Picture c/o CNBC

Washing Post recently wrote an article about an issue that environmentalists and vegetarians have been aware of for decades, the link between the cattle ranching industry and the deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest. In looking back at the history of Washington Post articles on this subject, they have been regularly covering the subject from varying angles as far back as 2014. This is quite significant considering the reach and influence of the Washington Post.

The Article, THE AMAZON, UNDONE DEVOURING THE RAINFOREST, is concise, heart-wrenching, and full of facts. The most important fact is that this issue is primarily caused by the beef-hungry appetites of the American consumer as most of this meat is being shipped to the United States. Americans are the world’s second-largest buyer of Brazilian beef. Despite numerous contracts and agreements signed with the Brazilian government and environmental groups, Brazil’s largest beef supplier, JBS has been found to have multiple tied with some of the most notorious ranchers, all well known for grazing cattle on land that had been illegally deforested.

In the same way that gangsters launder money, cattle ranchers launder cattle; their prime target is the American consumer. Cattle are constantly shifted to new living spaces through different phases of their life through a system designed to be complex enough to leave the cows untraceable until they reach a legitimate ranch where they are legally sold.

The blame lies everywhere, from those who create regulations, the enforcement agencies who fail to enforce any of the regulations, the governments who turn a blind eye to all this so their citizens can happily eat meat, and the reason this all happens, consumers who have an insatiable demand for the flesh of the dead. Perhaps, now that this information is more out in the open and being featured on popular news channels, people will begin to change their ways.