Greenpeace has alleged that Brazilian beef big JBS not directly bought cattle raised on protected indigenous land within the Amazon rainforest.
The animals have been allegedly reared within the Pequizal do Naruvôtu Indigenous Territory.
In response to Greenpeace, between 2018 and 2025, Brazilian agribusiness entrepreneur Mauro Fernando Schaedler transferred a minimum of 1,238 cattle from a farm overlapping with this territory to a different property with no recorded irregularities.
Greenpeace mentioned this switch was carried out to disguise the origin of the animals, a apply known as ‘cattle laundering’.
The activist group alleged that these animals have been later provided to 2 JBS slaughterhouses authorised for exports.
One of many amenities, situated in Água Boa, Mato Grosso state, obtained cattle from Fazenda Itapirana from February 2019 till February 2025. This slaughterhouse is authorised to export to locations together with Hong Kong.
The second slaughterhouse, in Barra do Garças, purchased cattle from Fazenda Itapirana between 2018 and 2021 and exported meat to a number of European nations throughout that interval.
JBS had not responded to Simply Meals’s request for touch upon the Greenpeace allegations on the time of writing.
In an announcement, Greenpeace mentioned the power “continues” to export to Europe “in the present day”, though it has not recognized knowledge displaying purchases from Fazenda Itapirana after July 2021.
“This investigation offers only one instance of how JBS and enormous firms revenue and develop from the absence of a complete, efficient and clear management system for his or her provide chain, which not directly helps environmental injury and the violation of constitutional rights and ensures, particularly the elemental rights of Indigenous Peoples in Brazil,” Greenpeace’s assertion learn.
The organisation urged European governments and parliamentarians to reject the EU-Mercosur commerce settlement to make sure the “swift utility” of the EU Deforestation Regulation.
The EU-Mercosur settlement is a commerce and cooperation deal between the EU and the Mercosur bloc, comprising Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, and finalised in a political settlement in December 2024.
Greenpeace mentioned the deal would improve meat import quotas from Brazil to the EU “with out assure that these imports are usually not linked to deforestation or violations of Indigenous Peoples’ rights”.
“Greenpeace hyperlinks JBS to cattle illegally raised in indigenous lands” was initially created and revealed by Simply Meals, a GlobalData owned model.