More About Climate Change

Will President-elect Biden Protect the Amazon and Stop the Money Pipeline?

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

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.

U.S. Firms Continue to Fund Network of Destruction in the Amazon

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

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.

Amazon Fires Mapping: Exposing the Destruction with Data

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.

In the U.S. Elections, the Amazon Rainforest Is Also on the Ballot

This election in the United States could well be the most consequential of our lifetimes. Racial justice issues are on the ballot. Climate change is on the ballot. The future of the American democratic experiment – as flawed as it has been – is on the ballot. And yes, the Amazon rainforest is also on the ballot.

Indigenous Peoples of the Ecuadorian Amazon Denounce Rights Violations and Government Inaction During COVID-19 Pandemic Before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights

Quito, Ecuador – The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated Indigenous peoples across the Ecuadorian Amazon, where numbers of cases and deaths continue to rise. It has further exacerbated the threats from oil and mining activity, illegal logging, and food insecurity, and exposed the government's discrimination and abandonment of indigenous peoples.

The Amazon's Frontline Defenders Are Under Siege. Where Are Their Reinforcements?

Like in the United States, President Bolsonaro of Brazil's incendiary language discredits and all but sanctions persecution of select minority groups. In his address to the UN Assembly last month, Bolsonaro implicated "Brazilians of indigenous ancestry" for the Amazon's raging fires and deforestation. The previous year, he singled out Chief Raoni, memorably maligning him from the UN floor.

Can Our Culture Survive Climate Change?

Our lives are inextricable from the natural world. The creatures of the rainforest protect us, and in turn we protect them. We are the only buffers protecting our thinning forests. Our battle is not just for the future. It's for the present.