Realtime Deforestation Monitoring Report (RDM 17) – October 2023

RDM 17 brings a special analysis of fire events, highlighting eight cases linked to soy supply chains in the Cerrado and Amazon biomes. These cases gathered a total of 19,003 hectares of deforestation, 1,288 fire alerts, and around 3.5 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 deforestation events associated with the cases included in this report have been visually confirmed as having occurred between June and September 2023.

As a special report focused on fire events, the cases were selected on the basis of the fire alerts detected in August 2023. The eight cases reported are located in the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso, Piauí, and Maranhão, and they have been linked, with different levels of certainty, to large soy traders, namely Amaggi, Bunge, Cargill, Cofco, and LDC. Some of the cases also shows links to beef supply chains, namely with the large meatpackers JBS and Marfrig.

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).

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.