One of the world's largest agribusiness giants was forced to close a soy export terminal in Brazil's Amazon region this weekend, marking a major victory for environmentalists who have argued for years that the plant was built illegally and became a significant cause of rainforest depletion.
Greenpeace protest against Cargill at its illegal soya export facility in the heart of the Amazon rainforest
Brazilian police and environmental officers swooped on the Cargill terminal in Santarem, a deep-water port in the lower Amazon about 850 miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean. They said they met no resistance as they set about closing operations.
On Friday, a Brazilian judge ruled that Cargill - a US multinational that posted more than $70bn (£36bn) in revenues last year - had failed to submit a legally required environmental impact assessment when it built the terminal in the first few years of this decade.
It was not the first time the courts had ruled against Cargill on the question, but the company had never previously been forced to suspend its operations.
... Millions of acres of rainforest have been turned over to soy bean fields. - The Independent
Most of the Soy Beans head to Europe to feed livestock (see 'In Memory of Dorothy Stang').
Cargill, which argues it is an important engine of economic growth in an impoverished region, said it would appeal the ruling... - The Independent
We exchange this, for
cheap chicken and beef |
Economic growth is not a bad thing, in itself - but it's expedient to consider the 'how' of the matter. How is the economy growing, who is benefiting and who/what is being harmed? Economic growth, without considering the effects, merely equates to industrial negligence - which is rife throughout the world. This is certainly true in the North, but is particularly so in the South where environmental and social regulations are either non-existent, or are very 'flexible'.
Talking about corporate efforts to take over the entire food system in India, Verdana Shiva writes:
For example, in a remote area of India, 300,000 village and small town youth joined hands to lock out a Pepsi plant - to say, we don’t want this for our future. No national paper carried it – only Hindi papers. BBC and CNN didn’t carry it either. But 300,000 people - that’s much larger than the protests in Seattle. It was a very large mobilization against the destruction of our food culture and the corporate takeover of our economy. And it’s no surprise that 300,000 youth in the streets are not news. That’s the point of globalization – that millions do not matter. Millions can be rendered invisible and voiceless. That is the violence of globalization.I see people lumping environmentalists in the handbasket labelled 'socialist', and ardent capitalists in the basket called 'democracy'. But, none of these terms are diametrically apposed, or inherently fused together. Democracy is about fairness, equality, everyone getting a voice and an opportunity to benefit from their labour and to aspire to happiness - a happiness that doesn't mean robbing others of their hope for the same, or robbing future generations (or our own) of a habitable planet. Corporate conquest operates in the absence of democracy - it is the essence of economic totalitarianism. This conquest is not only sanctioned, it's subsidised!I always say globalization can only thrive on the grave of democracy. So we ask the people in the North to discipline their governments and their corporations. Seattle was a start. We are strong enough to fight violence in our own societies ourselves. What we need you to do is stop your companies at home. Have a movement to stop Cargill from taking over our food system. You don’t have to come to India and tell us how our farmers should behave. You need to tell Cargill how it should behave. You need to tell your state department how it should behave. You need to tell your commerce department. The day you resurrect democracy in the U.S. – we resurrect democracy here. - An Interview with Vandana Shiva
Indian farmers protest against biotech giant Cargill
Kudos to Greenpeace for their work in slowing Cargill's destruction of the Amazon, and Amazonian communities. I hope Brazil's legal system finds the resolve to uphold the original ruling. I wish our own legal systems in the North would have a similar resolve.
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