Today (22nd April) is Earth Day, an annual event that focuses on protecting the environment. Since it was first held in 1970, environmental awareness and action has grown significantly. But our planet is still at risk, often from some very surprising things. In fact, did you know that the gold in your phone, the avocados in your kitchen and even your morning cup of coffee could be having a negative impact on places and people elsewhere in the world? Click or scroll through to see the impact that in-demand products are having on the countries in which they’re produced.
Beef is big business in Brazil, and the country exported 2.02 million tonnes of it in 2020, which is an 8% increase on the previous year, according to the Brazilian beef industry association Abrafrigo. China was the main importer of Brazilian beef, followed by Egypt, and the association anticipates a further 5% increase in Brazil’s export volume this year. Yet the industry is responsible for clearing swathes of forest: around 80% of total deforestation in the Amazon is attributed to cattle ranching. Cattle pastures have other detrimental impacts including increasing the risk of fire, contributing to soil erosion, contaminating organic matter and degrading waterways.
An investigation by the Guardian newspaper, Repórter Brasil and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that, in 2018, an illegal farm owned by a Brazilian agribusiness called AgroSB had been supplying cattle to the world’s biggest meatpacker, JBS. In response to the investigation, a JBS spokesperson told the Guardian: “The facts pointed out do not correspond to the standards and processes adopted by the Company.” It's not the first time JBS has got into trouble over its beef supply; in 2017 the business was fined $7.7 million (£5.9m) for buying cattle from farms that had embargoed areas, including another farm owned by AgroSB.
Read more about the effects of beef in Brazil, and the big money battle to control the Amazon here
One of the most valuable substances on earth, diamonds can cause trouble in the countries in which they’re found. Take Zimbabwe for instance. In 2001, diamonds were first discovered in Marange, eastern Zimbabwe, leading to a period of trade so violent that the diamonds came to be known as 'blood diamonds'. In 2003, governments across the world established the Kimberly Process (KP), which was aimed at controlling the export and import of diamonds following the wars in Africa caused by their trade.
Yet the KP has been ineffective in stopping conflict, according to Human Rights Watch. In May 2018, the organisation reported that locals had been subjected to forced labour and torture, while people protesting against the alleged looting of diamond revenue by state companies were met with tear gas from government security officers. Due to a loophole in the KP, which restricts the sale of diamonds from armed groups but not from government military forces, the export of Zimbabwean diamonds is allowed even though the conditions in which they’re mined are abusive. In early 2020 the Zimbabwean government declined to join the international Extractive Transparency Industries Initiative, which works towards transparency and accountability in mining.
This oil-rich country ultimately fell victim to the resource curse, as its government focused too heavily on oil at the expense of other industries. In 2014, a global crash in oil prices – falling from a peak of $115 (£88) per barrel in June 2014 to under $35 (£27) in early 2016 – increased inflation of the Venezuelan bolívar, which the government responded to by printing more money. But this only made matters worse. In 2016 the rate of inflation reached 800% and the government declared a state of emergency. By August 2019 inflation had reached 10,000,000%. While January 2020 saw the country's economy recover a little, the coronavirus pandemic and the global fall in oil prices in February and March last year put oil-dependent Venezuela in a very difficult position. This was exacerbated by the US's continued sanctions, and the departure of Russian oil company Rosneft, a key partner to the country's oil industry.
Meanwhile Venezuela’s GDP has plummeted, dropping 25% in 2019, and the IMF has predicted it would fall a further 15% in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, and by a further 10% in 2021. This is a massive blow considering that, until 2014, it had been one of South America’s fastest-growing economies. This has thrust much of the population into poverty – many people cannot afford food, while at least four million have fled the country. As the government had focused all its energies on oil, farmers couldn’t obtain the resources they badly needed and the food supply ran short.
Global demand for almonds is increasing rapidly. In the 2019/20 season 1.48 million tonnes were produced, which was a 9.9% increase on the previous year and a 41.7% increase on production seven years before, according to data published by Statista. America is by far the world’s biggest almond-producing country, providing around 80% of the global total. The Vitamin E-rich nut overtook the peanut as the most-eaten nut in the US in 2014, as people have reacted to the health benefits of the almond, and plant-based diets grow more popular. Yet the nuts are being grown in areas pinpointed by meteorologists as suffering from “extreme drought” and, with each nut taking a massive 1.1 gallons of water to grow, the problem is worsening.
US farmers are doing all they can to get hold of water and grow this lucrative crop. This usually involves importing snowmelt from the northern Sierra Nevada, although many farmers are now being cut off from these sources by the state. Instead, they’re resorting to pumping groundwater, which can cause damage to aquifers. Another knock-on effect of the demand for almonds is the impact it’s having on America’s bees. Most commercial beekeepers in the US rely on sending their hives to pollinate the nut trees because it’s more lucrative than selling honey, but the creatures are dying in record numbers due to exposure to pesticides, parasites and habitat loss as a result of the burgeoning almond industry.
Not just a bright blue metal, this in-demand material is an essential part of lithium-ion batteries, which we use in phones, tablets, laptops, electric vehicles and more. It is also a key material in semiconductor chips, of which there has been a global shortage as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, further driving up the demand for cobalt. Sadly, the material fuelling the energy-storage movement and the technology revolution comes at a human cost. More than 60% of the world’s supply is mined in the so-called “cobalt belt” in the south-eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where children as young as six are forced to work and earn as little as $0.65 (50p) per day. The issue is widespread, with an estimated 35,000 children working in these conditions, as well as being subjected to the risk of landslides and lack of protective clothing.
Organisations such as Amnesty International are calling for increased regulation and transparency, after publishing a report in 2016 which claimed major car companies including BMW, Tesla and General Motors had failed to carry out due diligence of their cobalt supply chains. In late 2019, a landmark lawsuit was brought against Apple, Dell, Microsoft, Google and Tesla by 14 families of Congolese children who claim they were killed or injured while mining for cobalt for mining company Glencore further down the supply chain. Glencore denies the claims. Steps are being made in the right direction though. In November 2020 Swiss commodity trading company Trafigura signed a deal with the DRC government to help develop a formalised, regulated mining sector in the country, following the establishment of Entreprise Générale du Cobalt (General Cobalt Company) in February last year, which claims it will “eliminate child labour… eliminate labour by pregnant women and…eliminate fraud in this sector so that the cobalt (...) will be responsible cobalt,” according to state mining company chair Albert Yuma.
The world’s favourite sweet treat has a dark side – and we’re not talking about cocoa content. In the Ivory Coast, which supplies almost a third of cocoa beans for the world’s chocolate market, around 88% of farmers don’t make a living wage, defined by Fairtrade International as at least $2.50 (£1.90) a day. Yet the country has a complicated relationship with cocoa, the lucrative resource off the back of which schools, hospitals, homes and crucial infrastructure have been built. As well as paying unfair wages, cocoa growing in the region is unsustainable. The crop is often grown on protected areas, with a 2017 investigation by environmental organisation Mighty Earth showing that nearly half of Mont Péko National Park and Marahoué National Park have been lost to cocoa planting since 2000.
The COVID-19 crisis has also affected farmers’ ability to sell their beans and many went on strike in January this year to protest against the lack of government support. Farmers had received an increase in pay for the main harvest in 2020 as regulators attempted to improve wages, but this proved unsustainable in the current climate and farmers will see their mid-crop pay docked by 25% compared to last year because of the excess of cocoa beans on the market. But Fairtrade is continuing to work with cocoa farmers to increase wages and make farming more sustainable, with many big brands including Starbucks, Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s using Fairtrade cocoa in their products.
It might sound like an obscure chemical, but phosphate plays an essential role in global food production. The white powder is used in synthetic fertiliser, providing essential nutrients to soils, and 75% of the global supply can be found in Morocco and Western Sahara. Morocco has asserted sovereignty over Western Sahara since 1975 but the claim isn’t internationally recognised, meaning that it remains a self-governing territory. And phosphate is at the heart of this conflict.
On top of that, the material could present risks to miners’ health. At the moment, there is a lack of studies showing the link between phosphate mining and work-related illnesses. Yet a Greenpeace report states: “Some rock phosphate fertilisers contain small amounts of the heavy metal cadmium”, which is “highly toxic to humans”. The report also linked phosphate mining areas to “appreciable quantities of uranium”. Both heavy metals are associated with cancer, kidney failure and bone disease.
Used in everything from margarine to cookies, palm oil is to the food industry what plastic is to the packaging world: incredibly useful and versatile, yet deeply problematic. Global production has been growing steadily for decades, from 15.2 million tonnes in 1995 to 76 million tonnes in 2019, and it’s expected to quadruple again by 2050. Some 85% of the world’s palm oil comes from Indonesia and Malaysia, and while it has helped people earn more, especially in rural communities, there is a dark side. In these two nations, growth of the crop is linked to slash-and-burn agriculture, in other words the use of fire to clear land for farming. Since 1973, palm oil has been linked to a fifth of total deforestation in Borneo, an island which Malaysia and Indonesia share, putting endangered species such as orangutans in danger.
The industry is also associated with human rights abuses including child labour, with children as young as eight allegedly working in palm oil production. In fact, in January the US banned palm oil imports from Sime Darby, a Malaysian producer, due to allegations of forced labour. And in April, Sri Lanka also banned palm oil imports and ordered that its own palm plantations be destroyed. That said, in Malaysia and Indonesia very little is being done to combat the devastating effects of palm oil production. In fact, last October, Indonesia passed a jobs creation bill, widely referred to as the Omnibus Law, which actually reverses lots of plantation legislation that had been protecting the environment. Now there is no need to obtain environmental permits and submit risk assessments when starting most new agricultural projects. The new law also means that those who are found not to be protecting the environment and lacking in essential firefighting equipment while working will not lose their permit.
The world is going nuts for cashews: they’re expected to take over 29% of the global nut market in 2021, according to market insight platform Tridge. Vietnam is the biggest exporter, accounting for 60% of worldwide cashew exports, yet the trade is mired in alleged human rights abuses. In order to separate cashew nuts from their shells, workers have to use cardol and anarcardic acid, which cause burns when they come into contact with bare skin – and many workers aren’t given gloves.
That wasn't the only major issue with this industry. In 2011, a Human Rights Watch report claimed that workers from drug detention centres were employed at forced labour centres, shelling nuts for six or seven hours a day and being beaten if they refused to work. However, thanks to pressure from activists, the Vietnamese government reports that cashew processing is no longer taking place at these centres.
Promoted by nutritionists as a balanced, plant-based protein source, demand for quinoa has skyrocketed in the past decade – so much so that 2013 was nicknamed the “International Year of Quinoa” by the UN. Peru is the biggest producer, exporting $125 million (£95m) of the grain in 2018, followed by Bolivia and Ecuador. Although the boom provided initial benefits to farmers, the 500% increase in price for the grain between 2005 and 2014 priced locals out of a food they used to rely on.
Due to the demands of the global market, there’s been a big reduction in the number of varieties cultivated, as many people prefer light-coloured, large grain quinoa. That means that traditional mixed farming methods, which keep soil fertile, are being axed in favour of more intensive methods, which increase pesticide usage and do away with soil-friendly crop rotation.
The world can’t get enough soy, with demand for the versatile bean increasing 15-fold since the 1950s. While some of it is used for food products such as soy milk and meat substitutes, nearly 80% of the world’s soybeans are fed to livestock. Brazil is the second biggest producer after the US, and even though converting Amazon forest into soy plantations has been illegal since 2006, thanks to an international agreement called the Amazon Soy Moratorium (ASM), other regions in the country, such as the biodiverse Cerrado savannah, are not protected. More than 6,500 square miles (17,000 square km) of the Brazilian Cerrado had been lost to soy plantations in the space of 11 years, according to a 2018 study by the Stockholm Environment Institute and Global Canopy.
In November 2020, a joint cross-border investigation revealed that British supermarkets including Tesco, Lidl and Asda (which was owned by American giant Walmart until October 2020) and fast food outlets such as McDonald's and Nando's have been selling chicken fed on soybeans linked to forest fires and deforestation in the Brazilian Cerrado region. The soybeans came from US company Cargill, which buys from farmers in the Cerrado region and imports soybeans to the UK to be used as animal feed. McDonald's has said it is aiming to eliminate deforestation from its supply chains by 2030, while Nando's said it was looking at alternatives to soya and recognised that there is more work to do.
Global demand for Italian fizzy wine is booming, with around 500 million bottles of Prosecco produced each year. Yet the drink’s popularity is wreaking havoc on the environment. In Veneto, northern Italy, the ground dedicated to Prosecco vineyards has enlarged by 80% in just five years, while the industry is responsible for 74% of soil erosion in the region according to research by the University of Padua.
When hillsides are cleared of their natural vegetation, the soil loses its natural barrier against erosion. Worse still, pesticides and fertilisers from farming can easily run off slopes into waterways. In 2014, a flash flood in the Veneto region killed four people, which led some to ask whether the effects had been worsened by clearing of woodland for Prosecco vines. However, others believe Prosecco can be made sustainably, through practices such as planting hedgerows, grassing over bare soil and planting rows of trees alongside vineyards.
While one of the most valuable materials on the planet commands a high price in jewellery shops, at the other end of the gold supply chain in some places is a murky world of organised crime and environmental destruction. The problem is most pronounced in Peru, the world’s sixth biggest producer, where more than 20% of the gold being mined is produced illegally according to a report by labour watchdog Verité. Illegal mining operations put around 70,000 indigenous people at risk, threatening rivers with mercury pollution and forests with deforestation. In fact, gold mining deforestation cleared an estimated 22,390 acres of Peruvian Amazon in 2018, according to Monitoring of the Amazon Andean Project (MAAP). In February this year, NASA released photos taken from space showing 'rivers' of what it said are unregistered gold pits in the Madre de Dios region, which had been revealed by sunlight reflecting on them.
To target illegal miners, Peru launched Operación Mercurio (Operation Mercury) in February 2019, which involved 1,200 police officers and hundreds of army officers raiding the notorious mining city of La Pampa. This led to a dramatic 92% reduction in gold mining deforestation in the area between 2018 and 2019. Last year, the Dubai-based gold trader Kaloti came under fire after it was discovered that the company, whose gold has been found in products sold by Amazon, Apple and General Motors, has been buying gold from criminal networks. Kaloti had been involved in a scheme that allowed criminals all over the world to use unlawfully obtained cash to buy scrap gold and sell it to them.
The process of manufacturing such copious amounts of cement might be impacting people’s health. According to the Health Effects Institute, the country faces around 1.6 million premature deaths per year due to air pollution, which is linked to small particulate matter emissions, of which 27% come from cement production. Dredging sand from the bottom of rivers for cement production has also made floods more likely, worsening environmental issues.
We’ve developed a global love affair for all things coconut, which has put pressure on countries growing the crop to keep up with demand. The popular fruit is used in everything from dairy-free alternatives to ready-to-eat foods, with Indonesia, the Philippines and India being the three biggest producers respectively. Yet in the Philippines, around 40-60% of the 3.5 million coconut farmers live on less than $1 (76p) a day, according to a spokesperson from Fair Trade USA quoted in the Guardian in 2017.
As with many other food products that have seen a sudden spike in demand, monoculture farming is becoming an issue, with native plants and biodiversity being stripped to make way for coconuts. Coconut trees grown in the Philippines have far lower yields than those in other countries, giving 46 nuts per tree per year, compared with India’s average of 250 nuts, Mexico's 300 nuts and Brazil's 400 nuts per tree. It’s thought that by improving agricultural productivity, the industry will become more profitable and farmers’ wages could increase.
This precious metal is used for far more than just jewellery – it can be found in everything from batteries to solar panels and nuclear reactors. In fact, industrial uses made up more than half the annual worldwide demand for silver in the past five years, according to bullion price tracking website BullionVault. Guatemala is home to one of the world’s largest-known silver deposits, yet the industry there has become infamous for its clashes with indigenous people and human rights abuses.
The Canadian-owned Escobal mine, located in southern Guatemala, is at the heart of the conflict. The mine was acquired by Canadian Tahoe Resources in 2010 and was also granted a licence to build a mine in San Rafael las Flores three years later, despite community opposition to the destructive project. Since then, protesters have led demonstrations against the mine, which extracted more than $350 million (£270m)-worth of silver in 2016. Shockingly, eight protesters at the Escobal mine, and a further 41 at other protests, have reportedly been killed by hitmen; the killers have been prosecuted, but those who hired them have not been found. Mining at Escobal has been halted since 2017 following the protests, and it will not restart until a court-ordered consultation on the mine’s impact on indigenous communities is complete. The consultation process is due to start this year.
Eating too much of the white stuff isn’t just bad for us, it also impacts the planet. According to a 2004 report by the WWF, sugar may be responsible for more biodiversity loss globally than any other crop. Not only are we adding more of it to foods, sugarcane is being used to extract ethanol to produce biofuels, with global ethanol demand expected to achieve an annual growth rate of 6% by 2023. This affects areas such as Florida’s Everglades, which have suffered monumental damage due to sugar plantations.
Environmental groups including Rainforest Action Network and Wetlands International say that the APP mill is using trees grown on drained peatlands. The draining of carbon-rich peatland releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and makes the lands more vulnerable to fires. But APP said in a statement that it was adhering to its conservation policies, which meant there would be "no new development on peatland since February 2013 as well as the implementation of responsible, peatland best management practice". There is a bright side though, as rising numbers of producers and buyers of wood pulp have embraced zero-deforestation commitments in recent years, and this has contributed to a fall in forest-clearing in Indonesia, according to supply chain transparency initiative Trase.
Across the world, the avocado has become a brunch staple to rival bacon and eggs, favoured for its health benefits and vibrant green colour. Yet our favourite green fruit is a double-edged sword for Mexico. The world’s biggest avocado-producing country, Mexico exports billions of dollars-worth of avocados every year and it is creating immense riches for Mexicans, but the fruit is also at the heart of violent and brutal conflict as organised crime groups look to make the most of the "green gold". In fact, avocados were labelled a “conflict commodity” in Mexico by risk analytics organisation Verisk Maplecroft in a 2019 report.
In Michoacán, Mexico’s biggest growing region, which was forecasted to produce more than 1.7 million tonnes of avocado in 2019/20, criminal drug cartels have turned to extorting and cultivating the fruit. This has led to a spike in murder and violent theft, as well as human rights abuses including forced and child labour. What’s more, the industry is linked to illegal deforestation “as criminal groups clear protected woodlands to make room for their avocado groves”, says the Verisk Maplecroft report.
Globally, we drink more than two billion cups of coffee per day – yet the world’s favourite hot beverage comes with some unwelcome consequences. In coffee-producing nations such as Colombia, farmers are vulnerable to fluctuations in price, which can impact how much they’re paid. The price of coffee on the New York Stock Exchange plummeted from $1.55 (£1.18) per pound (454g) at the end of 2016 to less than $1 (£0.77) per pound in September 2018. This led Brazil and Colombia, the world’s two biggest producers, to publish a joint statement declaring that farmers were being forced to sell their coffee far below cost price. Currently, the cost of coffee sits at $1.26 (£0.91) per pound (as of 6 April 2021).
What’s more, it’s destroying the natural environment. In Colombia, many farmers have turned to “reduced-shade” cultivation, which involves removing trees to increase the productivity of plots by as much as five times. Reduced-shade cultivation accounts for almost 70% of Colombia’s total coffee-producing land, and 40% in Costa Rica, but the process results in a loss of biodiversity, as the trees under which coffee used to be grown represented a haven for plant and animal species. It’s also more water-intensive than shade-growing systems.
Global electric car sales rose 43% in 2020 compared to the previous year, with three million selling worldwide. Electric vehicles are heralded as the environmentally-friendly alternative to petrol- and diesel-fuelled cars, but one crucial material that goes into their batteries, and all batteries in fact, is destroying parts of South America. One electric car battery requires 10kg of lithium, and as Argentina has the world’s largest reserves of the metal, growing demand is proving problematic for the country’s indigenous population. Automaker BMW Group is the latest in a long line of big-name companies to start sourcing lithium in Argentina as it shifts its focus toward electric vehicles.
Producing lithium is a water-intensive process, as brine is pumped beneath the salt flats into evaporation pools, and lithium carbonate is the resulting product. The substance is then shipped off to countries such as China, Japan and the United States, where it’s refined into lithium ion for use in manufacturing. South America’s lithium triangle, made up of Argentina, Chile and Bolivia, is one of the driest places on Earth, and so higher demand for lithium is depriving locals of the water resources they need to survive, particularly as the livelihoods of many depend on agriculture. In Argentina, it’s common for companies to announce lithium explorations without obtaining prior and informed consent from local people, which has resulted in civil society movements coming together to petition for the rights to their water and land in line with their cultural traditions. Legal cases are currently pending at both a national and international level over government and company failings to respect indigenous people, and the situation is only set to worsen as demand for lithium batteries continues to skyrocket.
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