BELEM, Brazil — Maria Gorete, who just began ranching three years ago, is doing something new with her 76 head of cattle in the Brazilian countryside near the town of Novo Repartimento.

She's piercing their ears.

Their new jewelry — ear tags, actually — will track their movements throughout their lives as part of an initiative aimed at slowing deforestation in the Brazilian state of Para. Depending on how well it works, it's the kind of solution the world needs more of to slow climate change, the subject of annual United Nations talks just a few hours away in Belem.

With about 20 million cattle in Para, it's a mammoth task. Some of them are on big farms closer to cities, but others are in remote areas where farmers have been cutting down Amazon rainforest to make room for their pastures

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