95bFM Report: Largest meat processing company in the world, JBS, will fail to meet deforestation targets
24 April, 2025
Interview by Oto Sequeira, adapted by Samantha Watson-Tayler
A new investigation, conducted by The Guardian, Reporter Brasil, and Unearthed, shows that Brazilian meat processing corporation JBS; the largest meat processing company on Earth, will fail to meet its commitments to zero deforestation farming.
This follows the corporation’s 2020 commitment to achieve zero deforestation by 2025, using a monitoring system for suppliers to reach this target.
JBS operates in the Amazon Rainforest, with many concerned about the environmental impacts the corporation is having in the area. This includes illegal deforestation, the mistreatment of livestock, and the spreading of zoonotic diseases.
Senior Campaign Manager for Greenpeace Aotearoa, Amanda Larsson, told 95bFM’s The Wire that protecting the Amazon is vital, due to its importance in the ecosystem.
“The Amazon rainforest produces a microclimate and there are fears that if it loses a certain percentage of its mass as a biome that that microclimate will change, affect[ing] its ability to function as the lungs of the Earth, we often call the Amazon; the ability to produce oxygen, and to regulate the earth's climate.”
Larsson says these findings come as the Global Climate Change Conference will occur in Belém in the Brazilian Amazon in November this year.
“[The conference will be] taking place against the backdrop of forest fires.”
“Deforestation is mainly driven by the livestock industry and JBS clearly, despite its green pledges, has no intention of reducing its production and stopping that expansion into the rainforest,” she says.
Larsson says Greenpeace Brazil had attempted to solve the problem directly with JBS, however, ended these discussions after JBS repeatedly failed to deliver on promises and has been mired in corruption scandals.
She says at the conference, Greenpeace will be calling on international governments to end livestock expansion, holding livestock producers and their financial enablers to account.
“[Greenpeace] have a global petition calling on governments to protect the Amazon, and we will be presenting all of the kinds of voices and messages at the conference in the Amazon.”
