U.S. Financial Institutions Are Complicit in the Destruction of the Amazon | Amazon Watch
Amazon Watch

U.S. Financial Institutions Are Complicit in the Destruction of the Amazon

New report exposes how mining companies and international investors drive Indigenous rights violations and threaten the future of the Amazon rainforest

February 22, 2022 | Ana Paula Vargas | Eye on the Amazon

Today, alongside the Association of Brazil’s Indigenous Peoples (APIB), we launched Complicity in Destruction IV: How mining companies and international investors drive Indigenous rights violations and threaten the future of the Amazon.

For years, our research has exposed and demanded accountability from the northern actors complicit in the ongoing destruction and Indigenous rights violations in the Amazon. This latest investigation in the series found that international financiers poured $54.1 billion into the mining companies profiled in the report. We choose to focus on mining in this fourth edition because of its escalating threat for Indigenous communities under the Bolsonaro administration’s emerging policies.

View the interactive report

This research is the first compilation of case studies exposing international actors’ risks of potentially financing illegal mining interests on Indigenous Lands – such as Xikrin do Cateté, Waimiri Atroari, and Sawré Muybu – in the Brazilian Amazon. U.S.-based corporations remain some of the main financiers complicit in this destruction. We investigated nine companies with mining exploration applications overlapping Indigenous lands and track records of rights violations; together, Capital Group, BlackRock, and Vanguard invested $14.8 billion in these nine companies.  

Following the release of Complicity in Destruction III, APIB and Amazon Watch began mapping the interests of large mining companies overlapping Indigenous lands in 2020. Despite statements by giants such as Vale and Anglo American claiming that they would withdraw their applications for research and mineral exploration in these territories, our research shows that many applications remain active in the Brazilian National Mining Agency’s (ANM) system. In some cases, the number of requests even increased. Additionally, mining companies resubmitted some applications with cleverly-redrawn boundaries that go right up to the edges of Indigenous lands, which will still cause enormous impact. Our research applies data from previous research by Nature Communications that says mining projects can increase forest loss as far as 70 km beyond the intended operation site.

“There must be a general understanding that Indigenous lands, traditional territories, and protected areas in the Amazon are not available for mineral exploration, nor should they be, both because there must be respect for our constitutional right to self-determination as Indigenous peoples over our territories, and because of our lands’ importance in combating climate change and guaranteeing life on the planet. This understanding must come from the Brazilian government, but also from the companies – which are fully capable of proactively knowing in which areas they are filing requests – and from the financial corporations that finance them.”

Dinamam Tuxá of APIB

As recently as November 2021, almost 2,500 active mining applications were overlapping 261 Indigenous lands in the ANM system. These applications have the potential to exploit 10.1 million hectares of land – an area almost as large as England. 

Complicity in Destruction IV reveals that over the last five years, Vale, Anglo American, Belo Sun, Potássio do Brasil, Mineração Taboca, and Mamoré Mineração e Metalúrgia (both from Grupo Minsur), Glencore, AngloGold Ashanti, and Rio Tinto received a total of $ 54.1 billion in financing from U.S., Brazilian, Canadian, and European investors. The companies profiled share a history of human and environmental rights violations and a long-standing interest in expanding their operations into Indigenous territories – where mining is currently illegal. 

Brazilian institutions also hold a substantial share in the financing of large-scale mining: PREVI (Banco do Brasil’s Employee Pension Fund) holds the highest investments in these mining companies, with more than $ 7.4 billion, followed by the private bank Bradesco, with almost $ 4.4 billion.

Complicity in Destruction IV also details, in five case studies, the impacts and rights violations carried out by five of these mining companies: Vale, Anglo American, Belo Sun, Potássio do Brasil, and Mineração Taboca. Vale received the most investments and loans over the last five years we analyzed, with $ 35.8 billion, showing that not even the successive dam disasters in Mariana and Brumadinho reduced investors’ appetites for the mining company. 

The testimonies within Complicity in Destruction IV illustrate how the activities of these internationally-financed mining companies have forever altered the lives of Indigenous peoples and traditional communities. The report challenges the companies’ laudatory statements about their own projects and lays out the risks financiers take by failing to hold companies accountable. Mining deeply impacts Indigenous lives, and it will continue to destroy ecosystems and exacerbate climate change if governments and northern actors do not heed the warnings in the report. We join APIB in amplifying the demands of Indigenous peoples and bringing the message directly to these companies. 

Together, we’ve accomplished several small victories since we launched Complicity in Destruction III, and now we need you to join us once again to help prevent the destruction that mining companies have planned. We can’t allow these corporations to ignore their history of human rights violations and pollution! We’re counting on your support to get #MiningOut of the Amazon, in defense of Indigenous rights and of traditional peoples, once and for all. Pledge your support to hold corporations accountable and end mining in the Brazilian Amazon here.

PLEASE SHARE

Short URL

Donate

Amazon Watch is building on more than 25 years of radical and effective solidarity with Indigenous peoples across the Amazon Basin.

DONATE NOW

TAKE ACTION

The Shuar Arutam Have Already Decided: No Mining on Their Territory!

TAKE ACTION

Stay Informed

Receive the Eye on the Amazon in your Inbox! We'll never share your info with anyone else, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Subscribe