regroup and return to the river the administration of Jair Bolsonaro launched a program specifically to support garimpeiros: the ‘Programa de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento da Mineração Artesanal e em Pequena Escala’ (PROMAPE) “that artisanal and small-scale mining is a source of wealth and income for hundreds of thousands of people and it is essential that the government takes actions to recognize the conditions in which the small miner lives the scope of its activity and the primary needs of the surrounding society.” By July 2022 there were dozens of barges once again exploiting the alluvial gold on the Rio Madeira with the public support of prominent politicians from all major parties Terrestrial garimpos are not common in Amazonas state because of its geological history there are a few active garimpos in border municipalities that share a geological province with an adjacent state or nation (Annex 5.1) The most prominent is the garimpo de Juma located near the village of Apuí where a placer discovery triggered a gold rush in 2007 it ceased activities following a police action in 2017 when SEMA-Amazonas intervened in an attempt to force the association of garimpeiros to comply with pertinent regulations Barge-mounted dredges have been reported on several rivers in the western sector of Amazonas state Those located south of the Rio Solimões (Purus Jurau and Javari) are unlikely to host a gold rush because neither drain an area with gold-bearing geological formations Japaru (Caquetá) and Putumayo all drain portions of the Andes with known or suspected deposits of gold; dredges have been reported on these rivers but not at levels sufficient to qualify as a gold rush The watershed of the upper Rio Negro drains landscapes known to hold significant gold reserves particularly in Roriama and along the border with Colombia Garimpeiros have yet to successfully install either a river-based or terrestrial garimpo in the mid to upper reaches of the Rio Negro presumably because the local authorities are closely affiliated with Indigenous people Roraima has experienced periodic gold rushes over several decades beginning in the 1970s after the discovery of gold in the borderlands between Venezuela The military regime facilitated migration into the region as a deliberate strategy to occupy its northern frontier (Calha Norte) and thousands of garimpeiros streamed into the region the borderlands were the homelands of several Indigenous tribes notably the Yanomami to the west and the Macuxi in the East The Yanomami are uncontacted forest dwellers while the Macuxi had limited experience interacting with the military and ranchers Neither group was prepared for the onslaught of garimpeiros its impact on Indigenous people was intensified by the actions of Romero Jucá an influential politician who migrated to Roraima as a young and ambitious public servant He was appointed head of FUNAI in 1986 where he sought to dismember and reduce the extent of the Yanomami territory he was appointed as the first governor of the new state and adopted policies to facilitate the migration of thousands of garimpeiros into the borderlands the miners organized a logistical system that used light aircraft to supply their operations at more than eighty remote airstrips spanning more than eight million hectares The Yanomami resisted but the interlopers responded with brutal force and in one instance killed sixteen men women and children in a massacre that was ruled an act of genocide Juca lost his election for governor in 1990 and new leadership at FUNAI reconstituted the TI Yanomami to its original 9.6 million hectares a law-and-order campaign physically removed ~5,000 garimpeiros from Yanomami territories the police action was organized by FUNAI in coordination with the public prosecutor (MPF) and specialized units of the army and federal police 1998 and 1999 and periodically throughout the next decade garimpeiros continue to invade the TI Yanomami mostly on four tributaries to the Rio Branco (Uraricoera Apiaú and Catrimani) whose lower reaches are easily accessible by road from the populated areas of Roraima The Roraima gold fields are different from the garimpos in Tapajós eastern Pará and Mato Grosso where placer mining left conspicuous scars on landscapes visible on satellite images decades after they were created Perhaps they are exploiting hard-rock deposits with localized veins or are working very small placer deposits under the forest canopy The inability to monitor their illegal activities using remote sensing technology requires a more intensive on-site monitoring effort that is both dangerous and more costly The availability of high-resolution imagery will greatly facilitate monitoring efforts The inability to monitor the region effectively facilitated a renewed garimpeiro invasion during then Bolsonaro administration defunded efforts to control illegal mines and support the health and well-being of the Yanomami Indigenous communities Gold mining in Amapá dates from the last half of the 19th century with a gold rush in what are now the northern municipalities of Oiapoque and Calçoene Garimpeiros were attracted by the rich gold deposits associated with the greenbelt formation that extends across the hills of the Guiana Coast They have had a continuous presence at the Garimpo São Lourenço which was also the site of the state’s first underground gold mine (Salamagnone) which extracted ~20 tons of gold (~US$250 million) between 1984 and 1995 The next major development was an open-pit mine at Gaivota in 1991 although that company lost (part) of its investment when the concession was overrun by garimpeiros in 1997 The next corporate endeavor was at the Tucano mine which benefited from the extensive geological explorations of its neighbor The Tucano facility has opened eight open-pits and one underground mine since 2012 it had produced more than 44 tons of gold with a nominal value of ~US$2.5 billion Situated just east of these two industrial mines is the RENCA mineral reserve which is believed to have one or more world-class deposits of gold but garimpeiros have been exploiting surface deposits at several localities a low ridge located to the west of the Rio Jari in Northern Pará they are operating between thirty and forty clandestine landing strips The most controversial corporate project in the Brazilian Amazon is located near the Volte Grande on the Xingu River just a few kilometers from the Belo Monte hydropower dam The proposed mine would exploit a world-class gold deposit on a greenstone deposit that was first exploited by garimpeiros in the 1960s (Garimpo Itatá) The proposed open-pit mine has ‘proven or probable’ reserves of 3.8 million ounces of gold and is projected to generate profits of US$2 to US$5 billion over a seventeen-year lifetime Opposition to the project has focused on the danger of a catastrophic failure of its cyanide ponds and tailing storage facilities that would contaminate the lower stretches of the Rio Xingu Concern over the potential impact is magnified by the reduced water flows caused by the Pimentel Dam which diverts about 75 per cent of the river’s water flow to the Belo Monte hydropower plant Opposition to the mine is led by Indigenous communities whose livelihoods depend on the natural fishery of the Xingu River The environmental impact analysis (EIA) was accepted by the state environmental agency (SEMAS) but the operating license was rejected by a federal court due to the failure of the company to obtain the free prior and informed consent of nearby Indigenous communities The company contends it has reached an agreement with the communities a position validated by the functionaries at FUNAI during the Bolsonaro administration and the state Supreme Court the project remains on hold until the resolution of a separate judicial case questioning the licensing process arguing that the federal agency (IBAMA) has jurisdiction rather than the state agency (SEMAS) Belo Sun will be the largest gold mine in Brazil Banner image: The frenzy for gold led to the proliferation of placer dredges that organised themselves into formal and informal cooperatives that worked the Rio Madeira between Porto Velho and the main stem of the Amazon River Across The Block Easter Weekend Auctions Bring ‘Hoppiest’ Bidders To Copake Fine & Fanciful Finishes In DuMouchelles’ April Auction Heritage Auctions' March 14 Nature and Science sale in Dallas will feature gold platinum and copper in their natural state including a platinum nugget weighing 18.23 troy ounces originates from the Isovsky District, Sverdlovskaya Oblast in the Middle Ural Mountains of Russia The nugget measures 2.65 by 1.75 by 1.2 inches It is one of the largest platinum nuggets in private hands is a crystallized nugget weighing 12.18 troy ounces secured from Serra do Caldeirão claims at Pontes e Lacerda The gold nugget measures 3.54 by 1.57 by 1.41 inches Among the silver formations offered is a piece weighing 0.67 ounce from the Endeavor Mine, formerly Elura Mine, Cobar Robinson Co. The silver piece has an estimate of  $7,000 to $10,000 The piece measures 4.27 by 0.84 by 0.30 inches With an estimate of $25,000 to $35,000, a naturally formed chunk of copper weighing more than 8 pounds was derived from the Jiujiang Co.'s Chengmenshan Mine in Jiujiang The copper piece measures 13.39 by 5.91 by 3.94 inches Precious Metals An official website of the United States government Latest Earthquakes the United States mined $74.6 billion worth of minerals and the following five mineral commodities accounted for 68.5 percent of that value Every year, the USGS National Minerals Information Center releases its Mineral Commodity Summaries a resource roundup of 90 different mineral commodities that includes a snapshot of the global industry and information on how these minerals are used Also included is an analysis of the domestic mineral industry of the United States, along with summaries of individual mineral commodity industries. So today, we thought we would share the top five U.S. mineral commodities by value from 2016 First up is copper one of the first metals ever extracted and used by humans and it has made vital contributions to sustaining and improving society since the dawn of civilization 44 percent of the copper produced in 2016 went to building construction 19 percent went into transportation equipment 18 percent went into electric and electronic products and the rest went to a variety of other uses The number four spot needs no introduction—gold is one of the most famous minerals in the world with Nevada and Alaska leading in production from both lode mines and placer deposits The two primary uses for gold in the United States in 2016 were jewelry and electronics with official coin production also a significant use Switching over from metals to construction materials, construction sand and gravel holds the number three spot Construction sand and gravel is a countrywide affair Just under one-half of the sand and gravel went to concrete aggregates with the rest going to other construction uses like road base and stabilization Holding the list together at number two is cement Cement was produced in 34 states as well as Puerto Rico in 2016 The overwhelming majority of the cement went to concrete production And last, but certainly not least, is crushed stone the driver of America’s transportation network about 76 percent of crushed stone went into road construction and maintenance with another 11 percent going to cement manufacturing The majority of the crushed stone was limestone Check back next year to see who ranked in the top five for 2017 It’s likely that you’ll see familiar faces...but every now and again Investigation involving Guardian shows systematic and vast forest loss linked to cattle farming in Brazil More than 800m trees have been cut down in the Amazon rainforest in just six years to feed the world’s appetite for Brazilian beef despite dire warnings about the forest’s importance in fighting the climate crisis A data-driven investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) Repórter Brasil and Forbidden Stories shows systematic and vast forest loss linked to cattle farming The beef industry in Brazil has consistently pledged to avoid farms linked to deforestation the data suggests that 1.7m hectares (4.2m acres) of the Amazon was destroyed near meat plants exporting beef around the world The investigation is part of Forbidden Stories’ Bruno and Dom project. It continues the work of Bruno Pereira, an Indigenous peoples expert, and Dom Phillips, a journalist who was a longtime contributor to the Guardian​​. The two men were killed in the Amazon last year Deforestation across Brazil soared between 2019 and 2022 under the then president with cattle ranching being the number one cause The new administration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has promised to curb the destruction Burning forest in Lábrea Photograph: Christian Braga/GreenpeaceResearchers at the AidEnvironment consultancy used satellite imagery livestock movement records and other data to calculate estimated forest loss over six years between 2017 and 2022 on thousands of ranches near more than 20 slaughterhouses All the meat plants were owned by Brazil’s big three beef operators and exporters – JBS To find the farms that were most likely to have supplied each slaughterhouse the researchers looked at “buying zones”; areas based on transport connections and other factors including verification using interviews with plant representatives the world’s biggest buyer of Brazilian beef The research focused on slaughterhouses in the states of Mato Grosso important frontiers of deforestation associated with ranching It is likely the overall figure for deforestation on farms supplying JBS because they run other plants elsewhere in the Amazon All three companies say they operate strict compliance procedures to ensure they are meeting their sustainable goals Nestlé and the German meat company Tönnies were among those to have apparently bought meat from the plants featured in the study Dozens of wholesale buyers in various EU countries some of which supply the catering businesses that serve schools and hospitals Nestlé said two of the meatpackers were not currently part of its supply chain and added: “We may scrutinise business relationships with our suppliers who are unwilling or unable to address gaps in compliance with our standards.” Tönnies said: “These Brazilian companies process many thousands of animals per year for export,” and claimed it was unclear whether the company was the recipient of products from plants linked to deforestation Lidl and Aldi said they stopped selling Brazilian beef in 2021 and 2022 respectively a Brazilian Indigenous expert and Dom Phillips a British journalist and longtime Guardian contributor, were killed on the Amazon’s Itaquaí River last June while returning from a reporting trip to the remote Javari Valley region and cast a spotlight on the growing threat to the Amazon posed by extractive industries the Guardian has joined 15 other international news organisations in a collaborative investigation into organised crime and resource extraction in the Brazilian Amazon The initiative has been coordinated by Forbidden Stories the Paris-based non-profit whose mission is to continue the work of reporters who are threatened The goal of the project is to honour and pursue the work of Bruno and Dom to foreground the importance of the Amazon and its people and  to suggest possible ways to save the Amazon was a former employee of the Indigenous agency Funai where he led efforts to protect the isolated and uncontacted tribes who live in the Brazilian Amazon After being sidelined from his post soon after the far-right president Jair Bolsonaro came to power Pereira went to work with the Javari Valley Indigenous association Univaja helping create Indigenous patrol teams to stop illegal poachers miners and loggers invading their protected lands was a longtime contributor to the Guardian who hadlived in Brazil for 15 years A former editor of the dance magazine Mixmag he developed a deep interest in environmental issues the beef industry and the destruction of the Amazon rainforest His reporting brought him into contact with Pereira and in 2018 the pair took part in a 17-day expedition deep into the Javari Valley In 2021 he took a year off to start writing a book His return to the Javari was to have been the last reporting trip for the project Sitting on Brazil’s border with Peru and Colombia the Javari ValleyIndigenous Reservation is a Portugal-sized swathe of rainforest andrivers which is home to about 6,000 Indigenous people from the Kanamari as well as 16 isolated groups.It is also a hotspot for poachers fishers and illegal loggers,prompting violent conflicts between the Indigenous inhabitants and theriverside communities which fiercely opposed the reservation’screation in 2001 Its strategic location makes it a key route for smuggling cocaine between Peru Pereira and Phillips travelled up the Itaquaí River from the town of Atalaia do Norte to report on efforts to stop illegal fishing members of the Indigenous patrol team with whom Pereira and Phillips were travelling were threatened by an illegal fisher the pair set out on the return leg before dawn hoping to safely pass a river community that was home to several known poachers.  and after a search by teams of local Indigenous activists Three fishers are being held in high-security prisons awaiting trial for the killings: brothers Amarildo and Oseney da Costa de Oliveira and a third man Federal police have alleged that a fourth man Thank you for your feedback.Some of the meat shipped to the EU could breach new laws designed to combat deforestation in supply chains Regulations adopted in April mean products brought into the EU cannot be linked to any deforestation that happened after December 2020 a senior director at the Mighty Earth advocacy organisation said: “The Amazon is very close to a tipping point So these types of figures are very alarming because the Amazon can’t afford to be losing this number of trees … this has planetary implications.” The MEP Delara Burkhardt said the findings reinforced the need for greater legislation globally to tackle deforestation: “The destruction of the Amazon is not only a Brazilian affair It is also an affair of other parts of the world That is why the consumer countries should enact supply chain laws to make sure that the meat they import is produced without inducing deforestation I hope that the new EU law against imported deforestation will be a blueprint for other major importers like China to follow.” A farm in Marabá Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty ImagesAidenvironment found that 13 meat plants owned by JBS were linked to ranches where there had been forest clearance For Marfrig and Minerva there were six and three plants respectively.​ According to a separate Guardian analysis for the Bruno and Dom project the Amazon slaughterhouses belonging to these companies processed cattle worth more than $5bn (£4bn) while still in Brazil in 2022: more value will be added further along the complex supply chain and by an overwhelming margin the economic value of this industry is being realised outside Brazil on dinner plates at restaurants in Beijing and New York They have repeatedly been criticised for deforestation in their supply chains over the last decade Other companies are also known to source cattle from the same buying zones In cases where the full beef supply chain could be mapped the study estimated that since 2017 there had been more than 100 instances of forest loss on farms that directly supplied company plants Free weekly newsletterThe planet's most important stories Get all the week's environment news - the good More than 2,000 hectares of forest were apparently destroyed on a single ranch between 2018 and 2021 – São Pedro do Guaporé farm Mato Grosso state – which sold nearly 500 cattle to JBS though the copany said the farm was ‘blocked’ when its due diligences identified irregularities with them ​ The JBS meat plant that processed these cattle sold beef to the UK and elsewhere in recent years A farm in Pontes e Lacerda Photograph: Carolina ArantesThe farm was also connected to the indirect supply of more than 18,000 animals across the three meat packers between 2018 and 2019 according to Aidenvironment All three companies said they were not currently being supplied by the ranch More than 250 cases of deforestation were attributable to indirect suppliers – farms that rear or fatten cattle but send them to other ranches before slaughter (Some farms act as both direct and indirect suppliers.) Meat companies have long said that monitoring the movements between ranches in their complex supply chains is too difficult Critics say this allows for “cattle laundering” where animals from a “dirty” deforesting ranch are trucked to a supposedly “clean” farm before slaughter A clean farm is one with no history of fines or sanctions for deforestation even if its owner has carried out deforestation on other ranches TBIJ and Repórter Brasil worked with Dom Phillips and the Guardian to report on an example of cattle laundering in 2020 the team appeared to show that cows from a farm under sanctions for illegal deforestation had been moved in JBS trucks to a second JBS stopped buying from the owner of both farms our investigation has found that the owner now supplies Marfrig another of Brazil’s big three meat packers is still under sanctions but remains part of the international beef supply chain Records appear to show that between 2021 and 2022 nearly 500 animals were moved along the exact route that TBIJ investigated in 2020 The cattle ended up at the same “clean” second farm which has no embargos or other environmental sanctions Separate documents appear to show dozens of animals moving from Estrela do Sangue farm to Marfrig’s meat plant in Tangará da Serra Last year, another TBIJ investigation linked the Tangará da Serra plant to the invasion of the Menku Indigenous territory in Brasnorte the plant has sold more than £1bn worth of beef products since 2014 to China Workers in a Marfrig slaughterhouse Photograph: Ricardo Funari/Lineair/GreenpeaceIn a statement Marfrig confirmed it had received cattle from the owner Marfrig checks the status of the cattle-supplying properties the farm in question was compliant with Marfrig’s socio-environmental criteria meaning the property was not located in an area with deforestation nor in a conservation unit or on Indigenous lands.” It added: “Marfrig condemns the practice referred to as ‘cattle laundering’ and any other irregularities All suppliers approved by the company are regularly checked and must comply with the mandatory socio-environmental criteria described in the company’s current policy.” Minerva said it “tracks the condition of the ranches ensuring that cattle purchased by Minerva Foods do not originate from properties with illegally deforested areas; possess environmental embargos or are overlapping with Indigenous lands and/or traditional communities and conservation units.” JBS queried the “buying zones” methodology used in the research saying it states “the estimate determines the potential maximum purchase zone and not necessarily the effective purchase zone.” It also said that it blocked the São Pedro do Guaporé farm “as soon as any irregularity was identified”