{"id":9372,"date":"2022-11-23T12:51:45","date_gmt":"2022-11-23T12:51:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=9372"},"modified":"2022-11-23T12:51:45","modified_gmt":"2022-11-23T12:51:45","slug":"some-people-launder-money-other-people-launder-cattle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=9372","title":{"rendered":"Some people launder money. Other people launder cattle."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“year after year, satellites that monitor changes in forest cover find the same thing: The Amazon is shrinking. Between August 1, 2018, and July 31, 2021, more than 34,000 square km<\/a> (8.4 million acres) disappeared from the Brazilian Amazon. That\u2019s an area larger than the entire nation of Belgium, and a 52 percent increase compared to the previous three years.”
…
“In a cattle laundering scheme, ranchers move cattle from \u201cdirty\u201d ranches, which contribute to deforestation, to ranches that are \u201cclean,\u201d with no recent forest loss. By the time those cattle arrive at slaughterhouses, the path they\u2019ve taken is obscured, as is the damage they\u2019ve caused.”
…
“Most major meatpackers and slaughterhouses \u2014 which influence the entire beef supply chain \u2014 screen the cattle they buy for deforestation. Ranchers that sell to them, known as direct suppliers, provide the location of their farms. And the meatpacking companies hire consultants to check those locations for any recent forest loss, using data collected by satellites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this screening process misses a lot \u2014 perhaps even the majority of deforestation in the beef supply chain \u2014 undermining the integrity of their zero-deforestation pledges.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“according to decade-old agreements, major meatpackers in Brazil can only buy clean cattle: cows that come from land without any recent deforestation. The problem is, there are several ways to make cattle look clean, even when they\u2019re not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most common way is pretty simple and takes advantage of the complex beef supply chain. A single cow could travel through as many as 10 farms before it\u2019s ultimately killed; it might be born on one, reared on another, and fattened on a third, all before reaching a slaughterhouse.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“slaughterhouses only tend to assess their direct suppliers, the last stop on the cow\u2019s journey.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If small teams of outside researchers can pinpoint the source of forest loss along supply chains, it seems as though giant corporations should be able to as well. Remember, it has been more than 10 years since they committed to source clean cattle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While some experts fault meatpackers for not doing more, rooting out forest loss among indirect suppliers is actually quite challenging. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin, who first figured out how to do this, spent years developing computer programs to download records stored in clunky government systems. They then have to clean them up, link key bits of data together, and run the analysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These records are not designed to make cattle supply chains traceable, they just happen to serve that function if you know what you\u2019re doing. \u201cIt requires a lot of computational expertise,\u201d Brand\u00e3o said. It\u2019s not like meatpacking companies are just ignoring deforestation right in front of their eyes.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“there isn\u2019t a huge incentive for meatpacking companies to solve this problem in the first place, some experts say. If they choose not to buy from any ranches linked to deforestation, they\u2019ll have a much smaller supply”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Ultimately, to put an end to cattle laundering, meat companies would need to monitor the movement of individual cows, Gibbs said. \u201cIf we wanted to end laundering, we would need animal-level traceability,\u201d Gibbs said. \u201cUntil we keep track of the individual animals, some level of laundering will keep happening.\u201d”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/science-and-health\/2022\/10\/19\/23403330\/amazon-rainforest-deforestation-cattle-laundering<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“year after year, satellites that monitor changes in forest cover find the same thing: The Amazon is shrinking. Between August 1, 2018, and July 31, 2021, more than 34,000 square km (8.4 million acres) disappeared from the Brazilian Amazon. That\u2019s an area larger than the entire nation of Belgium, and a 52 percent increase compared to the previous three years.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“In a cattle laundering scheme, ranchers move cattle from \u201cdirty\u201d ranches, which contribute to deforestation, to ranches that are \u201cclean,\u201d with no recent forest loss. By the time those cattle arrive at slaughterhouses, the path they\u2019ve taken is obscured, as is the damage they\u2019ve caused.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Most major meatpackers and slaughterhouses \u2014 which influence the entire beef supply chain \u2014 screen the cattle they buy for deforestation. Ranchers that sell to them, known as direct suppliers, provide the location of their farms. And the meatpacking companies hire consultants to check those locations for any recent forest loss, using data collected by satellites.
\nBut this screening process misses a lot \u2014 perhaps even the majority of deforestation in the beef supply chain \u2014 undermining the integrity of their zero-deforestation pledges.” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“according to decade-old agreements, major meatpackers in Brazil can only buy clean cattle: cows that come from land without any recent deforestation. The problem is, there are several ways to make cattle look clean, even when they\u2019re not.<\/p>\n

The most common way is pretty simple and takes advantage of the complex beef supply chain. A single cow could travel through as many as 10 farms before it\u2019s ultimately killed; it might be born on one, reared on another, and fattened on a third, all before reaching a slaughterhouse.” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“slaughterhouses only tend to assess their direct suppliers, the last stop on the cow\u2019s journey.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“If small teams of outside researchers can pinpoint the source of forest loss along supply chains, it seems as though giant corporations should be able to as well. Remember, it has been more than 10 years since they committed to source clean cattle.<\/p>\n

While some experts fault meatpackers for not doing more, rooting out forest loss among indirect suppliers is actually quite challenging. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin, who first figured out how to do this, spent years developing computer programs to download records stored in clunky government systems. They then have to clean them up, link key bits of data together, and run the analysis.<\/p>\n

These records are not designed to make cattle supply chains traceable, they just happen to serve that function if you know what you\u2019re doing. \u201cIt requires a lot of computational expertise,\u201d Brand\u00e3o said. It\u2019s not like meatpacking companies are just ignoring deforestation right in front of their eyes.” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“there isn\u2019t a huge incentive for meatpacking companies to solve this problem in the first place, some experts say. If they choose not to buy from any ranches linked to deforestation, they\u2019ll have a much smaller supply”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Ultimately, to put an end to cattle laundering, meat companies would need to monitor the movement of individual cows, Gibbs said. \u201cIf we wanted to end laundering, we would need animal-level traceability,\u201d Gibbs said. \u201cUntil we keep track of the individual animals, some level of laundering will keep happening.\u201d”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[453,107,103,1765,102],"class_list":["post-9372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-amazon","tag-brazil","tag-environment","tag-forest","tag-trees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9372"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9373,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9372\/revisions\/9373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}