The main problem is that the herds are extremely mobile. And this is partly the nature of the business. Cattle are born on one farm and fattened on another. They then go to the slaughterhouse and finally the meatpacking plant. Yet there are many cases of ‘triangulation’ to legalise herds that at some point lived on pastures that had been illegally deforested.

Paulo Barreto, a researcher at Imazon who has studied ranching in the Amazon for decades, noted that it benefits neither producers nor the government to establish a system that permits total traceability since there is an economic advantage in keeping part of the herds invisible.

He added that the complex interaction of different actors within the system means it’s likely that there is a direct connection between growing Chinese demand for beef and increased deforestation, Barreto said.

"In this system full of holes, any additional demand generates risk."

Ranchers fight critics

Rancher Adélio Barofaldi insists on the need to “tell the truth about the Amazon", which he says differs from the alarming headlines about fires that appeared in newspapers worldwide.

He says that criminalising deforestation is a mistake, since Brazilian legislation allows clearing on 20% of rural properties in the Amazon region.

"(Satellite) photography does not show whether deforestation is legal or illegal," he says.

Barofaldi says that he has a 500-hectare area on his farm that he will not clear. If he were to do so now, he would run the risk of being called a criminal.

Barofaldi does, however, admit that livestock ranching needs to become more efficient, with better pasture management and intensified production.

In the Amazon, herd concentration is still low at only one animal per hectare. This number must be improved, he says, and explains that the goal is seven to eight head per hectare.

In Rondônia, the trend is toward using more technology, such as using electric fencing and recovering degraded pasture, to produce cattle and grains for export. “It would be possible to double the size of the herd in Rondônia without additional deforestation," he says.