Italiano 
English Mato Grosso is Brazil's third-largest state and includes three important ecoregions:
- the Amazon, the largest rainforest in the world
- the Cerrado, the most biodiverse savanna on Earth
- the Pantanal, the largest tropical wetland in the world
This vast state is where Brazil's agribusiness develops. It produces around 32 million tons of soy, most of which is destined for export to international markets. A trade worth 9 billion dollars a year, of which 46% is shipped to China, Brazil's largest export market, followed by the European Union. Much of this exported soy is used to feed China's pig industry, the largest in the world, which is likely to grow further as Chinese consumers eat increasing amounts of meat
The Amazon must be treated as a crime scene given what is happening. The rights of Indigenous peoples—their homes and their cultures—are being violated. It must also be recognized that if fires are spreading, it is not only because they are being deliberately set, but because the forest is so dry that flames spread rapidly. This depends on climate change and on the fact that countries are not cutting emissions. The media's attention is often focused predominantly on the Amazon, but meanwhile other forests, no less important, are also burning.
INDONESIA
The fires that devastated Indonesia in 2015 are considered among the greatest environmental disasters of the 21st century. The World Bank estimated that they cost the Indonesian economy 16 billion dollars. For the following three years, the fires had reduced impacts partly due to La Niña weather patterns, which limited their spread. But then they began burning again. The year 2019 was dramatic for the country. Thousands of fires, mostly arson, raged for months. Another 5 billion dollars in damages were recorded just during the summer across various economic sectors.
Vast areas of the country and neighboring Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines were engulfed in haze and reddish skies, putting populations at risk due to air pollution.
The cause of the flames is always the same: clearing land for the growing production of raw materials such as palm oil, destined for export worldwide. None of the palm oil companies, however, were sanctioned by the Indonesian government. Food industry multinationals continued to buy palm oil from producers responsible for the fires in Indonesia—multinationals that had pledged to end deforestation by 2020 but have shown no signs of slowing down.
CONGO
And it does not end there: in Congo as well, industrial logging has expanded significantly in recent years, and deforestation threatens the ecosystem of the river basin that bears its name. And in Romania, considered Europe's Amazon, there is an illegal timber trade, and indiscriminate logging is one of the main sources of income for many segments of the Romanian population. Every year, 20 million cubic meters of timber disappear from forests—more than the amount cut legally—creating both a huge deficit in the government's budget and a potential climate disaster. Even in Colombia, where territories once controlled by FARC guerrillas have been opened to business, a surge in deforestation has been reported.
Does what we eat affect climate change? Yes. The global food system is responsible for about one quarter of all greenhouse gases produced annually by humans that warm the planet. It accounts for 24% of global emissions, and emissions generated by agriculture are expected to continue rising, reaching 52% by 2050.
