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Manufacturing Consent: Ecuador to Draft New Bill on the Consultation of Indigenous Peoples, Without Consulting Them

"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."

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.

Complicity in Destruction III

How Global Corporations Enable Violations of Indigenous Peoples' Rights in The Brazilian Amazon

This new report, published by the Association of Brazil’s Indigenous Peoples in partnership with Amazon Watch, reveals how a network of leading international financial institutions is linked to conflicts on Indigenous lands, illegal deforestation, land grabbing, the weakening of environmental protections, and the production and export of conflict commodities.

The Shuar Arutam Will Not Be Divided by Canadian Mining Company Solaris Resources

The company has led a divisive public relations campaign in attempts to manufacture consent for the Warintza mining project

"This 'Strategic Alliance' is not an 'innovative relationship' as Solaris portrays it. It is the same strategy that many mining and oil companies have used to advance their projects, while side-stepping and disrespecting the legitimate and traditional Indigenous organizational structures."

Mining on Indigenous Territories Brings Ecological Devastation, Land Invasions, and Renewed Cycles of Violence

Two new reports detail potential scale of harm caused by mining projects in Indigenous communities, including water pollution and increasing the spread of COVID-19

"We, the Yanomami people, have long been forced to live with the invasion of illegal mining. Miners are contaminating our rivers with mercury, carving out our lands, and killing our animals and our environment. Our health is poor as a result of drinking water contaminated by mining. Right now, they could potentially infect almost half of our people, who live in villages invaded by mining," said Dario Kopenawa Yanomami.

Unless Forced to Act, the Government Would Simply Leave Us to Die

Beset by the Bolsonaro administration's negligence on public healthcare, Indigenous peoples take resistance to the Supreme Court

The first Indigenous person to die from COVID-19 was Alvanei Xirixana, a 15-year-old Yanomami boy, who was not even a member of a high-risk group. More than 20,000 wildcat miners have invaded Yanomami lands. It's not an exaggeration to say that the Yanomami and the peoples living in voluntary isolation there are in grave danger of disappearing. But we are all extremely vulnerable to COVID-19, including those of us who live in cities.

Is BlackRock the New Vampire Squid?

The investment giant casts itself as socially responsible while contributing to the climate catastrophe, evading regulatory scrutiny, and angling to influence a Biden administration

Luiz Eloy, a member of the Terena people and a lawyer with the Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, said in an email that BlackRock has "changed absolutely nothing to alter its investment strategy, which pours money into the very companies that brutalize us and take down forests on an industrial scale. Talk means nothing to us, not after so many of us have died and lost our homes."