Caught Red-Handed: Bunge and the Directors of Deforestation

The Brazilian Cerrado, known as the “birthplace of waters,” is the savannah with the greatest biodiversity in the world. This vast region is home to many communities of peasants, indigenous peoples, and quilombolas (Afro-Brazilian rural communities). But the relentless expansion of the soy industry is causing widespread ecosystem destruction and increasingly violent land conflicts between companies and local communities. 

Two new reports from Friends of the Earth and the Brazilian Network for Social Justice and Human Rights expose this destructive trend:

• Red Handed Deforestation and Bunge’s Silent Conquest: How Land-Grabbers and Soy Speculators Enable the Destruction of  Brazil’s Cerrado
• Industrial Soy Expansion in Brazil: Financialization, Deforestation, and Dispossession in the Birthplace of Waters

Friends of the Earth and Global Witness have also produced a shareholder briefing paper, urging Bunge’s shareholders to hold the company accountable by casting votes against the chair of Bunge’s board.

Over the last several decades more than one-third of the total area of the Cerrado has been deforested and much of this converted to soy plantations. The US-based agribusiness Bunge Limited, one of the world’s largest industrial food companies, controls much of the trade, processing, and sale of soy in the region – making Bunge a leading driver of Cerrado deforestation, both through its own plantations and through its control of the soy trade.

In 2021 shareholders in Bunge voted to support a resolution pressing the company to halt soy-driven deforestation in the Cerrado region. The resolution passed by a resounding 98% – showing that shareholders want to see real change at the company. But we have yet to see the company take appropriate action.

Bunge’s next annual shareholder meeting is on May 12, 2022. We are urging Bunge’s shareholders to vote against the company’s laggard Board of Directors at that meeting. With our partners at Global Witness we have produced a shareholder brief making the case for major shareholders in Bunge to VOTE NO to reinstate Bunge’s Board Chair for failing to address the urgency of the climate, deforestation and human rights crisis. 

You don’t have to be a big shareholder or a Wall Street insider to hold companies like Bunge accountable for destroying forests and the climate. 

WE have people power and when we act together to hold corporations accountable, Wall Street listens.