Mighty Earth, an environmental watchdog, used drones and satellite imagery to monitor the impact of farmers who supply Burger King, one of the world’s largest fast food chains.
The evidence in the new report shows farmers working for Burger King suppliers Bunge and Cargill burned tropical forests in Brazil and Bolivia to establish soy plantations to produce animal feed.
The report comes as deforestation in the Amazon, “once tamed, comes roaring back,” as The New York Times put it.
Deforestation in Brazil increased to two million hectares of land in 2016, up from 1.5 million hectares in 2015, and Bolivia suffered a similar increase.
Cargill says it is working to halve the incidence of deforestation in its supply chain by 2020 and end them by 2030.
