RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) – The environmentalist group Greenpeace praised soy traders Tuesday for refusing to buy soybeans from newly deforested land but said the two-year ban is insufficient to protect the Amazon rain forest from destruction.

Cargill Inc and other multinational soy traders agreed Monday to the two-year moratorium in response to protests against expanding soy plantations, which have become a major source of destruction of the rain forest.

“Industry has never taken such a bold step toward protecting the Amazon,” Paulo Adario, director of Greenpeace’s Amazon campaign, said by telephone from the jungle city of Manaus. “But it could have little practical effect.”

The moratorium calls for monitoring of soy plantations, stricter enforcement of an existing forest code and collaboration with rural groups and the federal government.

Taking part are US commodities giants Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland Co and Bunge Ltd, as well as France’s Dreyfus and Brazilian-owned Amaggi. Together, the companies account for the majority of the soy trade in Brazil, the world’s No 2 producer after the United States.

A week before agreeing to the moratorium, Cargill, ADM and Bunge were named in an Associated Press story describing the anger of environmentalists and local Brazilians over the area’s soy operations. They alleged that Cargill’s huge port on the Amazon river has encouraged nearby soy farmers to destroy pristine rain forest.

But two years is an insignificant period for soy monitoring, especially for new producers carving plantations out of the rain forest, Adario said.

“Anyone who lives here knows that the first year you clear land, slash-and-burn and put some cows on the land,” he said. “The second year you pull out stumps and plant rice. Soy is only planted the third year – after the ban loses effect.”

He added: “Everyone could accept the moratorium today without changing anything… We expected more.”

Soy is the top cash crop in Brazil and is now a leading cause of deforestation in the Amazon. The Amazon lost 6,950 square miles (18,000 sq. kilometers) of rain forest between 2003 and 2004, while some 4,633 square miles (12,000 sq. kilometers) of soybeans were planted during that time.

Soy is capital intensive, Adario said, and often expands into areas where cattle grazed, pushing ranchers deeper into the forest.

Most of the Amazon soy is exported to Europe to feed chicken, pigs and cows, Greenpeace said. In April, Greenpeace activists in chicken costumes invaded McDonald’s Corp restaurants in the United Kingdom and chained themselves to the chairs – accusing the company of feeding their chickens with illegally grown soybeans in the Amazon.

The government now must take a central role in monitoring soy plantations, mapping the largely uncharted wilderness and enforcing laws, which require Amazon landowners to leave 80 per cent of their forested areas standing

“Today only part of the soy plantations are registered,” Adario said. “The government has to produce maps so industries know where the soy comes from.”