Colombia enacted a landmark law (Law 2585 of 2026) requiring the cattle industry to trace livestock and prove supply chains are free from deforestation. In a first-of-its-kind, the law is intended to help fight illegal deforestation linked to livestock production.
The new law will trace cattle from ranch to supermarket in an effort for government agencies and companies to monitor deforestation databases that will cross-reference land tenure and cattle ownership.
“Legislation is an effective way to address conservation challenges such as deforestation because it establishes minimum requirements and creates a level playing field,” Fernando Bellese de Cesaro, senior director, beef and leather supply chains at WWF US, said.
It is the first tropical forest country to adopt a nationwide framework to fight illegal deforestation and it is being referred to as a “a powerful tool,” Juan Carlos Losada, a Member of the House of Representatives of Colombia and one of the law’s sponsors, said.
Organizations like the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Food Tank championed the bill, noting it is necessary because past voluntary commitments from the private sector were insufficient to stop land grabbing and the clearing of Amazon forests.
“Traceability is often confused with first-mile monitoring, farm mapping, or life cycle assessment,” Erin Taylor Cooper, head of growth for Wholechain, a blockchain-based traceability solution company, said. “Those tools are important, but they do not follow the movement of goods through aggregation, processing, transformation, and trade.”
Because beef production is responsible for 25 percent of global land-use change, according to WWF, it is a major driver of deforestation in Colombia. Therefore, traceability is essential to the conservation and sustainability of Colombia’s forests in an effort to meet global biodiversity and climate goals, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
“It is recognized as a key strategy to combat climate change and support more resilient agricultural systems,” Bellese said. “That said, we would like to see these discussions and actions progress more quickly.”
Slaughterhouses, meat processors, auctions, and traders have two years to fully implement mandatory due-delineation policies. The move is largely seen as a way for Colombia to align with upcoming trade regulations, such as the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).
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