Greenpeace investigation links European fast food to Amazon destruction
Which came first, Chicken McNuggets or deforestation? A recent Greenpeace investigation has uncovered the depressing answer: the McDonald’s supply chain begins with felled rainforest. Much of the chicken gobbled at European Mickey D’s is supplied by a subsidiary of American agri-biz behemoth Cargill. For the last few years, Cargill and other agri-giants have been buying up massive quantities of soybeans (read: chicken feed) grown on fields that were cleared by torching portions of the Amazon in Brazil. Amazon deforestation rates have doubled in the past two years; last year, 10,000 square miles of forest were razed, mostly for soy production. Greenpeace claims public and indigenous land is often forcibly seized with bulldozers and slave labor, while environmental regulations are largely ignored. McDonald’s Europe said it would look into the allegations. Meanwhile, activists in seven-foot-tall chicken suits invaded a number of McDonald’s in the U.K. and chained themselves to chairs.
