Forests serve a critical function in the fight against climate change and provide livelihoods, food, shelter, medicine, and fuel for more than a billion people worldwide. Forests are also home to 80% of our planet’s plant and animal species. Conservation of natural forests is therefore crucial to limiting global warming, preserving terrestrial biodiversity, and safeguarding the rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Soy and palm oil cultivation are among the biggest known global drivers of deforestation and forest degradation. Seeds from the soybean plant provide protein for animal feed for livestock, including farmed fish. Fish feed is the most important and costly input factor in salmon farming. Sustainable sourcing has long been an issue, with increased production volume of farmed fish, which has made feed producers substitute marine fish oil and fish meal with plant-based ingredients such as Soy Protein Concentrate based on soybeans.

Increasing demand for protein and animal feed is likely to lead to expansion of soy cultivation, which may cause loss of forests and vegetation in biomes like the Amazon and Cerrado in Brazil. The Amazon Soy Moratorium was implemented by the Brazilian soy industry and civil society in 2006, halting deforestation caused by soy cultivation in the Amazon. No such industry-wide solution is in place in the Cerrado. The Brazilian Forest Code allows for forest conversion of up to 80 percent of the Cerrado biome. As such, additional solutions are needed to halt soy related deforestation of the Cerrado.