Eye on the Amazon

November 26, 2020 – Indigenous women in the Amazon have been at the forefront of the fight against climate change and the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, and today we are stepping up into new leadership roles, successfully forcing out extractive industries and companies from our sacred territories.

November 20, 2020 – Amazon Watch's Executive Director, Leila Salazar-López, joined allied human rights organizations to testify today to the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission on the status of the human rights of Indigenous peoples in the Americas. She spoke specifically to the situation of Indigenous rights in the Amazon Basin.

November 18, 2020 – "We demand that an FPIC law be put forth in harmony with and respect for our peoples and nations and our ways and time frames for discussion, analysis, and decision-making. We are not going to acquiesce to an illegitimate law written from their desks in Quito," said a CONFENIAE statement. "Since this will be a law regarding the collective rights of Indigenous peoples and nations, we ourselves must be the ones who put forth and define that law. Any law that sidesteps dialogue with us will not be valid and will not be enforceable in the territories of the Indigenous peoples and nations."

A Biden-Harris administration could play a key role in holding financiers accountable for climate destruction

November 13, 2020 – President-elect Joe Biden managed to turn out a significant progressive base to secure the 2020 presidential election. For many voters, his commitments to address environmental and racial justice after several years of actions, protests and calls from activists led to grassroots mobilizations that delivered the presidency and a few flipped states to the democratic party. With this mandate, a Biden-Harris administration should take bold steps to address the causes of climate change and its impacts on frontline communities both here in the U.S. and in places like the Amazon, where U.S. companies operate and provide financing.

Financial giants BlackRock, JPMorgan Chase, Vanguard, among those that invested more than US $18 billion in nine companies tied to conflicts on Indigenous lands

October 28, 2020 – As the Amazon rainforest smolders from another disastrous burning season and its Indigenous communities face spiking violence and land invasions incited by a racist president, we must stand in solidarity with Brazil's grassroots resistance. Amazon Watch's and APIB's innovative reporting does just this by helping the country's National Indigenous Movement to shine a spotlight on the pivotal role of global finance in shaping the future of Brazil's human rights and environmental landscape.

October 22, 2020 – Bolsonaro and his henchmen would have us believe that "the Amazon doesn't catch fire," "the Amazon isn't burning," or even that "Africa is burning much more than Brazil." Yet these flimsy arguments cannot withstand the accurate documentation of how this year's heartbreaking burning season has laid waste to Brazilian ecosystems while incinerating the country's once-touted environmental credentials along with the credibility of its so-called leaders.