This major international effort has been explicitly designed to help end soy-related deforestation in the Cerrado, a region that covers a quarter of Brazil's landmass and one of the country's most important areas for both biodiversity and freshwater production.
In collaboration with retail company Tesco and Norwegian salmon farming company Grieg Seafood, we will strive to stop deforestation in the Cerrado. In doing so, we hope to also help conserve their fragile plant and animal life. Since regulation alone is not enough to protect the region's biodiversity, this will be achieved by incentivizing farmers to produce soy only on existing agricultural land and leave remaining forests and other important native vegetation intact.
The funding will also help the sensitive Cerrado biome become a verified zero-deforestation zone for soy. With deforestation releasing approximately 250 million tonnes of carbon per year, preliminary studies have determined that about US$250 million is needed to reach this goal.
This effort is designed to help end soy-related deforestation in the Cerrado
The Brazilian soy industry has been invited by the Financing for Soy Producers initiative in the Cerrado to lead the development of a financial mechanism that better distributes funds to meet this ambition.
Our commitment to this strategy, including the pledge of €1 million over the next five years, recognises that while soy is a key ingredient in aquaculture and feed production, it is also critical that landowners act responsibly and contribute to the protection of critical environments. n underlines our longstanding support for the Cerrado region. This includes being one of the 23 founding signatories of the Business Declaration of Support for the Cerrado Manifesto, a commitment to work with Brazilian stakeholders to stop deforestation in the region that was established in 2017. Currently, more than 140 companies have signed this declaration of support.
It has been estimated that there are more than 20 million hectares of existing agricultural land suitable for soybean expansion in the Cerrado. Expansion in these areas rather than re-conversion of native vegetation presents a much more realistic and sustainable path for the development of the sector.
Skretting Chile creates the first national aquaculture forest
The Skretting Chile team planted a new forest in recognition of the loyalty that many aquaculture producers across the country continue to show for our suite of products and services.
Named after our global sustainability program, the Nuterra Forest, located in the Dos Lagunas National Monument in Coyhaique, is intended to be home to 1,500 native trees. Each new tree planted recognizes the support received from one of our customers or collaborators, each of them receiving the geolocation of their tree.
This first-of-its-kind initiative aims to echo the increasingly responsible approach our customers take to aquaculture farming, and also signify the contribution that Skretting strives to make to the sustainable advancement of aquaculture supply chains.
In addition, as land-based farming is becoming more common in aquaculture supply chains, thanks to new technologies and the advancement of recirculating systems, it is also another opportunity to offset the industry's footprint.
The Nuterra Forest project has been made possible thanks to the help of the non-profit organization Fundación Reforestemos.