- Mongabay spoke with various stakeholders across Brazil’s political spectrum on what the possible unraveling of the Amazon Soy Moratorium, a key zero-deforestation agreement, may mean for Indigenous peoples and their lands.
- Most Indigenous leaders say a weakening or end to the moratorium will increase deforestation, pollution and invasions of their lands — as satellite imagery points to advancing forest loss near one territory — while a few leaders see this as an economic opportunity that will allow them to sell soy farmed on their lands without any penalties.
- As cracks form in the 20-year-old moratorium, the environment ministry says existing deforestation policies still stand and that given potential impacts on Indigenous lands, environmental enforcement and control mechanisms remain active and strengthened.
- The government of the state of Mato Grosso says the moratorium created an unfair legal framework, while soy industry association Abiove said Brazil can still maintain high socioenvironmental standards without it. Both did not address whether there are potential impacts on Indigenous lands.
BRASÍLIA — Indigenous leaders and researchers in Brazil say an end to a key zero-deforestation agreement, the Amazon Soy Moratorium, will increase deforestation around Indigenous lands and encourage the invasion of their territories for soy farming. Already, some are pointing to forest loss advancing near one Indigenous land following efforts to curtail the agreement.
Meanwhile, a few Indigenous leaders are seeing an economic opportunity as companies pull out of the agreement. Members in communities that sell soy farmed on their lands say they already do so sustainably and that the agreement unfairly penalizes their product.
Mongabay spoke with stakeholders across various sectors, from Indigenous leaders and corporate entities, to conservationists and government officials — people across Brazil’s political spectrum — to get their take on what the possible dissolution of the moratorium may mean for Indigenous peoples and their lands in the Amazon.
The moratorium is a voluntary pact between companies, public agencies and NGOs to reduce deforestation in the Amazon. Participants agree to ban from their supply chains any soy produced in areas of the Amazon deforested after July 2008. While the expansion of soy farms grew by 361% from 2006 to 2023 as farmers prioritized converting already cleared lands, fresh deforestation in the Amazon for soy farms dramatically dropped to 1% in the first 10 years after the agreement came into force in 2006.
The results had been hailed by various sectors as one of the most positive experiences in combating deforestation in the country by protecting forests while allowing agriculture expansion.
However, over the past two years, right-wing political leaders started pushing for an end to the moratorium through legal proceedings. This political pressure gained support from the National Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock (CNA), a powerful agribusiness lobbying group, under the assertion that rural producers in the Amazon already produce sustainably.
Earlier this year, the Brazilian Association of Vegetable Oil Industries (Abiove), which represents 18 companies including commodities giants such as Bunge, Cargill, Cofco and Amaggi, announced its withdrawal from the pact. Abiove, along with another signatory, the National Association of Cereal Exporters (Anec), “account for approximately 90% of the soybean market in the Amazon,” according to a report by the agreement’s monitoring group. Anec has not yet announced its departure from the agreement, but 13 of its 24 members are also part of Abiove.
A study by the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM) suggests that if the moratorium collapses, cumulative deforestation by 2045 could be 30% higher than the total recorded up to 2024. Two of Brazil’s Amazonian states, Amazonas and Acre, would be the most impacted, with deforestation there rising by 114% and 70%, respectively.
Most Indigenous leaders say they view the abandonment of the moratorium with concern, particularly for lands in the Amazon not yet demarcated. Chief Taú Metuktire, a Kayapó Indigenous leader and grandson of the famed Indigenous leader Raoni Metuktire, told Mongabay that the possible end of the moratorium “is worrying.”
“We, the leaders, don’t want this … nowadays, there are many soybean plantations around our territories. And there are rivers that come from our territories, pass through farms, pass through soybean plantations, corn and other plantations,” he said. “The poison [pesticides] they are spraying on the plants, during this rainy season, will enter the river. We, Indigenous people, consume water that comes from farms, we [will] have diarrhea [and] various types of diseases.”
Last June, Taú went to Paris on a campaign to defend the moratorium with campaign groups the Earthworm Foundation, Mighty Earth and Planète Amazone.
For Alessandra Korap Munduruku, an Indigenous leader from Pará state and recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2023, the dissolution or possible end of the moratorium is linked to other actions in the rural sector pushing to clear more rainforest for soy farms.
According to Alessandra, three initiatives — the end of the moratorium, dredging and privatization of the Tapajós River, and the construction of the Ferrogrão railway to transport grains — should provide an unprecedented boost to soy production across a large swath of the Amazon.
A giant in the soybean industry, Cargill built a soy terminal on the banks of the Tapajós River in Santarém, Pará, to export soybeans produced in southern Pará and northern Mato Grosso state. In 2018, an expansion project undertaken at the port more than doubled its shipping capacity to 4.9 million metric tons per year.
In a demonstration against a decree — now revoked — allowing dredging and privatization without properly consulting Indigenous communities, about 1,000 Indigenous people protested in Santarém and occupied part of the Cargill terminal. Alessandra, who participated in the occupation, told Mongabay by phone that the end of the moratorium is part of the same “death project” and makes Indigenous lands more vulnerable to unsustainable agribusiness.
“They [soybean farmers] already invade, but now they will be very clear, they will invade even more,” she said. “When they leave [the moratorium], they don’t even care. They want land, they want to deforest, they want to kill. The important thing is to profit from the traditional peoples.”
Another point of concern for Indigenous leaders and environmentalists with the end of the moratorium is the possibility of other Indigenous peoples, such as the Paresi, Nambikwara and Manoki of Mato Grosso, embarking on soy cultivation themselves or expanding plantations in the Amazon where soy farming is already normalized.
Paresi leader Arnaldo Zunizakae told Mongabay that his community already cultivates 17,800 hectares (44,000 acres) of soy on the 564,000-hectare (1.39-million-acre) Pareci Indigenous Territory. Another 2,200 hectares (5,400 acres) are planted in lands neighboring the Nambikwara and Manoki peoples. He said that “more than 3,000” Indigenous people benefit from soy farming in the region.
Unlike most Indigenous leaders who have spoken publicly on the issue, Zunizakae said he considers the end of the moratorium a good thing.
“The soy moratorium, for us, is an obstacle because it hinders — despite us having all these [government] authorizations — the legal commercialization of our product. So, even though we have all these regulated activities, it makes us look like criminals when it comes to selling our product,” he said. “And this prevents us from accessing the international market.
“We are forced to sell our soy clandestinely here, even putting at risk the companies that buy our production. Although we meet all the social and environmental requirements, we are forced to plant only conventional soy; our production is sold here clandestinely, to crushers, to feed producers.”
Zunizakae said the moratorium, though it made soy more valuable to foreign traders, penalized small producers, including Indigenous people who depend on this production for a better quality of life. The government, he said, only provides a meager assistance.
The Paresi leader said he believes there’s no environmental risk from increased farming on their territory because they have a territorial management plan that’s valid for 40 more years.
“It includes [designated] hunting areas, fishing areas, gathering areas, sacred areas, traditional areas, and areas for mechanized farming. We have a plan within a maximum of 50 years — if we have the financial means to expand — to reach 50,000 hectares [or about 124,000 acres, of protected land inside the territory]. So, there is no danger of environmental imbalance due to the end of the [Amazon] Soy Moratorium.”
Last year, through IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental protection agency, the federal government granted the Paresi people an operating license for “agricultural activities to be carried out by cooperatives of Indigenous peoples, within the established conditions,” according to a statement sent by the agency to Mongabay.
The case of the Paresi is frequently highlighted by right-wing politicians as an example other Indigenous peoples should follow. In late February, Mato Grosso Governor Mauro Mendes, a supporter of former president Jair Bolsonaro, said in video on Instagram that the Paresi are “an example that we need to follow with other ethnic groups, including all Indigenous people in Brazil.” He added that “besides liking asphalt, they [the Paresi] like to work.”
In parallel with the political movements aimed at weakening the moratorium, in 2024 the Mendes state administration sanctioned a law approved by the state legislature that made it more difficult for companies participating in the moratorium to access tax incentives.
But Greenpeace Brazil underlines that potential impacts on Indigenous lands and the environment indeed exist. The NGO denounced the state law as “a defense of deforesters, tarnishes Brazil’s image, and undermines the federal government’s efforts toward zero deforestation,” a commitment announced by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for the beginning of 2030.
Ana Clis Ferreira, spokesperson at Greenpeace Brazil, told Mongabay that the end of the moratorium expands grain production already driven by supporting infrastructure projects in Mato Grosso and Pará.
“It is very clear from the rural lobby the attempt to open Indigenous lands to private capital and, in some cases, especially the Indigenous lands of the Cerrado and Lavrado, which are the natural savanna areas,” she said.
Maurício Voivodic, executive director of WWF Brasil, said that experts “are already seeing deforestation increase” in Mato Grosso, following the enactment of the tax incentive law that undermines the moratorium. He said he believes the moratorium will come to an end.
According to Voivodic, the federal government’s satellite monitoring system, PRODES, detected that deforestation decreased in the Amazon last year, “except in the state of Mato Grosso, which was the only one that registered an increase.”
This deforestation is consuming areas surrounding Indigenous territories, such as Xingu Indigenous Park, a frontier of soybean deforestation, he said, while under the moratorium such deforestation was largely interrupted.
“If deforestation increases there, in the forests that still exist outside the Xingu Indigenous Park, in the headwaters of the Xingu River, [it] directly affects the villages and Indigenous territories of the Xingu,” he told Mongabay. “Because it affects the headwaters, it will compromise the quality and volume of water in the Xingu River downstream.”
In a statement to Mongabay, Brazil’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change said it recognized the end of the moratorium may generate greater pressure on already deforested areas in the Amazon; shift farming to new areas; and expand deforestation vectors. Given these potential impacts, “monitoring will continue to be intensified with reinforced territorial enforcement and control actions.” For Indigenous lands, “environmental enforcement and credit control mechanisms remain active and strengthened.”
The ministry stated that the eventual end of the moratorium will not weaken “public policies for command and control of deforestation and the promotion of sustainable production.” (Because the moratorium is a voluntary pact, the federal government doesn’t have the authority to enforce it.) The ministry also called for economic instruments that discourage deforestation, encourage the use of already cleared lands for farming, and add greater value addition to soy.
“The experience of the moratorium demonstrated that it is possible to reconcile agricultural expansion and environmental conservation,” the ministry said. “The agreement contributed to consolidating Brazil’s image as a reliable supplier of soy produced without deforestation and without socio-environmental violations.”
In a statement to Mongabay, the government of Mato Grosso said the moratorium creates a “parallel law” that goes beyond Brazil’s Forest Code, which is the highest authority on what constitutes legal land use, and punishes producers who don’t comply with Brazilian legislation.
The Mato Grosso state environmental department, or SEMA, said an end to the moratorium “should not generate impacts” and that “strategies that segregate those who comply with the law are not socially just, nor do they consistently strengthen environmental governance.”
“The strategy adopted by the Government of Mato Grosso to ensure compliance with existing regulations, with robust oversight, accountability, and firm action against environmental crimes, has proven effective in controlling deforestation,” SEMA said.
Regarding potential impacts on Indigenous lands, the department said that “the State of Mato Grosso has no jurisdiction over Indigenous lands; federal agencies are responsible for operations in these areas.”
In a statement to Mongabay, Abiove said the moratorium consolidated Brazil as a global reference for sustainable production. But the industry association didn’t provide an official response to a question about potential impacts on Indigenous lands.
Abiove also said it trusts the existing legislation and guidelines will ensure that Brazilian soy maintains its high socioenvironmental standards.
“The legacy of monitoring and the expertise acquired over almost 20 years will not be lost,” an Abiove spokesperson said. “There will be individual attention given to the rigorous demands of global markets, with equal confidence in the Brazilian authorities for the full implementation of a new regulatory framework.”
Meanwhile, many Indigenous leaders are celebrating the revocation of the decree that would have allowed dredging works in the Tapajós River for year-round transportation of soy. According to Alessandra Korap Munduruku, Indigenous peoples show that they can produce very well, without additional deforestation.
“For us, the Munduruku, there’s no way to deforest, kill the river, doing what the non-Indigenous people want because profit is good,” she said. “We are fighting to keep the forest standing. We still guarantee water to drink, we guarantee the forest is standing.”
Mongabay contacted Cargill, the Brazilian president’s office, the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples and the federal Indigenous affairs agency (Funai) for comment, but none had responded by the time this story was published.
Banner image: A fisherman is silhouetted as he casts his net into the Tapajos River in Santarem, Para state, 2020. Image by AP Photo/Andre Penner.
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