off online — on social media. joao fellet reports. the amazon rainforest is one of the most beautiful and biodiverse places on earth... ..and if you want to buy a chunk of it, now all you have to do is go online. we've discovered facebook has become a go—to marketplace for brazil's illegal land grabbers. .. ..ready to turn pristine rainforest into cattle pasture for buyers around the world at the click of a button... indistinct voices ..no matter what or who they harm. i'm joao fellet and i'm going to take you undercover to meet the sellers behind the online ads... ..to find out who they are and how they are getting away with it. deforestation in the brazilian amazon is at a ten—year high. is facebook fuelling that destruction? deforestation is happening in every corner of the amazon. it's not hard to find communities of illegal loggers working away. we were invited by a logger to actually visit the place where he's chopping the trees right now. we are about to enter the forest. this logger says he's been caught by the authorities twice, but all they did was give him cautions. one of the federal agencies which polices deforestation in the amazon is ibama, but they've had their budget slashed by the government. a tree like this is worth twice the monthly salary for someone on minimum wage. this young logger tells us he's cut down thousands. but loggers like this are only part of the story. the destruction of the amazon is driven by the demand for land. and we've discovered that land deals these days are moving online. we started this investigation by typing some words on facebook, like forest. and there were hundreds of ads. people were selling chunks of the amazon rainforest. we started going through the ads one by one. we quickly discovered that a lot of sellers openly admit they don't have any documentation which proves they own the land they're advertising. this plot in amazonas state, its just been deforested. the seller says she has no documents and she would take a motorbike as part of her payment. chunks of rainforest as large as 1,000 football pitches were being offered, and it got worse. using satellite imagery, we were able to confirm a lot of the plots on sale were, in fact, inside protected areas. some of the most biodiverse places on earth were being advertised on facebook as perfect for timber harvesting and cattle farming. but how do we prove that this is not just an online scam? how do we prove that this is real people selling real plots of land? we have to go there and find them. a lot of the ads we found were coming from one place in particular... ..the state of rondonia. it is known as the wild west of brazil. a state famous for its violent land disputes and for having one of the highest rates of deforestation in the amazon. in the 2018 election, people here voted heavily in favour of now presidentjair bolsonaro, who told communities like this that the amazon rainforest was theirs to develop. shouting we've come here to try to find the sellers we saw on facebook, but, to do that, we need to send someone undercover. we'd found an operative with a good knowledge of land deals who's willing to help expose what's going on. using undercoverfilming equipment, he's going to pose as a lawyer checking out land on behalf of wealthy investors from sao paulo. but land development is a dangerous business in rondonia. in the past five years alone, more than 50 people have been murdered in land disputes here. so to protect our operative, we're going to hide his real identity. but you can call him lucas. we arranged for lucas to meet the first seller at a local cafe. would our cover story work? phone line rings fabricio is a middle—class guy with a steadyjob as a supervisor at a slaughterhouse. he seems to have a comfortable life in the city, and still he's involved with this, which makes us think that he's doing it as a side gig. fabricio begins to open up. the plot he's selling is the size of 57 football pitches, but he tells lucas he doesn't have any legal proof of ownership. sellers and buyers rely on the culture of impunity that exists in the amazon. they're just very comfortably negotiating plots of land that they don't legally own. it is so easy to play the system here. a very important detail about this ad is, when he posted it, there was a satellite picture showing an area that was fully covered by forest. but fabricio tells us that is no longer the case, and he invites lucas to come and see for himself. lucas follows fabricio in his car two hours outside of the state capital, porto velho. we track his movements remotely. they arrive at an area that should be covered in primary rainforest. indistinct speech but, since posting his advert online, fabricio has chopped down the rainforest and set the area on fire. last year, there were 103,000 recorded fires in the amazon. clearances done for profit by people like fabricio account for much of the deforestation. fabricio has now tripled his asking price. areas ready for cattle farming or agriculture are more valuable, and that is how he will profit. the illegal land market in the amazon is booming. access to buyers on social media could help make it international. we contacted fabricio for his response to the investigation, but he declined to comment. almost entirely covered in rainforest until the 1980s, rondonia today looks like a patchwork quilt of cattle pastures. there are eight cows for every person here. protected areas and indigenous territories are almost all that remains of the once—vast amazon rainforest in this state, and now even they are under threat. we meet up with environmental activist ivaneide bandeira. she's been fighting deforestation in rondonia for more than 30 years. ivaneide wants to show us an area of protected rainforest. her charity, kaninde, works with indigenous peoples to help them protect their territories from land invaders. but it's dangerous work. 2a environmental activists were killed in brazil in 2019 alone. ari was a member of the community living inside rondonia's largest indigenous territory, uru—eu—wau—wau. he was found with stab wounds in his neck. no—one has been arrested for his death. one of the sellers we found on facebook was advertising land inside ari's home, the uru—eu—wau—wau indigenous territory. he's one of the invaders grabbing land from ari's family. the uru—eu—wau—wau indigenous territory is a rainforest paradise in the middle of rondonia's farming heartland. we've come here to meet bitate, the leader of ari's indigenous community. bitate is only 20 years old, but, under his leadership, the community has set up a team to monitor and catch invaders. ari was a member of the team. shouting this man was caught inside the territory with a gun. funai — the federal agency meant to protect brazil's indigenous peoples — doesn't have an office here. the closest is 200km away. bitate says the invasions are getting worse and worse. i show him what our investigation has uncovered. invasions happen here with or without facebook, but facebook makes it easier than ever for sellers to find buyers. could we find the invader trying to sell part of the uru—eu—wau—wau reserve on facebook? the next day, our undercover operative, lucas, heads out of town. the seller we found on facebook advertising lands inside the uru—eu—wau—wau territory has agreed to a meeting. just as before, he thinks lucas is a lawyer representing wealthy investors from sao paulo. the seller is a man called alvim alves. he has brought with him several official—looking documents. none of them is a legal land title. one of the documents he shows lucas mentions the curupira association. the federal police labelled this association, this curupira association, as a criminal organisation focused on stealing land from the indigenous people. these associations occupy protected areas and lobby pro—agriculture politicians to grant the stolen lands to their members. then alvim invites our undercover operative, lucas, to meet a man he says is the leader of his association. lucas is introduced to edinario batista. edinario denies being the leader of the curupira association, but says, like alvim, he has plots inside the uru—eu—wau—wau indigenous reserve. it's hard to evict large groups of people, especially when there's no forest left to protect. president bolsonaro says protected areas hinder brazil's development. edinario reveals the association's got a politician setting up meetings for them in the country's capital, brasilia. land—grabbing in brazil isn'tjust enterprising hustlers looking for money on the side. 0rganised groups like this, backed by politicians, are more and more common. the politician edinario mentioned is representative colonel chrisostomo. as we head back to rondonia's capital, porto velho, we make a call to his team. the colonel agrees to meet us the next day. colonel chrisostomo. a former army officer, colonel chrisostomo was elected for the first time in 2018 on the same political wave and with the same party that helped president bolsonaro rise to power. the colonel admits helping the curupira association meet federal agencies in brasilia, but he tells us his role as a politician is to connect people. we contacted alvim and edinario for a response to our investigation, but they both declined to comment. since bolsonaro's government came to power, illegal logging and mining groups have been given unprecedented access to government officials. back home in sao paulo, we take the results of our investigation to brazil's environment minister, ricardo salles. but our experience in rondonia tells a different story. and now facebook is allowing brazil's land invaders to reach millions of buyers around the world. in response to the bbc�*s investigation, facebook said... the social media giant told us... but in places like rondonia, a lot of people don't want to preserve the most biodiverse rainforest on earth. they want to develop it. despite decades of international pressure, the destruction of the amazon rainforest isn't slowing down. it's speeding up. hello there. high pressure is here to stay and bring settled conditions for many of us. the best of the weather was across england and wales with clear skies and mild conditions into the afternoon but cloud for scotland and ireland. the weekend looks like they were might be more cloud and a bit of mist through the week and the night will remain chilly. for sunday, we start off with high pressure with light winds and clear skies and so it's going to be cold with some frost and mist and fog around, probably less cold across the northwest because there will be more cloud. some places on sunday starting off with this frost and fog saw rather grey and chilly to begin with. it should melt away for many areas but it could linger across the far east into east anglia where it could stay chilly. for most of england and wales, the sunshine will break through and turn mild into the afternoon. a sunnier day for scotland and northern ireland compared to saturday. where we have the sunshine, up to 13 celsius, quite chilly along the east coast with low cloud and the onshore breeze. 0urarea with low cloud and the onshore breeze. 0ur area of high pressure is still with us into monday. more isobars across the southwest which could bring more of a breeze for coastal parts of devon and cornwall and we could see a lot more cloud and we could see a lot more cloud and mist around on monday for england and wales. it could be stubborn and burn back to the east coast, some areas cool and great all day, but further north and west and across the south it will feel mild again. monday into tuesday, we are watching this feature move northwards across biscayne which will introduce thicker cloud and heavy showers to the channel islands and towards south—western england late on tuesday but for the rest of the country, a repeat performance, grey skies in eastern areas, the best of the sunshine further north and west and across southern areas where we will see double figures. this front continues to move northwards and eastwards so we could see more widespread showers for southwest england, wales and into southern england for a time, the odd heavier ones mixed in. elsewhere, variable cloud and sunny spells, most of the cloud across northern and eastern areas, most of the sunshine out west. highs of ten or 12 celsius, otherwise quite cool in the cloud. some changes take place from mid week onwards with high pressure developing to the north which will open the floodgates to colder air which will spell southwards across the country. a change in wind direction will bring some cloud into eastern areas and will feel quite chilly along the north sea coast. the best of the sunshine around southern and eastern areas —— western areas, five or nine celsius. high pressure dominates into the weekend but the cold air is workers and the isobars closer across northern and eastern areas where we'll have a few showers, further west, closer to the centre so we have better sunshine. mainly dry and to the end of the week and next weekend but it will be turning colder with a chance of showers across northern and eastern areas in the best of the sunshine will be across the west. levelling with the british people about the country's finances — the chancellor warns of the enormous strains,

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