Brasilia, Oct. 15, 2025 (Lusa) - Illegal cattle ranching has wreaked havoc on the lands of small farmers and indigenous peoples in the Brazilian state of Pará, which will host the UN climate conference in less than a month, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday.
According to the non-governmental organisation, Brazilian multinational company JBS, the world's largest meat producer, has purchased and exported cattle from illegal farms located in the protected areas of Terra Nossa and Terra Indígena Cachoeira Seca, contributing to deforestation and human rights violations.
The National Institute of Colonisation and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), the federal agency in charge of agrarian reform in Brazil, created the Terra Nossa settlement in 2006 with the aim of benefiting small farmers who were supposed to engage in sustainable farming, collecting fruits and nuts from the forest.
However, large farmers illegally invaded the area, resorting to violence against residents who resisted the occupation. By 2023, almost half of the settlement (45.3%) had already been transformed into pasture for cattle breeding.
In a report entitled "Dirty Cattle: JBS and the EU's Exposure to Human Rights Violations and Illegal Deforestation in Pará, Brazil," Human Rights Watch "shows that illegal farms in these areas sold cattle to several direct suppliers of JBS."
"JBS still does not have a system in place to track its indirect cattle suppliers, despite having committed to implementing one in 2011," said Human Rights Watch senior environment researcher Luciana Téllez Chávez, adding that without such a system, the company cannot fulfil its "commitment to eliminate deforestation from its supply chain by the end of 2025" as it had promised.
Between 2020 and 2025, countries such as Belgium, France, Germany, Spain and Italy imported meat and leather from JBS slaughterhouses in these regions affected by illegal cattle ranching.
In order to mitigate the situation, the NGO is calling on the Brazilian government to reclaim the areas illegally occupied by cattle farms in this region.
The government of Pará has promised to create an individual cattle traceability system by 2026, while the federal government plans to implement a national system only by 2032, a pace considered slow by the non-governmental organisation.
On the other hand, the European Union plans to apply the Deforestation-Free Products Regulation from 2026, but has already conceeded it will have to postpone its entry into force, in a move that, according to Human Rights Watch, "would undermine global efforts against deforestation".
"Brazil and the EU should work together to protect the forest and defend the rights of the communities that depend on it," said Luciana Téllez Chávez in the report released as the state of Pará prepares to host the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30), which will take place in Belém from 10 to 21 November.
A survey released on 15 September by MapBiomas, a collective of non-governmental organisations, universities and technology companies that analyse data on biomes, shows that the Brazilian Amazon has lost 52 million hectares of native vegetation in 40 years, an area 5.6 times larger than mainland Portugal.
Over the last 40 years, pasture has been the fastest growing form of land use in the Amazon: the area devoted to cattle has jumped from 12.3 million hectares in 1985 to 56.1 million in 2024.
Forestry has expanded the most in percentage terms. In four decades, it has grown from just 3,200 hectares to 352,000 hectares.
The agricultural area has increased from 180,000 to 7.9 million hectares, a growth equivalent to 4,321%.
Within agriculture, three out of every four hectares converted to cropland in the Amazon are used for soybeans, which by 2024 already occupied 5.9 million hectares.
In recent years, mining has also gained ground, growing from 26,000 hectares in 1985 to 444,000 hectares in 2024.
MIM/AYLS // AYLS
Lusa
