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WHY IS BRAZIL BURNING?

Intentional fires, illegal activities,
and animal cruelty:
this is the meat industry

Smoke coming out of forest
Firefighters extinguishing fire in Brazil

Brazil’s animal agriculture industry is not only destroying our planet, but it’s also extremely abusive to animals.

Sharon Núñez
President and Co-Founder of Animal Equality

This destruction and abuse is unacceptable

Animal Equality and our supporters around the world are petitioning Brazil’s Deputies and Senators to take urgent legislative action to address illegal meat production—the main cause of environmental destruction in Brazil—including illegal deforestation and fires in the Amazon and the Pantanal wetlands, as well as significant animal welfare concerns.

Currently, the production of meat in Brazil is subsidized with public taxes, and part of the chain that operates illegally also ends up benefiting from it.

This is unacceptable. Our legislative proposal demands that the Congress pass a law to prevent subsidies from going to meat producers that fail to carefully track their supply chains to avoid illegal practices. We believe that this is a common-sense solution to curbing the country’s ongoing environmental destruction and disregard for animal welfare related to meat production.

The Consequences of Brazil’s Meat Production

Factory farming is responsible for more than 80% of deforestation in Brazil, with the meat industry causing the increasing number of fires in the Pantanal. As the largest tropical wetlands in the world, 29% of its vegetation was burned in 2020–an area equivalent to more than 6 million football fields.
The Cerrado is another vital ecosystem that is being destroyed by Brazilian agribusiness. It has lost around 50% of its vegetation (an area twice the size of California) mostly due to illegal land-clearing for the production of soy, much of which is exported to feed farmed animals around the world.
2020 saw record-breaking fires in Brazil’s most vital habitats. In the same year, the meat industry’s largest international suppliers, like JBS, were accused of selling cow’s meat that had been produced in deforested areas of Brazil.
Brazil is one of the largest exporters of meat from cows, pigs, and chickens, however the country’s laws are insufficient to protect these animals from abusive practices.
More than 6.8 billion land animals are killed in Brazil each year, and production is rising. While the number of animals raised and killed annually continues to increase, there remains no comprehensive monitoring system to ensure minimum conditions of animal welfare are met.
Poor enforcement of existing animal welfare laws means millions of animals end up in illegal slaughterhouses where they are killed using crude and painful methods without any regulatory oversight.
Cow
Cow

DEFENDING ANIMALS ALL OVER THE WORLD

Animal Equality is an international organization working with society, governments, and companies to end cruelty to farmed animals.

Our investigations are a fundamental pillar within our mission to create a world where all animals are protected and respected.