Realtime Deforestation Monitoring Report (RDM 15) – August 2023 

RDM 15 highlights eleven cases in the Cerrado and Amazon biomes, linked to both cattle and soy supply chains. These cases cover a total of 28,810 hectares of deforestation, 644 fire alerts, and more than 6 million tons of CO2 emissions. Several cases included are potentially non-compliant with the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), which entered into force in late June 2023. 

The report gathers cases of visually confirmed deforestation events occurring between April 2022 and July 2023 for which deforestation alerts were detected in July 2023. The eleven cases reported are located in the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso, Pará, Maranhão, and Bahia, and they have been connected, with different levels of certainty, to large soy traders, namely ADM, Amaggi, Bunge, Cargill, Cofco, LDC, and ALZ Grãos, and to large meatpackers, such as JBS, Minerva, and Marfrig. 

The EUDR prohibits commodities and products that have been produced in plots of land subjected to deforestation or forest degradation after 31 December 2020 from being placed in the EU market. Operators and traders that fail to comply with this requirement may face penalties once the core provisions of the law become applicable.  

The CO2 emissions reported refer to above-ground carbon emissions and they vary according to the type of vegetation cleared, the ratio of molecular weight of carbon dioxide to carbon, and the amount of vegetation hectares cleared (check the “methods & sources” section of the report for more detailed information).