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Indigenous people from the Açaizal village in Santarém, in western Pará, released a video on Thursday to denounce the deforestation that was taking place in the lands of the Munduruku people. According to the complaint, a license was granted for a businessman to work with soy cultivation in an area which, according to chief Manoel Munduruku (chief of Ipaupixuna Indigenous Territory), is indigenous. According to the defense of the accused businessman, the area is properly documented and owner Ivo Ruaro has a license to plant grain.

Read the full article and watch the video (in Portuguese)

The Amsterdam Collective for Democracy in Brazil, together with the Transnational Institute (TNI), the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) and Both ENDS, invite you to a live online event of inspiring and challenging testimony, reflection and analysis.

What does climate responsibility and ethical business really mean if the Netherlands continues to export unsustainability, deforestation, and human rights violations to Brazil?

This event will inform the public about Dutch neocolonial relations with Brazil, present a first-hand testimony from a Brazilian indigenous leader and discuss a set of actions for the weakening of corporate power and control of nature in Brazilian territories.

Special guests: Vandria Borari (Ceramist, leader of the Borari people, activist for human rights and the environment) and Tim Boekhout van Solinge (expert forest & wildlife crime, director Forest Forces, research fellow Erasmus University).

Watch the LiveCast here

Tim Boekhout van Solinge has co-written a new report ‘Funding destruction of the Amazon and the Cerrado-savannah’, a Fair Finance Guide Netherlands case study on deforestation risks in soy and beef supply chains. Tim wrote the first chapter: Deforestation in the Amazon and Cerrado regions.

The Amazon and Cerrado biomes in Brazil have for years been among the global hotspots of tropical deforestation. The major drivers of forest conversion in these biomes are soybean cultivation and cattle ranching. This report shows how 21 banking groups, insurance companies and pension funds active on the Dutch market are involved in soy- and beef-driven deforestation in these regions and how they are dealing with this issue.

Read the full report here

While the world is under the spell of the Covid-19 outbreak, deforestation in the Amazon forest is once again returning to dramatic proportions. The Brazilian government, under Bolsonaro, wants to use the corona crisis to relax legislation to protect the forest.

Bureau Buitenland talks to criminologist and Amazon expert Tim Boekhout van Solinge and Hilde Stroot, Biodiversity Greenpeace program director, about the worrying developments.

More info

In June 2019, Vandria Borari visited the Netherlands following an invitation from Tim Boekhout van Solinge. Vandria is from the Borari indigenous people living in the Brazilian Amazon and she is the first indigenous lawyer from her region. In this interview, she will tell about her life in Brazil, the impact of the European Culture, the work of Forest Forces and what we, Europeans, can do to help improve the lives of indigenous people.

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TV interview with EenVandaag from February 2019 where Tim Boekhout van Solinge, founder of Forest Forces, explains the problem of deforestation in the Amazon, the influence of Bolsonaro and the role of Dutch consumers in deforestation. He also explains how the Forest Forces method against deforestation works and why it is effective.

Article in Binnenlands Bestuur

Goede landregistratie en kennis van criminologie zorgen samen voor een goede aanpak van ontbossing en illegale houtkap. Het Kadaster en criminoloog Tim Boekhout van Solinge sloegen de handen uiteen.

Lees het hele artikel/Read full article

Article in Oxford Martin Programme on the Illegal Wildlife Trade

This article, written by Tim Boekhout van Solinge, tells the story of how Forest Forces came to be. In 2014, Tim initiated a research project with indigenous tribes in the Brazilian Amazon to investigate the effectivity of GPS-camera’s. This project showed how the camera’s helped a tribe to expel several logging companies from their territory. Therefore, the GPS-camera’s can be an effective, inexpensive way to support indigenous tribes in their fight against deforestation. 

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Article in Tijdschrift voor Criminologie

A peer-reviewed article in Dutch, describing the research conducted in 2014 by Tim Boekhout van Solinge about the effectiveness of providing indigenous tribes in the Amazon with GPS-camera’s. 

Free summary in English  (access to full article in Dutch costs €17.50)