Brazil's land reform agency emerges as big deforestation offender

Today, O Globo has an interesting story describing how the government's land resettlement agency Incra has racked up a record number of fines for deforestation this year.

The Incra is charged with helping provide land to rural squatters and strengthening patchy property titles in rural areas. It has resettled thousands of families throughout Brazil in efforts to provide the rural poor with not only land but also credit, technical skills and access to markets.

Soy and cows destroy the Amazon? So do cars and washing machines …

The frontier of the deforestation on the southeastern end of Brazil’s Amazon is steadily moving north, but the usual suspects – ranchers and farmers – are nowhere to be found. The big drivers here pig iron producers – a crowd you might not think about much, but are a key part of the vehicles and electrical appliances in our lives. In a complex global economy, understanding the environmental impact of our decisions involves digging further and further back into the supply chain and asking a lot of questions that don’t come up in day-to-day conversation.

Like for starters: What the hell is pig iron? And what on God’s green earth does it have to do with trees?