- Finance is often portrayed as distant from environmental destruction, but in reality, it sits at the center: banks and investors decide which business models survive and which harms they will tolerate.
- Right now, a successful agreement called the Amazon Soy Moratorium, which has helped protect millions of hectares of forest by stopping major traders from buying soy grown on Amazon land deforested after 2008, is on the brink of collapse due to industry pressure — but banks can play a role in ensuring these traders stay in the pact and don’t let it unravel.
- “Financial institutions should make continued access to capital conditional on compliance with the moratorium’s core principles: no deforestation after 2008, full traceability, and zero tolerance for forest destruction in the Amazon biome,” a new op-ed argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
The Amazon Rainforest is approaching a dangerous threshold. Scientists warn that continued deforestation could push the world’s largest rainforest past a tipping point, transforming it into a degraded, fire-prone savanna that emits more carbon than it stores. One of the most effective barriers preventing that outcome is now being dismantled.
For nearly 20 years, the Amazon Soy Moratorium has helped protect millions of hectares of forest. It stopped major traders from buying soy grown on land deforested after 2008, breaking the link between agricultural expansion and forest destruction.
Earlier this month, following sustained lobbying and political pressure, Brazil’s leading soy industry association withdrew from the agreement, effectively collapsing a system that had become the backbone of responsible soy production in the Amazon.
The moratorium helped drive a nearly 70% reduction in deforestation across monitored regions, even as soy production soared. It proved that strong rules and monitoring, backed by market pressure, can protect forests while supporting livelihoods and economic growth.
If it collapses fully, the consequences will be devastating. Researchers estimate that Amazon deforestation could rise by 30% in the coming decades, wiping out years of progress and pushing the rainforest closer to irreversible collapse. That would release billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere and accelerate the climate and biodiversity crises already devastating communities worldwide.
The unraveling of the moratorium is not happening in isolation. It comes alongside delays and dilution of the European Union’s deforestation regulation and trade deals, including the Mercosur-EU agreement, that promise expanded agricultural exports without adequate safeguards. Together, these shifts signal to agribusiness that environmental limits can be negotiated away.
On the ground, the stakes are already visible.
Hundreds of Indigenous people have been protesting at a Cargill grain facility in Santarém, Pará state. They are opposing a federal decree that would open Amazon waterways, including the Tapajós River, to private concessions and expanded dredging without the free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) required under Brazilian law and international conventions. Indigenous leaders warn that the project would intensify shipping tied to soy and corn exports, increasing pressure on their territories and on one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth.
They chose to protest at Cargill’s facility because it symbolizes the export-driven agribusiness model reshaping the Amazon. Their message is clear: there is no climate credibility in expanding commodity corridors while Indigenous rights are sidelined and forests are placed at risk.
This story is not only about Brazil or traders. It is about power and who chooses to exercise it.
Global banks have poured tens of billions of dollars into Brazil’s soy sector in recent years. Those financial institutions enable the expansion of supply chains that stretch from Amazon farms to supermarket shelves across Europe, China and North America. They cannot claim neutrality as the rules that protected forests are stripped away and infrastructure projects accelerate export expansion deeper into the basin.
Consumers increasingly expect the food they buy to be free from deforestation and human rights abuse. European retailers and food companies have reaffirmed their commitment to the soy moratorium because their customers demand it. But those promises ring hollow if banks continue financing traders and infrastructure operators that abandon the agreement’s safeguards or benefit from projects that threaten Indigenous territories.
Finance is often portrayed as distant from environmental destruction. In reality, it sits at the center. Banks and investors decide which business models survive and which harms they will tolerate. They can reward companies that uphold forest protections and respect Indigenous rights or bankroll those that dismantle them.
This moment demands leadership. Financial institutions should make continued access to capital conditional on compliance with the moratorium’s core principles: no deforestation after 2008, full traceability, and zero tolerance for forest destruction in the Amazon biome. They should also require demonstrable respect for Indigenous peoples’ right to FPIC before financing projects that expand export infrastructure through their territories.
The Amazon Soy Moratorium showed that market-based initiatives can protect nature when profit is aligned with responsibility. Allowing it to collapse would send a chilling message: that even the most successful environmental agreements are disposable when industry pressure mounts.
The Indigenous leaders gathered in Santarém are reminding the world that the Amazon is not an abstraction or a line item in a trade balance. It is home to tens of thousands of people. It is climate stability for our planet. Its health is critical for our collective future.
The Amazon cannot afford for its last lines of defense to disappear. Neither can the world. Banks must act now, before the damage becomes irreversible.
Ginger Cassady is Rainforest Action Network’s executive director.
Banner image: Highway BR-163 stretches between the Tapajos National Forest, left, and a soy field in Belterra, Para state, Brazil. Image by AP Photo/Leo Correa.
See related coverage:
Amazon deforestation may rise 30% as major traders exit historic soy pact
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