Fábio Zuker, a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Anthropology, at PIIRS’s Brazil LAB, and at the High Meadows Environmental Institute, has recently published a journalistic investigative piece at The Guardian, O Joio e o Trigo, and The Bureau of Investigative Journalism connecting cattle raising and the bovine collagen industry with tropical forest loss and violence against Indigenous peoples in the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado. 

The deforestation driven by the cattle production directly threatens the survival of Indigenous communities in Brazil’s tropical biomes. Cattle farms are increasingly encroaching on Indigenous lands and under the virtual impunity of the outgoing Bolsonaro government, land-grabbing became commonplace. The article was written in partnership with journalists Elisângela Mendoça and Andrew Wasley, from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and with the support from the Pulitzer Center's Rainforest Investigations Network.