Marcel Gomes, Anti-deforestation Journalist from Brazil

Brazilian journalist Marcel Gomes fights against the beef farming industry and illegal deforestation.

ARSIP GOLDMAN ENVIRONMENTAL PRIZE

Marcel Gomes is a journalist for Repórter Brasil, who halted the distribution of a Brazilian beef company responsible for destroying essential ecosystems in Brazil. Gomes became one of the winners of the 2024 Goldman Environmental Prize.

Brazil is home to the world's most important ecosystems. As a journalist, Marcel Gomes (45) is concerned about the never-ending problem of deforestation which is closely related to the livestock industry. This man's hard work finally suppressed the distribution of illegal meat sales in the country.

On April 29, 2024, Gomes was one of the recipients of the 2024 Goldman Environmental Prize. Several activists who have contributed to saving the environment also received the award known as the "Green Nobel", including Sinegugu Zukulu and Nonhle Mbuthuma from South Africa and Andrea Vidaurre from the United States.

Gomes is the executive secretary of Repórter Brasil. Founded in 2001, the media investigates and covers situations that violate labor rights and social-environmental damage in Brazil. Gomes has played a role in rallying international campaigns against the world's largest meatpacking company based in Brazil. The company has contributed to illegal deforestation.

"I represent journalists from all over the world covering the environmental and climate crises we are currently experiencing. This is not just about producing news, informing the public, and protecting against fake news. Journalism and research provide information that serves as the basis for international campaigns and legal actions against large corporations," said Gomes in a speech in San Francisco, USA.

Since 2008, Gomes has formed an investigation team at Repórter Brasil. He uses a grassroots network, namely indigenous communities, local civil society organizations, and agricultural labor unions. This team has developed a supply chain tracking system for the agricultural industry.

With cattle farming being the biggest cause of deforestation in Brazil, his team started focusing on the beef supply chain. The work of Gomes and his friends was later recognized by international NGOs as one of the most advanced livestock and deforestation tracking systems in the country.

Mighty Earth, an international NGO, contacted Gomes in 2020. The NGO was researching the supply of Brazilian beef to European supermarkets. After Gomes hatched a plan to reveal the Brazilian company's beef ties to deforestation, Mighty Earth and Repórter Brasil partnered on the investigation.

The Brazilian company is the world's largest meat processing company with a revenue of around 78 billion US dollars in 2022. With a slaughter capacity of about 35,000 cows per day, the company sells meat to more than 150 countries, contributing to a third of Brazil's beef export.

AFP/ JOAO LAET

The Amazon forest, which was on fire in Altamira, Pará State, Brazil on Tuesday (27/8/2019). Brazil has opened itself to foreign aid to extinguish the Amazon fires on the condition that they fully regulate the allocation of the aid expenses.

Gomes coordinated product tracing in Brazil and Europe for six months. This man formed a freelance research team in four European countries. Their task was to visit various supermarkets to find meat products from that Brazilian company, such as canned beef or jerky.

The team then sent the export tracking number images of these products. The Gomes team subsequently tracked every data, consisting of the date of visit, address of the supermarket, and product location.

Also read: Alok Shukla, India's Lung Savior

When Gomes and his colleagues were granted access to the tracking number, they traced back the supply chain of the meat, starting from the meat packing plant, slaughterhouse and all the way to the farms. If the farm had previously been sanctioned for deforestation, Gomes's team collaborated with local workers to strengthen data and information.

After the agricultural land was identified, Gomes shared the location with the satellite mapping team at Mighty Earth. Mighty Earth then overlaid images taken each year to measure deforestation around the agricultural land.

It is not easy to track the supply chain. In Brazil, the practice of "animal laundering" is common, where livestock that grows on illegal farms is moved to legal ones for slaughter. "Animal laundering" is a serious problem in Brazil," said Gomes.

Stop selling

The supermarket did not deny the facts of the investigation conducted by Repórter Brasil. In order to avoid public criticism, the supermarket agreed to boycott meat products from the Brazilian company. At the same time, Gomes and his legal team faced threats from the Brazilian company to prevent the publication of the report. Gomes stood his ground.

On December 15, 2021, six large supermarket chains in Europe, located in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France, stopped selling beef products from that Brazilian company. This decision was based on a report by Repórter Brasil, which found that the company was responsible for deforestation in vulnerable ecosystems in Brazil, particularly in the Amazon, Cerrado, and Pantanal regions.

"It is crucial to focus on large corporations. This is because they cause greater social and environmental impacts," said Gomes.

Since the publication of the Repórter Brasil report, there has been public pressure for further action. In 2022, a German retail company also stopped selling meat products from the Brazilian company in response.

ARSIP GOLDMAN ENVIRONMENTAL PRIZE

Marcel Gomes is a journalist for Repórter Brasil, who halted the distribution of a Brazilian beef company responsible for destroying essential ecosystems in Brazil. Gomes became one of the winners of the 2024 Goldman Environmental Prize.

Gomes also conducted a separate investigation into the 'animal laundering' by the Brazilian company in 2022. The result was that the company admitted to having purchased nearly 9,000 cattle that were raised on illegally deforested land from 2018 to 2022. The company then claimed to be in the process of cleaning up its supply chain from illegally deforested land, which will be completed by 2030.

The beef export industry in Brazil is the largest in the world, covering 20% of global exports. Brazil has 215 million cattle, of which 69% are raised in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes. "We are fighting against a very powerful industry in Brazil and the world," says Gomes.

Also read: Murrawah Maroochy Johnson, Traditional Land Struggle in Queensland

However, cattle farming is the largest cause of deforestation in Brazil, particularly in the Amazon rainforest and Cerrado savannah. Currently, around 19 percent of the Amazon region in Brazil and 50 percent of the Cerrado have been cleared. This is alarming because the Brazilian ecosystem supports global biodiversity and climate resilience.

”We must create a mandatory public system for tracking livestock. "This is essential if we want to stop the beef industry being a major cause of climate change,” said Gomes. (Goldmanprize.org)

Marcel Gomes

Occupation: Executive Secretary at Repórter Brasil

Education:

• Doctorate in Energy Systems Planning at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, UNICAMP Universidade Estadual de Campinas
• Master in Political Science at the University of Sao Paulo
• Bachelor of Journalism at the University of Sao Paulo