FAIR
I spent last week in the Brazilian Amazon in Porto Velho, Rondonia, on the edge of what is called the arco do incendios. The “arc of fires” is a region stretching along the yet-to-be-paved highways 319 and 230, between the towns of Humaitá and Apui in Southern Amazonas, a state that still had 98% of its virgin rainforest intact as of last year.
It is a place where soy farmers and cattle ranchers connected to international corporate supply chains are ripping down and intentionally burning forest at record rates. Humaitá, where a group of ranchers and farmers in 2017 set fire to the headquarters of IBAMA, the environmental protection agency, has a new soy terminal in its river port.