Authorities in Brazil trying to protect the Amazon from illegal deforestation have long relied on satellite images to alert them to areas that have been clear-cut or burned in a matter of days. Now, however, loggers are increasingly using a potent new tool that is much harder to detect, reports the New York Times: Chemical deforestation. If a plane dumps pesticides over a wide swath of forest, the trees will dry out slowly and die. Sometimes, a fire is then set to destroy the chemical remnants. The strategy is new enough that no government agency tracks chemical deforestation, but a major new criminal case has brought the practice into national focus.
A rancher named Claudecy Oliveira Lemes has been charged with one of the biggest environmental crimes in the nation—the destruction of more than 200,000 acres, reports Mongabay. Lemes, who denies the charges, is accused of spraying the herbicide 2,4-D, an ingredient in Agent Orange. He faces up to $1 billion in fines if convicted. For Americans, the crime may seem a distant one. However, Lemes supplies some of the biggest meatpackers in the world, including JBS, which exports to the US.
Authorities say he cleared part of his land with chemicals to make more room for cattle, which grazed on potentially contaminated ground. Lemes' land is located in a prized wetlands region known as the Pantanal. "We have no doubt that it's a very common practice," says Rodrigo Agostin of Brazil's environmental enforcement agency. "On the other hand, we have tremendous difficulty proving it." (More Amazon rainforest stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
