Companies around the world have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into conservation projects in Brazil designed to protect the Amazon rainforest in return for carbon credits offsetting their emissions. Reuters found that many of those projects are profiting people and businesses fined by Brazilian authorities for destroying the rainforest. Reporters analyzed 36 conservation projects in the Brazilian Amazon offering voluntary carbon offsets on the global market’s biggest registries. At least 24 of those involved landowners, developers or forestry firms that have been punished by Brazil’s environmental agency Ibama for their roles in illegal deforestation, Reuters found. The offenses ranged from clear-cutting the rainforest without authorization to transporting felled trees without valid permits and entering false information in a government timber tracking system. Government officials and experts said these infractions reflected the range of roles in the illicit timber trade devouring the rainforest.
