Blogposts tagged 'Cattle'

Italian fashion: stylish and sophisticated, but unfortunately may be linked to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. As cattle ranching is responsible for about 80 per cent of deforestation in Brazil, it is likely that Brazilian shoe leather comes from areas of cleared rainforest. So a team of Greenpeace activists have set up an alternative photoshoot today outside a major industry event in Italy to remind the world's shoe and leather companies that we can't walk all over the Amazon.

Since we published the Slaughtering the Amazon report, the Amazon cattle campaign has moved rapidly, with shoe companies and cattle producers feeling the pressure from you, and changing the way they do business as a result. In this video Sarah explains the progress we've made so far, and check out www.greenpeace.org.uk/bertin for the recent news.

Frances puts her corned beef to one side for a momentFrances volunteers for our biodiversity campaigns and is next up in the blog relay, a whistle-stop tour of Greenpeace staff here in the UK. Click here to catch up on the other entries.

People sometimes ask me why I volunteer for Greenpeace. Well, let's see what I do and why.

As a volunteer on the forests and oceans campaigns, my job involves doing investigative research work. The work is pretty varied, and is a combination of doing desk research and getting out and about in the big wide world.

For example, as part of our Amazon work, I've been visiting various supermarkets, looking at whether we can link the beef products on their shelves back to companies who we know are involved in destroying the rainforests. Today, cattle farms occupy nearly 80 per cent of all deforested land in the Brazilian Amazon. Many of the beef products from these farms are sold on the world market. The Amazon doesn't belong on a supermarket shelf labelled as corned beef!

If you haven't had your fill of news from the Amazon lately (we've recently had live webcasts and slideshows from regions where fires have swept through), Monday's edition of Panorama is dedicated to the largest rainforest on Earth, and Greenpeace will featured.

Called Can Money Grow On Trees?, it will examine how the rising cost of food is threatening the Amazon as more forest is converted into farmland for cattle ranching - the current dry season provides an excellent opportunity for a bit of fire-based forest clearance. Also included will be the question of whether financial mechanisms (like our own proposal) can be brought in to make forests more valuable if they're left standing.

We haven't seen the final programme, but it's on BBC1 at 8.30pm, with a repeat on Friday 12 September at 12.45am. Of course, you can watch it at anytime on the wondrous iPlayer after transmission (although only if you're in the UK).