One Of Boris Johnson's Biggest Donors Major Investor In Brazilian Firm Driving Amazon Deforestation

[hatrack]

Well, that fits . . .

Crispin Odey, one of the biggest donors to Boris Johnson’s Conservative party, has invested in a Brazilian company linked to deforestation in the Amazon, the Guardian can reveal. SLC Agricola has been accused of clearing land for soy cultivation, mostly from the Cerrado ecosystem in Brazil, which is rich in wildlife and plant species and is an important carbon sink. It has requested licences to clear thousands of hectares of Cerrado land, on top of at least 30,000 hectares that it cleared between 2011 and 2017, which resulted in the Norwegian government pension fund divesting from the group.

EDIT

Chain Reaction Research, which provides sustainable investment advice, has said SLC Agricola’s “planned deforestation and lack of zero-deforestation commitment exposes the company to a number of business risks [and] could raise concerns with equity investors”. Odey Asset Management donated £10,000 to Johnson for his leadership bid and has donated at least £1.7m to the Tories and the pro-Brexit campaign in the last decade. The company is understood to have a sizeable stake in SLC Agricola.

Alasdair Cameron, an investigator at Friends of the Earth, said: “While Johnson talks of protecting and restoring the world’s ecosystems, he and his party gladly accepted donations from an investor profiting from the destruction of Brazilian forests.

“The burning of tropical forests is not accidental – it is driven by the demand for soy, beef and other commodities. In the run-up to Cop26, it is worrying to see that the cosy relationship between environmentally destructive industries and UK politics is still going on.”

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/mar/03/tory-donor-crispin-odey-invested-in-firm-linked-to-amazon-deforestation

[Mickju]

1. This is not surprising.

Most right wingers think we can just keep going the way we always have.