Into the Amazon

Summary

Drilled – "Into the Amazon" (June 2, 2026) Host: Amy Westervelt | Produced by Pushkin Industries

---

Episode Overview

"Into the Amazon," an episode of Drilled's investigative climate series, traces the expansion of US agribusiness interests—specifically those of Iowa ethanol mogul Bruce Rastetter—into Brazil's Amazon and Cerrado regions. With in-depth reporting by Felipe Sabrina and host Amy Westervelt, the episode uncovers how large-scale monoculture farming (especially for "sustainable" aviation fuel) is transforming local landscapes, disrupting traditional communities, compounding environmental harms, and undermining real climate solutions. The episode explores how corporate sustainability rhetoric masks continued ecological devastation and social displacement.

---

Key Discussions & Insights

1. Monoculture Expansion and Local Impacts ([02:25]–[09:44])

• Felipe Sabrina's Arrival: He describes his first visit to Lucas do Rio Verde, Mato Grosso, capturing an extreme weather event—wind, sand, and rain—hinting at rising weather volatility linked to land use change.

  "The sky suddenly darkened, the wind started whipping up sand and everything turned reddish...I kept wondering if that had been an extreme event or if this happened all the time." — Felipe Sabrina ([02:25])

• Changing Climate Patterns:

  • Long-time resident Damasilia Santos contrasts the stable seasons of old with the hotter, drier conditions now prevalent.

    "We no longer have that tall, dense vegetation. That's where it cools down. That's where the breeze comes through. Now it's just fields, just fields. Clearing more and more, clearing more and more, clearing more and more. Planting, just planting. That's what happens." — Damasilia Santos ([03:52])

  • Meteorologist Ana Paulo Paez links increased sandstorms and heat to exposed soils from agricultural expansion.

    "By 2050, the trend is toward hotter days, drier and longer seasons, and rainfall more concentrated in extreme events..." — Ana Paulo Paez ([05:00])

• Small Farmers Marginalized:

  • Nilfo Wanchier, organic farmer, reveals how monoculture farming and its pesticides encroach on small settlements, killing crops, driving pollinators away, and drying up water sources.

  "Even the lemons or lemon trees died...You hardly see any bees at all. All because of the pesticides." — Nilfo Wanchier ([07:50]) "The Rio Verde no longer fills the reservoir...due to the drainage of the water table, where they dug drainage channels to plant soybeans." — Nilfo Wanchier ([08:22])

• Health Consequences:

  • Studies reveal a 20% higher risk of birth defects in Lucas do Rio Verde, attributed to agrochemical exposure.

  "The contamination is intense in the water, the air, the soil and the people. Everything is contaminated and the effects are felt directly by the population, as in the case you may be familiar with it, of breast milk." — Maria Osvaldina Pereira dos Santos, "Val" ([09:44])

  • All samples tested in a prior study from breastfeeding mothers contained pesticides, some banned for over a decade.

---

2. Agribusiness Power & Land Politics ([11:05]–[15:39])

• Unequal Land and Power:

  • Smallholders point to large-scale landowners—many with ties to FS (Fueling Sustainability)—as blocking land access and alternatives.

  "There is no incentive for a large scale farmer...who could say, no, I'll make a point of it here and subdivide that land for 20 families...Instead of giving it up for something like this, they want to buy more." — Nilfo Wanchier ([11:24])

  • FS touts sustainability while marginalizing local producers.

  "Helping to make the planet increasingly sustainable has been one of the main goals..." (Ironically used in corporate ads) ([12:18])

  • Land accumulation continues. The story of rags-to-riches entrepreneurs is contrasted with local devastation and shrinking spaces for organic agriculture.

  "But in the city they chose as the birthplace of their empire...farms like theirs are crushing the dreams of small farmers, much like what happened back in Iowa." — Amy Westervelt ([13:52])

• Grain Utopia–Corn's Transformational Impact:

  • American agricultural consultant Corey Melby explains how corn ethanol doubled land prices and spurred vast expansion—originally considered impossible.

  "Corn ethanol is what doubled land prices the past decade in Mato Grosso...You're fucking full of shit, I said, no way in hell is Mato Grosso going to produce 50 million tons in a decade. How wrong I was." — Corey Melby ([14:30])

---

3. The Push Into the Amazon ([15:39]–[26:56])

• Strategic Land Purchases:

  • Despite warnings, Rastetter and partners expand into Amapá near the Amazon River, using financial maneuvers (loan collateralization) to sidestep restrictions on foreign land ownership.

  "Bruce didn't take Corey's advice, but he still tried to be discreet. Except we found his flag planted in Amapa on 4,000 hectares of land in the heart of the Amazon." — Amy Westervelt ([15:39]) "In 2017, Sao Manuel Agricola Limitada pledged the Sao Manuel farm as collateral for a nearly $6 million debt owed to Bruce's Summit Sao Manuel LLC...If the debt isn't paid, the farm...could pass entirely into the hands of...Bruce Rastetter." — Amy Westervelt ([20:28])

• Community Consultation "In Name Only":

  • Andoroba community members felt excluded from meaningful dialogue; public hearings were poorly publicized, scheduled for work hours, and limited contributions.

  "We didn't know that part. We knew it was a public hearing where they were presenting their case...If it were up to us, this soybean plantation thing would be a tough sell since we don't see any benefit." — Janilse Goncalves Patoja ([22:50]) "Each statement had to be a maximum of three minutes...They didn't want to let me speak." — Janilse Goncalves Patoja ([23:35])

  • The promised jobs were few and often went to outsiders rather than the local population.

• Regulatory Loopholes and Environmental Fines:

  • Agribusiness exploits differences in legal protections—less land must be conserved in the “cerrado” compared to the Amazon proper.

  "In the Cejado Biome...the area protected from deforestation is 35% of the property...in the Amazon...80%." — Amy Westervelt ([25:55])

  • Even with prior fines for illegal deforestation (9 million reais), the company received new licenses and the fine was ultimately waived.

  "The operating license is valid until 2030, and the fine was waived this year." — Amy Westervelt ([26:56])

---

4. Building Export Infrastructure & Community Displacement ([30:07]–[37:45])

• New Ports Transforming the Amazon:

  • The rationale for land acquisition is laid bare: river access for grain export. Santana Island and adjacent properties are repurposed for large-scale storage and transport, with little to no community input.

  "You're at the mouth of the Amazon. You don't have all this Matro gross of BS to deal with getting stuff to market, so to speak. You're already at the market." — Corey Melby ([30:32])

  • Residents like Val recount how their community went from artisanal fishing to being flanked by massive, polluting infrastructure without warning or consent.

  "Where there used to be a small family home surrounded by fruit trees. Today there is extensive deforestation and the start of construction on warehouses, silos, conveyor belts..." — Amy Westervelt ([34:17]) "Nobody knew. We found out from a man who worked at the government office...No one believed it because they had to see it on paper. They said it wasn't going to happen. Oh, there it is, right in front of us...It stinks like chicken poop. Really stinky. It's the soybean dust..." — Val ([35:32])

• Invisible, Lasting Harm:

  • The ecosystem and social fabric are rapidly degraded, with real estate speculation, pollution, and loss of access to traditional livelihoods.

  "This invisible impact, which will never be measured in any public hearing or licensing process, is what truly affects the Amazon we know today. And soon it won't really exist anymore." — Marcelo Moreira ([37:30])

---

5. The Next Phase: Carbon Markets ([37:45]–[39:47])

• From Agribusiness to Carbon Monetization:

  • Rastetter and FS now pivot to influencing Brazilian law for carbon capture and storage—aiming to leverage the Amazon's carbon sink for profit and positioning themselves as climate saviors.

  "FS wants to industrialize the process. We found documents showing that FS is attempting to change Brazilian laws to make carbon capture projects in the Amazon feasible. They want it to be treated as a regulatory priority..." — Amy Westervelt ([38:42])

• Conclusion:

  • The expansion is presented not as a genuine climate solution but as a continuation of land and resource appropriation.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Pesticide Contamination:

  "All of their [breast] milk was contaminated...in some cases there were six types of pesticides, including one that has been banned for over a decade." — Amy Westervelt ([10:03])

• On Community Consultation:

  "This was a public hearing for the company's licensing...if it were up to us, this soybean plantation thing would be a tough sell since we don't see any benefit." — Janilse Goncalves Patoja ([22:40], [22:50])

• On Corporate Greenwashing:

  "But in the city they chose as the birthplace of their empire in Brazil, farms like theirs are crushing the dreams of small farmers, much like what happened back in Iowa." — Amy Westervelt ([13:52])

• On Market-Driven Transformation:

  "For the market, it's great. This invisible impact, which will never be measured in any public hearing or licensing process, is what truly affects the Amazon we know today. And soon it won't really exist anymore." — Marcelo Moreira ([37:30])

---

Important Timestamps

• 02:25: Arrival in Lucas do Rio Verde; climate disruptions
• 03:52–05:26: Interviews with farmers and meteorologist on environmental change
• 07:14–08:55: Smallholder struggles, water crisis, pesticide drift
• 09:44–11:05: Health impacts of agrichemicals and birth defect data
• 13:25–14:30: Corporate power, land use, and 'sustainable' branding
• 15:39–20:28: US investment in Amazon land, financial maneuvering
• 22:40–24:56: Andoroba Community’s obstructed participation
• 25:55–26:56: Legal loopholes in conservation law, waived deforestation fine
• 30:32–34:17: Grain ports, loss of traditional communities
• 35:32–36:21: Local testimonies on disruptive impacts
• 37:30–38:42: Prosecutor’s warning on irreversible damage
• 38:42–39:47: Push for carbon markets and changing Brazilian law

---

Tone & Style

Drilled maintains an urgent, investigative tone, balancing technical detail with on-the-ground testimony. The narrative is driven by direct interviews, both with affected Brazilian communities and with American agribusiness consultants, revealing the stark contrast between corporate promises and community reality. There is deep skepticism toward greenwashing and "sustainability" claims, with a consistent focus on following the money and legal maneuverings that enable environmental exploitation.

---

Summary

"Into the Amazon" exposes how US agribusiness, buoyed by "clean energy" rhetoric and carbon market ambitions, is accelerating deforestation, pollution, and social upheaval in Brazil—often under the guise of climate solutions. The episode offers a vivid local snapshot of global systems of extraction, raising critical questions about who benefits from "sustainable" transitions, and at what cost.

Transcript

[Amy Westervelt]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Podcast Advertiser]

Guaranteed Human we spend hours deciding what to buy, but there's a split second decision that can make or break a sale. Do you have the trust to hit buy now? Agentic Commerce is testing that moment more than ever. And that's where PayPal comes in. With 25 years of checkouts, 400 million consumer accounts globally and the benefit of purchase and seller protection, all of which make sure wherever a purchase starts, it ends with trust built for payments, growth and agentic PayPal open built for all

[Amy Westervelt]

business, visit PayPalOpen.com purchase and seller protections on eligible transactions. Only terms apply. See paypal.com risk management for details.

[Starbucks Advertiser]

What's up y'?

[Damasilia Santos]

All?

[Starbucks Advertiser]

Summer's got a different tempo. Everything's a little looser, brighter. One plan turns into another. You hear something, you stay a little longer. Next thing you know, you're somewhere you didn't plan to be. It's those in between moments. That's where the ideas hit. Conversations stretch out. Little memories sneak up on you. Sometimes it's just about what's in your hand. That color. That chill. The new Tropical Butterfly Refresher from Starbucks. Guava and passion fruit flavors with mango pineapple flavored pearls. Yeah, that feels like summer before you even taste it. Funny how one small stop becomes the best, best part of the day. Start your summer rhythm with Starbucks. Try the new Tropical Butterfly Refresher from Starbucks.

[Cal Penn]

Hey everyone, it's Cal Penn. I'm inviting you to join the best sounding book club you've ever heard with my podcast, Hearsay, The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. Every episode I nerd out with amazing guests and dive into the best new audiobooks available on Audible. It's the book club for your ears. Listen to Earsay, the AudioBook, Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Amy Westervelt]

Pushkin.

[Felipe Sabrina]

The first time I visited Lucas O Riverdi Mato Grosso was in May 2025. On my first day there, I decided to head over to Bruce Rasseter's ethanol refinery FS Fueling Sustainability to take some photos. The day had down a bit cloudy, but it was hot over 30 degrees Celsius. After lunch, a cold wind started blowing. At 3 in the afternoon when I was outside the refinery, the sky suddenly darkened, the wind started whipping up sand and everything turned reddish. I managed to film a few seconds of the scene before rushing into my car. The wind was shaking the imperial palm trees violently and I was afraid one of them might fall on me. On my Drive back to the hotel, I saw palm branches scattered across the road, a fallen utility pole and a torn billboard. Then the rain came and the temperature dropped to about 15 degrees. I kept wondering if that had been an extreme event or if this happened all the time.

[Damasilia Santos]

When I arrived here, it rained for six months and was sunny for six months.

[Felipe Sabrina]

Damasilia Santos is an organic farmer who has lived in the region for 22 years. She says that everything is now hotter and more stifling, and she has a hunch as to why.

[Damasilia Santos]

We no longer have that tall, dense vegetation. That's where it cools down. That's where the breeze comes through. Now it's just fields, just fields. Clearing more and more, clearing more and more, clearing more and more. Planting, just planting. That's what happens.

[Felipe Sabrina]

This is also reflected in the data.

[Ana Paulo Paez]

When a cold front advances, it displaces the hot, dry air over the region, also generating very strong wind gusts. With the large area of dry, loose soil, dust is kicked up and creates sandstorms.

[Felipe Sabrina]

Ana Paulo Paez is a meteorologist and climate analysis consultant with the National Institute for Space Research in Brazil.

[Ana Paulo Paez]

Lucas do Hilveres has been experiencing this more frequently because it is in an area of agricultural expansion with large tracts of exposed soil during the dry season, which facilitates this type of phenomenon.

[Felipe Sabrina]

She says the more open land there is, the greater the chance of windstorms like I saw in Lucas.

[Ana Paulo Paez]

By 2050, the trend is toward hotter days, drier and longer seasons, and rainfall more concentrate in extreme events. For Lucas do Rio Verde, this means more challenge for agriculture management, greater pressure on water resources, and a need for urban adaptation, such as replanting, soil management and strategies to reduce heat islands.

[Felipe Sabrina]

Lucas markets itself as a city of opportunities because of agribusiness and its promise of a sustainable future. It's also why people like Bruce and the Franz Brothers, his partners in the Brazilian corn ethanol business, moved there. But what that storm of wind and sand show me was another side of Lucas relationship with agribusiness. And it connects the city directly to Bruce's legacy in Iowa. I'm Philippe Sabrina.

[Amy Westervelt]

And I'm Amy Westervelt.

[Felipe Sabrina]

And this is Cowboys Ucerrado Carbon Cowboys, a podcast that tells the story of how a US agribusiness tycoon managed to expand industrial agriculture in Brazil by promising to protect the climate.

[Nilfo Wanchier]

The project was a model for producing fruits and vegetables, fresh produce. We wanted to move towards agroecological and organic practices so we wouldn't have to use pesticides, Right?

[Amy Westervelt]

Nilfo Wanchier is a farmer from Santa Catarina. He's lived with his wife Hilaria Wancheer, on a small farm in Lucas since 2007. It's roughly the size of five soccer fields. The property is located in a rural settlement and half of it is designated as an environmental reserve. There they built a small paradise of pesticide free food, both for their own consumption and for sale. The farm was part of a larger project to create settlements for 30 farming families. But over the years, with the advance of monoculture farming, few of these small farms have survived.

[Nilfo Wanchier]

And those settlements in the region where no one ever imagined soybeans and corn would enter. Today they have.

[Amy Westervelt]

The spread of these monoculture crops has brought the pesticides they were trying to keep at bay closer to them. The wind spreads these chemicals over the small farmers fields and contaminates their food. In the case of Nilfo and Ilaria, this has undermined the couple's production. The insects trying to escape the poison from the monoculture crops also end up in the fields of Nilfo and Ilaria and other families in the settlement.

[Nilfo Wanchier]

Even the lemons or lemon trees died. Citrus doesn't last here. It doesn't last more than five or six years here. The avocados that are blooming now, they're blooming, but they're not selling fruit. We don't know if it's something to do with the climate or the region, or pollination. You hardly see any bees at all. All because of the pesticides.

[Amy Westervelt]

Even the water in their settlement is drying up.

[Nilfo Wanchier]

We have a community well, but we've been without water since yesterday. If it weren't for my well, there'd be no way to water anything. Our production here isn't commercial. The Rio Verde no longer fills the reservoir where it used to maintain the water level during the drought. This is also due to the drainage of the water table, where they dug drainage channels to plant soybeans. So that sponge like layer that used to hold water to release during the drought has shrunk significantly. We know this has a huge impact.

[Amy Westervelt]

But the problems don't just affect Milfo and other small scale farmers. They affect the whole city. An analysis conducted by Info Amazonia and Tatiana Moraes, a researcher at the Climate and Health Observatory of the Osvaldo Cruz foundation, shows that a child born in Lucas do Rio verde has a 20% higher risk of being born with congenital anomalies than a child born in another city in the same state, 670km away. They say the reason for this is the widespread Presence of industrial agriculture in Lucas Lucas now has thousands of hectares of monoculture crops like cotton, soy and corn. These crops use an incredible amount of pesticides.

[Maria Osvaldina Pereira dos Santos (Val)]

The contamination is intense in the water, the air, the soil and the people. Everything is contaminated and the effects are felt directly by the population, as in the case you may be familiar with it, of breast milk.

[Amy Westervelt]

Professor Deborah Caleros is a biologist for the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office of Mato Grosso do Sul. She researches pesticides in the environment. The case of breast milk she mentions was reported on national television. A study conducted with 62 breastfeeding mothers in Mato Grosso revealed that all of their milk was contaminated. In addition to finding pesticides in all milk samples from the mothers who participated in the study, the researchers also discovered that in some cases there were six types of pesticides, including one that has been banned for over a decade. Decade. That study was published in 2011. Professor Wanderley Pignatti from the Federal University of Mato Grosso was involved in the study. He says the problem has not gone away.

[Marcelo Moreira]

The main cause is the heavy use of pesticides that contaminate the water, the air, the rain and the food people are eating.

[Amy Westervelt]

Neil Fawanshir says that the larger producers, the ones who have made Lucas famous as an agricultural leader, could help small farmers like him. And it's at this point that he mentions some names we've heard before.

[Nilfo Wanchier]

There is no incentive for a large scale farmer who has accumulated land there. Who could say, no, I'll make a point of it here and subdivide that land for 20 families to grow vegetables and everything. The former mayor himself, who is from FIA Grill. Miguel, right? I mean Marino, France, Mano, Giulio, Paolo. They have a lot of land. Instead of giving it up for something like this, they want to buy more.

[Amy Westervelt]

Marino, Paolo and Miguel are Bruce Rastatter's partners in Brazil. Together they founded FS in Lucas 10 years ago. The company throws the word sustainability into its ads whenever it can. Helping to make the planet increasingly sustainable

[Podcast Advertiser]

has been one of the main goals

[Corey Melby]

of major industries which are working towards

[Amy Westervelt]

a better net zero carbon world. FS was founded with this purpose in mind. When Marino was mayor, Nilfo spoke with his administration about a dream of building a green belt in the area. Nilfo's wife Ilaria, says the deputy mayor at the time, a businessman in the home appliance industry, discouraged the project. She says he told Nilfo, you'll never be able to do it. Bruce and his partners say they started almost from Scratch as small farmers and celebrate their rags to riches, success stories and agribusiness whenever they can. But in the city they chose as the birthplace of their empire in Brazil, farms like theirs are crushing the dreams of small farmers, much like what happened back in Iowa. As you heard in episode two,

[Nilfo Wanchier]

Paolo, he says he's American. He took courses on everything studied in the United States. So he has this capitalist mindset where he thinks that's how it is, that we all depend on him, that the jobs he creates are what matter. But he forgets that starting a company like this should also be about making food production a priority. But for him, what is sustainable? What is economic development? It's agribusiness.

[Amy Westervelt]

In August 2025, when Felipe went to interview Nielsen and Ilaria for the second time at their settlement, they had just returned from the market. Some of the food they bought they actually grow on the farm, but the plants no longer produce enough to cover their household needs. This is the vision of a sustainable future that agribusiness is creating in Lucas. Corey Melby, the American agricultural consultant we heard from earlier in the season, says corn has transformed Monto Grosso over the past decade. And it was all Marino Franz's plan.

[Corey Melby]

Corn ethanol is what doubled land prices the past decade in Mato Grosso. Marino Franz, you know, Paolo's brother there. I had investors. I mean, I was taking hedge fund guys around, and he was the mayor at the time. And he was giving me all these cool little charts with a 200 kilometer radius around Lucas. And he was the first to tell us, by 2020, Mato Grosso will be producing 50 million tons of corn. Everything in this radius, everything around Moreno. You're fucking full of shit. I said, no way in hell is Mato Grosso going to produce 50 million tons in a decade. How wrong I was.

[Amy Westervelt]

They've turned Mato Grosso into a whole corn utopia. But it's not enough. Bruce and the guys wanted more. They started eyeing land near the Amazon River.

[Corey Melby]

I kind of told them not to go there to begin with. And then they asked me was on a tour to help interpret because they wanted to buy more land. I said, you probably shouldn't. It's not for gringos to start there. That's for experienced Brazilians with a plethora of lawyers behind them.

[Amy Westervelt]

Bruce didn't take Corey's advice, but he still tried to be discreet. Except we found his flag planted in Amapa on 4,000 hectares of land in the heart of the Amazon. That story is coming up after the break.

[Cal Penn]

Hey, Everyone, it's Cal Penn. I'm the host of Irsay The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. This week on the podcast, I am sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of Andy Weir's audiobook project, Hail Mary Massive sci fi adventure about survival and science and what happens when you wake up alone, very far from Earth.

[Ray Porter]

I really had to make a decision because I caught myself getting that frog in my throat and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some of these sections and it's like, okay, yo, yo, yo, is this indulgent? And I really thought about it. I was like, no. At this point it would kind of be betraying the trust the author and the listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it. But there's places in this book that deeply, emotionally affected me and I left it on the mic. That's great because it served the story. People will say like, oh my God, I cried at the end. It's like, yeah dude, me too.

[Cal Penn]

Listen to Irsay the Audible and iHeart audiobook club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[PayPal Advertiser]

Every business has an ambition. PayPal open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours with access to business loans so you can expand and hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide. Your customers can pay all the ways they want today with PayPal, Venmo, pay later and all major cards so you can focus on the future when you need a partner trusted by millions. There's one platform for all business PayPal open grow today at paypalopen.com loans subject to approval in available locations.

[Odoo Advertiser]

Business software is expensive and when you buy software from lots of different companies, it's not only expensive, it gets confusing. Slow to use, hard to integrate. Odoo solves that because all Odoo software is connected on a single affordable platform. Save money without missing out on the features you need. Odoo has no hidden costs and no limit on features or data. Odoo has over 60 apps available for any needs your business might have, all at no additional charge. Everything from websites to sales to inventory to accounting. All linked and talking to each other. Check out [e-mail] that's O-O-O.com.

[Amy Westervelt]

The Ande Roba community squeezes in between these agribusinesses. It's a community of lake fishermen, but they've practically lost all their land. Father Sisto Magro is Italian but has lived in Brazil since 1989 for 18 years. He's worked for the Pastoral Land Commission in Amapa with the territories of traditional peoples and communities. The Andaroba community he mentions is one of these territories. It has about 300 inhabitants and is located in the rural area of the municipality of Tartarugalzinho, about 230 kilometers from the capital Macapa. Starting in 2011, 2012, agribusinesses began moving in, right in the logging sector, as well as in agriculture, specifically soybean monoculture. The Sal Manuel farm is one of the agribusinesses squeezing the residents of Andoroba between soybean and cornfields. The property spans 4,000 hectares and has a direct connection to Bruce Rastetter. While sifting through documents Father Sisto gave him, Felipe ended up at the Tartarugal Zino registry office twice. Looking for more papers.

[Felipe Sabrina]

I would like to request some documents, please. I have the numbers here. Can I tell you? Okay. It's record 02M, page 43, book two. It's registration. Yeah, it's registration.

[Amy Westervelt]

The documents Felipe obtained show that a company owned by Lucas Mayor and Bruce's partner, Miguel Vas Ribeiro, purchased Sao manuel Farm in November 2016. That same month and year, it sold the property to a second company, Sao Manuel Agricola Limitada. Documents from the time show that one of the partners in that company was,

[Damasilia Santos]

would you believe it?

[Amy Westervelt]

Summit Sao Manuel llc, based in Iowa in the United States, at the same address as Bruce's office. The other partner in the company was a firm owned by a co founder of FS and the CEO of FS. And here's a really important detail. In 2017, Sao Manuel Agricola Limitada pledged the Sao Manuel farm as collateral for a nearly $6 million debt owed to Bruce Summit Sal Manuel LLC. The debt is due in November of this year. If the debt isn't paid, the 4,000 hectare farm planted with corn and soybeans could pass entirely into the hands of corn ethanol magnate Bruce Rastetter. It's worth noting here that in Brazil, foreigners face various restrictions on buying land. And that's especially true in the Amazon. But when a property is used to settle a debt, things work a little differently. To get the environmental permits, it needed to plant large scale farms a few kilometers from the homes in Andoropa, Sao Manuel Agricola had to get the consent of the community.

[Janilse Goncalves Patoja]

They sent an invitation to our principal, the manager of the Sao Manuel farmer, saying there would be a public hearing, that various organizations would be present and that it would be good for the community to hear what they had to say the benefits they would bring to the community.

[Amy Westervelt]

This is Janilse Goncalves Patoja talking with Felipe and Marcia Heberdosa, our audio producer in Ande Ropa. She's a resident there and a secretary at the school where a public hearing on the Salmonwell farm was held in September 2023. Present were SAO Manuel Agricola's farm director and company employees, as well as public officials such as the State Secretary of Environment and the superintendent of the Amapa Institute of Historical and Artistic Heritage.

[Janilse Goncalves Patoja]

This was a public hearing for the company's licensing. It was the public hearing that would lead to the licensing.

[Amy Westervelt]

Did you understand that you were being consulted so that areas could be cleared?

[Janilse Goncalves Patoja]

We didn't know that part. We knew it was a public hearing where they were presenting their case to the community. Because if it were up to us, this soybean plantation thing would be a tough sell since we don't see any benefit.

[Damasilia Santos]

Janilse and others that Felipe and Marcia interviewed at the Andoruba Community School say they didn't have enough information at the hearing to understand that this wasn't just a public meeting to learn about the project, that actually this meeting would decide whether or not the project happened, and that this was their chance to have a say. They also say there was almost no room for public participation during the meeting.

[Janilse Goncalves Patoja]

It ended up starting around 10am and each statement had to be a maximum of three minutes. They were already asking Father Sisto to stop talking. Then I spoke for five minutes and Enough, enough. They didn't want to let me speak.

[Amy Westervelt]

Holding the meeting at 10am on a workday also limited participation.

[Janilse Goncalves Patoja]

Look, there are plenty of children. There are more children than adults.

[Damasilia Santos]

So this public hearing for the issuance of an environmental permit to plant soybeans and corn was composed for the most part, of school kids. According to Janinse, in the environmental impact study Sao Manuel Agricola submitted to the Department of the Environment to obtain its license. It argued that without the jobs created by the farm, the population of Enduroba would lose its quality of life. They also said that this would lead to environmental degradation in the region due to hunting and resource extraction.

[Marcelo Moreira]

Regarding jobs, we see that at least seven direct jobs will be created for this specific project.

[Amy Westervelt]

This is Lucas Paez, the farm's director. In an interview he gave to a local website on the day of the hearing, Janilse Goncalves Pantoja disagrees.

[Janilse Goncalves Patoja]

We don't see it creating jobs. Sometimes they look for people from outside to work within the community itself. There are many heads of households who need jobs but don't have them. So we don't see this benefit, this return they say they give to the community. We don't see it.

[Amy Westervelt]

Despite all of that, the public hearing was a success. After interviewing people from the Andoroba community, Felipe went to the capital, Macapa, to speak with Amapa's environmental prosecutor, Marcelo Moreira. He asked him about the hearing held by Sao Manuel Agricola.

[Marcelo Moreira]

The public hearing is crucial. In theory, it's essential, but we didn't hear about the public hearing, and I think that's an indication that it wasn't widely publicized, that it didn't generate broad participation. What we did hear about was its outcome through the Pastoral Land Commission, which is another sign, right.

[Amy Westervelt]

Moreira emphasizes the damage that agriculture can cause in the region, thanks to a peculiarity of the ecosystem itself. Although Amapa is in the Amazon, the Sao Manuel farm is in a transition zone, considered part of the cera, a remnant from thousands of years ago when the planet was drier. And this is strategic for business owners, since in the Cejado Biome, by law, the area protected From Deforestation is 35% of the property. That's a lot smaller than land in the Amazon, where you would have to set aside 80% of the property for conservation.

[Marcelo Moreira]

The cerrado within these Amazonian biomes, along with this area of Macapa, which we call the Resaca, a wetland or swamp, are the two ugly ducklings. We talk about the Amazon and only think of the forest, but when it comes to the wetland and the cerrado, it's like, oh no, anything goes.

[Amy Westervelt]

The Sao Manuel farm had a fine of nearly 9 million reais for illegal deforestation. The penalty was imposed in 2019, but even still, Bruce and his partners managed to obtain licenses to plant tons of corn and soybeans in the very same location where the environmental violation occurred. The operating license is valid until 2030, and the fine was waived this year. After the break, what was so attractive for Bruce and the guys about the Amazon Amazon in the first place?

[Cal Penn]

Hey, everyone, it's Cal Penn. I'm the host of Irsay, the Audible and Iheart Audiobook Club. This week on the podcast, I am sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of Andy Weir's audiobook project, Hail Mary, massive sci fi adventure about survival and science and what happens when you wake up alone, very far from Earth.

[Ray Porter]

I really had to make a decision because I caught myself getting that frog in my throat and starting to get teary as I'm narrating. Some of these sections and it's like, okay, yo, yo, yo. Is this indulgent? And I really thought about it. I was like, no. At this point, it would kind of be betraying the trust the author and the listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it. But there's places in this book that that deeply, emotionally affected me and I left it on the mic. That's great because it served the story. People will say like, oh my God, I cried at the end. It's like, yeah, dude, me too.

[Cal Penn]

Listen to Irsay, the Audible and iHeart audiobook club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[PayPal Advertiser]

Every business has an ambition. PayPal open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours with access to business loans so you can expand and hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide. Your customers can pay all the ways they want today with PayPal, Venmo, pay later and all major cards so you can focus on the future when you need a partner trusted by millions. There's one platform for all business PayPal open grow today at paypalopen.com loans subject to approval in available locations.

[Odoo Advertiser]

Business software is expensive. And when you buy software from lots of different companies, it's not only expensive, it gets confusing. Slow to use, hard to integrate. Odoo solves that because all Odoo software is connected on a single affordable platform. Save money without missing out on the features you need. Odoo has no hidden costs and no limit on features or data. Odoo has over 60 apps available for any needs your business might have, all at no additional charge. Everything from websites to sales to inventory to accounting, all linked and talking to each other. Check out odoo@o d o o dot com. That's o d o o dot

[PayPal Advertiser]

after

[Amy Westervelt]

visiting Tartarugazinho in Amapa, Felipe and Marcia went to Santana Island, 25km from Macapa on the banks of the Amazon River. It's the site of Miguel Vaz and Marino, France's new venture. See, the thing that was most attractive about buying land in Amapa was its proximity to the Amazon River. Here's Corey again.

[Corey Melby]

You're at the mouth of the Amazon. You don't have all this Matro gross of BS to deal with. Getting stuff to market, so to speak. You're already at the market, so to speak.

[Amy Westervelt]

Now Vaz and Franz are trying to expand agriculture along the Amazon River. They began by building a private terminal there to handle and store grains arriving from the mid northern region of Mato Grosso the idea is to transform these grains into other products like feed, meal and refined corn oil, and then export them to Europe, the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean and the Guyanas. Their company, called Cianport Companion Norte de Navagasao y Portos, anticipates a handling capacity of 2 million tons of grain per year, storage for 90,000 tons, and a loading and unloading capacity of 2,000 tons per hour. Since 2016, Sian Port has been operating grain transport at the port of Santana across from the island. But we were focused on the other bank of the Amazon River. There, Vaz and Franz's third business partner in the port, a man named Claudio Jose Zan Canaro, or Ze Canario, as the locals call him, had transformed a modest brick house into a port for international exports.

[Felipe Sabrina]

Have you ever heard of someone named Claudio Jose Zancanaro?

[Maria Osvaldina Pereira dos Santos (Val)]

Never. I've never heard my father mention him. My father was an influential man here. I've never heard of him.

[Amy Westervelt]

Maria Osvaldina Pereira dos Santos tells us to call her Val. She's 62 years old. She was born in Mazagao, a nearby town, but was raised on Santa Ana island since she was a baby. She's one of the longest time residents here and had never met anyone named Claudio Jose Zancanaro. However, in August 2012, Zancanado sent a document to the Federal Heritage Superintendents stating that he'd been living in a house on the island since January of that year. It stood on a 20 hectare plot facing the Amazon river, built of brick and wood. The photos of the interior of the house attached to the case file show a simple place with pots and glasses and plastic containers in the kitchen, clothes and cosmetics in the bathroom. A place just like anyone else's house. In that document, Zan Canaro asked for a land occupation registration. In other words, a record stating that he had the right to use this piece of land. It could not be a property deed, since it was federal land.

[Maria Osvaldina Pereira dos Santos (Val)]

Dr. Moises was the veterinarian we had here on the island. He lived down there where the port operated by CN Port is located.

[Amy Westervelt]

Val explained that the house Zancanado said he lived in actually belonged to a Dr. Moises who had died a few years earlier. Moises was the town vet. Zan Canaro had bought the house from him, and Val says she never heard of him living there. But in September 2013, the government granted the certificate of occupancy. The very next month, he requested a transfer of ownership of the area to CN Port. His and Miguel Vaz's company that transports grain from Mato Grosso.

[Felipe Sabrina]

What are you guys going to do here?

[Marcelo Moreira]

We're going to build a port. It'll ship soybeans, soybean meal, all kinds of stuff all over the world, mainly to China. This belongs to Zaykanaria, a guy from Goya. This is private.

[Felipe Sabrina]

When will you to be ready?

[Marcelo Moreira]

In about five years.

[Amy Westervelt]

This is a local resident who didn't want to be identified for fear of retribution. He told us more about the construction of CN Port's port, the transfer of ownership from Zan Canaro, or Zay Canario, as the locals here call him, to the company. Sian Port was authorized in January 2014. So, with just a few signatures and some bureaucratic formalities, an area of the Amazon that had served solely as a home for artisanal fishermen was transformed overnight into a site that would host a massive grain warehouse for international exports. Where there used to be a small family home surrounded by fruit trees. Today there is extensive deforestation and the start of construction on warehouses, silos, conveyor belts and other megastructures. It's capable of loading and unloading 2000 tons of grain per hour. Local residents were never consulted about this drastic change to their community. Here's Val again.

[Maria Osvaldina Pereira dos Santos (Val)]

They did nothing. Nobody knew. We found out from a man who worked at the government office. He left here and he's since passed away. He saw this project on paper there, so he brought it here to tell the people. No one believed it because they had to see it on paper. They said it wasn't going to happen. Oh, there it is, right in front of us. There are ships passing by every day, picking up soybeans. It stinks like chicken poop. Really stinky. It's the soybean dust that the wind blows over here,

[Amy Westervelt]

look.

[Maria Osvaldina Pereira dos Santos (Val)]

I don't think this future is very promising because they're destroying everything. The forests, our woodlands, our ancient trees. I'm afraid if they keep destroying all this, it's going to get really hot.

[Amy Westervelt]

Marcelo Moreira, Amapa's environmental prosecutor, says that port issues have become common in nearby Amapa.

[Marcelo Moreira]

Amapa is a port of entry for ships that generally transport grain and ore. They stop at the local port and we already know there are impacts.

[Amy Westervelt]

But he says, for Santana, this is a new and rapidly increasing problem

[Marcelo Moreira]

on Santana Island. I don't think they even realize the magnitude of the impact. Santana island has been inhabited since the 18th century. It was a long standing settlement, but it's an impoverished one.

[Amy Westervelt]

Santana island has no sewage system Water for drinking, cooking and bathing comes from untreated wells, and public garbage collection is inadequate. Prosecutor Moretta warns of the effects of real estate speculation that comes hand in hand with these megadevelopments. More environmental devastation, a higher cost of living and greater precariousness for already impoverished populations.

[Marcelo Moreira]

For the market, it's great. This invisible impact, which will never be measured in any public hearing or licensing process, is what truly affects the Amazon we know today. And soon it won't really exist anymore.

[Amy Westervelt]

Cory's warnings to Bruce were right. It's hard for foreigners to do business in the Amazon because there are so many protections in place for land rights and the environment there. For good reason. Indigenous people have fought hard for rights to their ancestral lands. And the ecosystem there is critical to the well being of the Brazil and the entire planet. But despite some obstacles, Bruce and his partners managed to grow rapidly in the Amazon. First by building a large farm and now by constructing a major private port. All of this in less than a decade, thanks to the slow enforcement and fines for environmental violations committed by major agribusiness executives. As a result, the community cities protecting the Amazon and the Cerrado are being steamrolled by developers. Bruce's development plans in Tanzania may have failed, as you heard about in episode two, but in Amapa, he's having better luck. And if you think that this crew's ambitions end with a megaport for international exports in the Amazon and grain plantations there too, you can raise your expectations. The Amazon is one of the world's largest carbon sinks, naturally storing billions of tons of carbon. But FS wants to industrialize the process. We found documents showing that FS is attempting to change Brazilian laws to make carbon capture projects in the Amazon feasible. They want it to be treated as a regulatory priority for the country. And they have direct access to the government to make their case. That's our story next time. We reached out to Bruce Rastetter, Harold Hamm, the Franz Brothers, Miguel Vaz Ribeiro and all Summit companies and Brazilian government agencies mentioned in this season for comment and have incorporated any responses we received throughout the season.

[Felipe Sabrina]

Carbon Cowboys of the Isejado is a collaboration between Drilled and the Intercept Brazil.

[Amy Westervelt]

The show was reported and written by Felipe Sabrina and me, Amy Westervelt.

[Felipe Sabrina]

Our editors are Audrey Queen in the US and Alice de Souza in Brazil.

[Amy Westervelt]

Our senior producer and sound designer is Martin Zaltz. Ostwyk Audio production and sound design in Brazil by Marcia Heverdosa and Felipe Mukher.

[Felipe Sabrina]

Our impact producer is Lindsay Crowder. Theme song and original music by Eric Terrena.

[Amy Westervelt]

Additional music by Martin Zaltz, Austwick. Our engineer is Peter Duff.

[Felipe Sabrina]

Artwork for Drilled is by Matt Fleming.

[Amy Westervelt]

US Fact checking from Naomi Barr Brazil

[Felipe Sabrina]

fact checking by Studio Frontera.

[Amy Westervelt]

Our First Amendment attorney is James Wheaton with the First Amendment Project. We are also proud members of Reporter Shield. Big thanks also to Andrew Fishman, President of the Intercept Brazil.

[Felipe Sabrina]

Drilled is distributed by Pushkin Industries.

[Amy Westervelt]

Huge thanks to the team there including Greta Cohen, Eric Sandler, Grace Ross, Morgan Ratner, Owen Miller, Kira Posey, Jordan McMillan, Brian Schrebernek and Jake Flanagan. To hear the Portuguese version of this series, head over to the Intercept Brazil's site or search for the Intercept Brazil's podcast feed wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Felipe Sabrina]

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone Paying Big Wireless Way too much.

[Amy Westervelt]

Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra.

[Podcast Advertiser]

See full [e-mail] service opens doors and at American Military University it can open doors for the whole family. If you have a loved one who served in the military, you may qualify for reduced tuition. AMU offers flexible online programs designed to fit your schedule so you can keep moving forward wherever life takes you. Learn more at amuapus.edu Military open doors to the future for you and your family with the help of the American Military University Aging doesn't stop and neither

[PayPal Advertiser]

should you with vital proteins, collagen and protein shakes. Because around the age of 30, your body needs more support from movement and recovery. On workout and rest days, reach for a 30 gram total protein shake or go with our classic collagen peptides. Help support healthy hair, skin, nails, bones and joints so you can stay vital. Stay you. Visit vitalproteins.com to learn more and where to buy. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

[Amy Westervelt]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[PayPal Advertiser]

Guaranteed Human.