Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
d) Multinational corporate villains revealed as key participants in an anti-deforestation
success story.
e) Goddamn it.
And let's not forget that the only people I saw tearing down trees were possibly angels
of sustainability and local empowerment; and that the people setting forests on fire were
friendly small farmers. It was hard to know where the catalog of disappointment would
end.
In any case, we had our access. Adam and Gil and I showed up at the Cargill terminal,
the temple-of-not-so-much-doom, and were ushered into an air-conditioned reception
room, where we awaited the attention of the terminal manager. In a display case at one end
of the room, a glass goblet of soybeans stood next to a collection of bottled cooking oils
and jars of mayonnaises and other food products derived from Cargill ingredients.
The terminal manager walked in, the commander in chief of the million-odd tons of soy-
beans that passed through the terminal every year. A solid busybody of a man with thinning
hair and a green polo shirt, he already looked impatient.
The great thing about the tour he gave us was that even though we had a newfound ap-
preciation of how Cargill might conceivably be helping to
mitigate
deforestation, and even
though that meant that any story we did might actually take a
positive
spin on the company,
this didn't stop us all from playing out our appointed roles. We were the journalists out to
get the multinational company, for which the terminal manager was a bloviating mouth-
piece.
After some blather about “environment is a priority” and “safety is a priority,” he told
us we would not, as promised, be able to go out to the dock to see grain pouring into a ship
bound for Liverpool or Amsterdam. Nor would we be allowed inside the huge hangar of
the grain storage area. That is to say, for reasons of safety and lameness, we wouldn't be
allowed “in” the plant at all. Nor would we see so much as a single bean of soy, beyond
those in the reception room display case. What was this, an oil sands bus tour?
Instead, the terminal manager led us on a circuit around the outside of the storage fa-
cility, pointing out the truck bay—here, too, safety was a priority—and other completely
boring, soyless locations and features.
On a stretch of wet concrete between the water and the storage building, the terminal
manager stopped and turned to us.
“Here we have a forest for the preservation of native trees,” he said.
We looked around. What was he talking about? To our left there was a small triangle of
grass with a dozen scrawny trees. Only two or three of them even truly qualified as trees.
