Financial Times | "Consciousness of environmental issues has risen a great deal," says Marcelo Seraphim, Brazil head of the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment. "It's become a question of survival in the global market. It is hard to survive if you are not considering ESG issues."
BlackRock
Indigenous Groups Call Out the Financiers of Amazon Destruction at COP 25
Compelling ad in the Financial Times' special COP supplement names and shames those profiting from Amazon destruction
Today the Association of Brazil's Indigenous Peoples published an ad in the Financial Times calling out the worst offenders that finance Amazon destruction and making clear that, “the fate of the Amazon is the fate of the world.”
You Rushed to Defend the Amazon at a Critical Tipping Point, but the Fight Is Not Over
As the "lungs of the planet" burned and police attacked indigenous women and children, the world rose up to ACT for the Amazon. In immediate response to the crisis, your support provided over 65 emergency grants to fight both physical and political fires across the Amazon, including indigenous firefighters in Brazil and Bolivia, emergency relief...
“Everything Is at Stake: the Rainforest, the Climate, and Our Survival”
Brazil's indigenous movement builds resistance to Bolsonaro during European tour
"We need to point our fingers in the face of our enemies," said Célia Xacriabá outside BlackRock, an institution that is backing industries responsible for this year's devastating forest fires.
BlackRock's Ghoulish Lack of Action for the Amazon
BlackRock is a major investor in the industries driving deforestation and indigenous rights violations in the Amazon. That's why, as the Amazon fires crisis escalated through late summer, we joined with allies at Rainforest Action Network, Greenpeace USA, and Friends of the Earth US to contact BlackRock directly about the meaningful steps the...
Amazon Watch is building on more than 25 years of radical and effective solidarity with Indigenous peoples across the Amazon Basin.
Amazon Defenders Make Their Voices Heard at Climate Week
As fires continue to rage in the Amazon rainforest, millions of people have taken to the streets around the world to demand radical, systemic change to the way humanity is handling the climate catastrophe. At New York's Climate Week, indigenous leaders from the Amazon, pro-democracy activists from Brazil, and members of Amazon Watch's team arrived...
BlackRock's CEO Fiddles While the Amazon Burns
We can't allow asset managers to keep profiting from the Amazon crisis
What does the world's largest asset manager have to do with the fires raging in Brazil and other parts of the Amazon? In short: a lot. As the world's biggest money manager, BlackRock plays a key role in deciding where and how the $6.5 trillion in funds they manage are invested.
Brazilians and U.S. Allies Deliver Petition to BlackRock Urging It to Act for the Amazon
"BlackRock is a powerful economic actor that provides significant financing for the expansion of agribusiness. Protests that raise global awareness on the true impacts of this company's financing are very important because they show how it drives deforestation, the destruction of indigenous lands, and the genocide of indigenous peoples. We need to...
Response to Investor Statement on Amazon Deforestation and Fires
230 institutional investors from 30 different countries release joint statement calling for urgent action to protect the Amazon
"Next week is the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York. This would be the perfect moment for the U.S. financial institutions that have yet to take action for the Amazon to step up. To do otherwise would be to continue their complicity in Amazon destruction."
We Made Our Voices Heard All Over the World – and We're Just Getting Started!
Yesterday, demonstrators filled the streets for the Global Day of Action for the Amazon outside of Brazilian embassies and the offices of corporations profiting from Amazon destruction. In more than twenty countries across six continents, thousands of people marched, blocked traffic, displayed art, and held vigils, sit-ins, and other events to...
Dirty Dozen Companies Driving Deforestation Must Act Now to Stop the Burning of the World's Forests
Groups call for the immediate suspension of all business and financing with traders active in the Brazilian Amazon"The Amazon is on fire. Corporations share the blame. They need to become part of the solution."
"Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro certainly deserves the primary blame for the fires currently burning in the Amazon, given his violent, regressive, and racist policies and his explicit encouragement to ‘open the Amazon for business'. But multinational corporations helped create these conditions for profiteering at the expense of the lungs of...
As the Amazon Burns, BlackRock Named As World's Largest Investor in Deforestation
"The fires currently raging in the Amazon clearly demonstrate the risk that agribusiness expansion poses for the Amazon rainforest, indigenous peoples, and the global climate. By expanding investments in the very industries complicit in that destruction, BlackRock is emboldening right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro to continue his quest to raze the...
A Trump-Bolsonaro Free-Trade Agreement Is an Apocalyptically Bad Idea
Op-ed by Andrew Miller of Amazon Watch
The Hill | Proponents of the U.S. Brazil free trade agreement seem to be operating in an alternative universe, oblivious to or willfully ignorant of the environmental and social realities playing themselves out in Brazil.
Summer 2019 Investor Eye on the Amazon
A primer for shareholders concerned about rainforest protection and human rights
The Investor Eye on the Amazon provides an update on our campaigns targeting corporations with ties to dirty industry in the Amazon, and it aims to serve as a resource for socially-responsible investors, industry analysts, and researchers looking to better understand the risks associated with investment in extractive industries - and their own...
More Pathetic Excuses from BlackRock’s CEO
The "conscience of Wall Street" passes the buck on climate action
Larry Fink's view of real climate action was clear when he dodged hard questions and tried to shift the blame to others. When challenged on the billions in assets that BlackRock owns in the fossil fuel industry driving climate change, he blamed his clients. Yep, really. Some leadership, huh?
Wall Street’s Sustainable Darling Is Profiting from Climate Change
The world's largest asset manager, BlackRock, has millions of dollars invested in fossil fuels despite claiming to be a steward of the environment
Vice | "It is time that BlackRock stops financing, sheltering and shielding destructive investments that threaten people and the planet," said Alfred Brownell, a Liberian activist who recently won this year's Goldman environmental prize.
Report Accuses Companies of Aiding Amazon Destruction
From asset manager BlackRock to agribusiness giant Bunge, researchers have cited a host of the world's most powerful companies for either allegedly financing or buying from groups that have been implicated in the destruction and deforestation of the Amazon rainforest.
New Report: European and North American Companies Support Soy, Cattle, and Timber Companies Responsible for Recent Surge in Amazon Deforestation
A new report from Amazon Watch shows for the first time how firms that fuel the destruction of the Brazilian Amazon under Brazil's new president openly trade with and receive financing from a range of companies and major investors in Europe and North America. Although these producers of soy, cattle, and timber for export have documented links to...
Complicity in Destruction II
As the world's largest rainforest, the Amazon provides 20% of our oxygen, houses 10% of the planet's biodiversity, and helps stabilize the global climate. The world needs it to survive. None understand this better than the indigenous peoples and traditional communities who call it home, and are proven to be its best stewards. Despite their...
Amazon in Focus 2019 / 2017-2018 Annual Report
Protecting and restoring the Amazon, indigenous rights, and the climate, requires greater unity across movements. Accomplishing the required transition from fossil fuels and protection of indigenous stewards of vital forests is the most urgent task we face today. We hope that you will join us in partnership this year and for many years to come.
Connecting the Dots on the Financing of Climate Chaos
Thirty-three of the world's biggest banks have poured a whopping $1.9 trillion into fossil fuels since 2016, and this financing continues to increase every year. That was a key finding of the Banking on Climate Change report, released yesterday by allies including Rainforest Action Network and Indigenous Environmental Network and endorsed by...
Brazil’s New President Threatens “the Lungs of the Planet”
If there is hope for the rainforest, and for countries where authoritarians threaten democracy and progressive agendas, it lies in the determination and power of civil society activists like Sônia Guajajara.
Defending Rights, Building Unity, and Protecting the Amazon Sacred Headwaters
In the remote, roadless rainforest territories along the border between Ecuador and Peru, over a dozen indigenous nationalities have launched an initiative to permanently protect about 60 million acres from industrial extraction and stop the drivers of deforestation. Dubbed the Amazon Sacred Headwaters, the initiative seeks to present a united...
Bolsonaro Wants to Plunder the Amazon. Don’t Let Him.
Mr. Bolsonaro's rise to power will test companies' promises to be responsible. Will leading global agribusiness companies be complicit in Mr. Bolsonaro's assault on the Amazon and its people, thus sacrificing their commitments, their reputation and our climate? And will financial institutions like BlackRock heed their own calls for companies to...
If BlackRock Has a Purpose, It’s Not Confronting Climate Change
On Wednesday, we got some incredible news: the CEO of the world's largest investment firm announced he was radically shifting the company's priorities, including moving money out of fossil fuels because they cause climate change and pressuring the companies it owns to align with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. Yet soon our cheers turned...
Jair Bolsonaro Launches Assault on Amazon Rainforest Protections
"There will be an increase in deforestation and violence against indigenous people," said Dinaman Tuxá, the executive coordinator of the Articulation of Indigenous People of Brazil. "Indigenous people are defenders and protectors of the environment."
Investor Eye on the Amazon
The Investor Eye on the Amazon provides an update on our campaigns targeting corporations with ties to dirty industry in the Amazon, and it aims to serve as a resource for socially-responsible investors, industry analysts, and researchers looking to better understand the risks associated with investment in extractive industries - and their own...
US Funds with Big Amazon Farming Stakes Face Bolsonaro Choice
Amazon Watch is running a campaign against BlackRock for its investments in companies that cause deforestation in the Amazon. In the past, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has called on companies to invest with social and climate impact in mind.
Strict Amazon Protections Made Brazilian Farmers More Productive, New Research Shows
Strong environmental protections are necessary to save the Amazon, protecting Brazil and the world from the loss of this critical, fragile habitat. Far from being bad for business, Brazil's Amazonian protections help sustain the country as a global breadbasket. If Bolsonaro scraps them, he won't just imperil a legendary rainforest. He'll hurt...
