Ready meals and designer shoes fuelling destruction of the rainforest

British supermarkets are fuelling destruction of the rainforests by selling beef and leather goods from farms responsible for chopping down large areas of trees, according to a report by Greenpeace.

Louise Gray, The Telegraph 1 Jun 09;

The three-year investigation by the conservation charity claimed that Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, Morrisons and Marks and Spencer all have ready meals, pies or other products on their shelves containing beef raised on illegally cleared land in the Amazon.

Clothing companies including Gucci, Prada, Nike and Clarks Shoes also receive leather from farms that are destroying the rainforest and cosmetic companies including Unilever and Colgate buy tallow and gelatin for soap and other products, according to the report.

However, the supermarkets insisted yesterday they were careful not to source products from areas of Brazil where illegal deforestation was ongoing.

Greenpeace claimed the retailers were not carrying out sufficient checks on the supply chain and called on consumers to punish firms that continue to fuel destruction of the rainforest.

Deforestation is responsible for around a fifth of the world's carbon emissions and will be a key issue in plans to replace the Kyoto Protocol with a new international agreement on climate change in Copenhagen at the end of the this year.

At UN talks going on in Bonn, Germany this week, the UK Government will call for deforestation to be included in any climate change deal. The most likely option, that has been championed recently by the Prince of Wales, is to pay poorer countries not to chop down trees.

Greenpeace said the deal was no good while industry continues to buy beef from farms that are illegally clearing huge swathes of the rainforest. It is estimated a fifth of the Amazon rainforest has been lost to deforestation since 1970 largely as a result of cattle farming.

The report, entitled Slaughtering the Amazon, claimed three major companies Marfrig, JBS and Bertin all buy significant amounts of cattle from farms engaged in illegal deforestation – and all supply major retailers in the UK.

The supermarkets and other companies accused in the report, including Marks and Spencer and Sainsbury's, said that although they buy products from Brazil they do not accept anything that has been sourced from areas where farms are illegally cutting down trees.

Sarah Shoraka, Greenpeace forest campaigner, claimed supermarket checks only went as far as the processing plant and did not ensure the beef was not sourced from farms responsible for destroying the rainforest.

"Supermarkets need to take responsibility for their actions and then say they are not going to buy products that are destroying the rainforests," she said.

She said consumers can take action by refusing to buy goods that the charity has identified as containing beef from deforested areas and putting pressure on supermarkets to ensure none of their suppliers buy beef from farms clearing the Amazon.

Gucci and Prada use leather from the Rino Mastrotto Group and Gruppo Mastrotto, who receive regular supplies of leather from Bertin’s Lins and Cascavel facilities in Brazil.

Unilever and Colgate Palmolive use beef by-products such as tallow and gelatin for cosmetics, soap, detergents and pharmaceutical products supplied by Bertin.

Bertin said it would investigate and act on any evidence of “supplier irregularlity”.

Marfrig said it only bought cattle from farms not included on a Brazilian government prohibited list.

JBS was not available for comment.

Nike and Adidas said they would be be discussing the issue with Greenpeace. Clarks Shoes said its UK operation was phasing out Bertin leather and seeking ways to guarantee source.

A Unilever spokesman said: “We are an extremely small buyer of beef from Brazil and we have been assured by our suppliers that all the products they provide for us come from the south of the country and not from the Amazonian biome.

"Nevertheless, we take these issues extremely seriously and have initiated a thorough investigation with our Brazilian suppliers.”