No more rainforest should die for British soybeans

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Rainforest is cleared for palm oil plantations - often illegally

Rainforest is being illegally cleared again and again for soy, palm oil and meat - Great Britain now wants to counter this by stopping sales. The Ministry of the Environment in London is planning a corresponding law, on which a public survey has been running since today.

When processing food, British companies would have to adhere to the local laws of the countries of origin and prove this - otherwise they would have to remove products from their range that could potentially endanger the rainforest when grown.

The proposal came at the beginning of the year from a committee of business representatives and environmental organizations. In its final report, the panel also called for a similar regulation for the financial sector. In this way, the government could prevent UK loans and investments from financing the deforestation. To date, however, there has been no legislative initiative.

According to the ministry, the current proposal would only affect a "relatively small number of larger companies" operating in the UK.

Greenpeace: Tesco should drop Brazilian meat producers

Large supermarket chains like Tesco are already under pressure in the UK: Greenpeace asked the company to stop buying from the Brazilian meat producer JBS. JBS is considered one of the biggest polluters in the South American rainforest. More than 150,000 people have signed a corresponding Greenpeace petition.

The organization criticized the current government proposal because it only refers to local environmental protection laws: In Brazil in particular, they are often insufficient, said Greenpeace activist Elena Polisano of the Bloomberg news agency.

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