Last Friday, February 12th, Isac Tembé left his home on the Alto Rio Guama Indigenous Territory, in the northeast of the Amazonian state of Pará, to go hunting nearby with a group of friends. He never returned. The young Indigenous leader was murdered; shot point-blank in the chest by a member of Brazil's military police, on his own land.
British mining company Anglo American responded to the open letter from the Association of Brazil’s Indigenous Peoples (APIB) and Amazon Watch, in which the organizations demanded that the mining company make a public commitment not to carry out mining activities on Indigenous lands in Brazil, regardless of changes to Brazilian legislation. In its...
Quito, Ecuador – Indigenous Organizations and Human Rights Organizations celebrate the decision of the four European banks to exclude Ecuadorian oil trade from their financing portfolios. This crude is extracted from the Amazon and primarily destined for refineries in the U.S. These decisions recognize that in Ecuador, oil companies and the...
Due to the inaction and discrimination by Amazonian governments, Indigenous peoples have called upon international allies to show solidarity at this critical moment to protect Indigenous rights and lives. They have called on allies – including Amazon Watch – to unite and work together to raise awareness and solidarity funding to ensure medicine...
Quito, Ecuador – Ecuadorian judges ruled this week in favor of nine girls who sued the government over rights violations from the oil industry practice of gas flaring at oil production sites in the country's Amazon region.
Oakland, CA – Today, BlackRock released CEO Larry Fink's annual letter to CEOs as well as a letter to its clients. The letters spelled out the next steps the world's largest asset manager will be taking to address the climate crisis. While today's letters indicated several steps in the right direction for the financial giant, it falls short of the...
Al Jazeera | Marlon Vargas, president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon, believes "the decision of these banks to stop financing trade of Amazon crude from our territories is a major milestone in our effort to protect our lands, our lives, and our cultures. For too long, the oil industry has wreaked havoc on our peoples...
Wall Street Journal | "The banks identified in our report faced serious allegations of double standards for making climate pledges while continuing to finance the trade of Amazon oil," said Moira Birss, climate and finance director at Amazon Watch.
Geneva, Switzerland – European banks BNP Paribas Group, Credit Suisse, and ING – collectively responsible for financing the trade of $5.5 billion USD in Amazon oil to the U.S. since 2009 – have committed to the immediate exclusion of new Ecuadorian Amazon oil from their trading activities, in emails sent to environmental organizations Stand.earth...
We are only a few weeks into 2021 and today we've announced the inspiring news that European banks that are collectively responsible for financing the trade of over $5.5 billion in Amazon oil to the U.S. from 2009 to 2020 have committed to immediate exclusion measures on the trading of oil from the Amazon Sacred Headwaters of Ecuador! These...
Reuters | Credit Suisse, Dutch lender ING and France's BNP Paribas have decided to stop financing the trade in crude oil from Ecuador, the banks said on Monday, following pressure from campaigners aiming to protect the Amazon rainforest. The role of European lenders in backing the trade came under scrutiny in August, when a report by advocacy groups Stand...
The Association of Brazil's Indigenous Peoples sent an open letter to BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, calling on the asset management firm to adopt a comprehensive Forests and Indigenous Rights policy. The letter comes days before the expected release of Fink's annual letter, in which he often announces policy changes at the companies BlackRock invests...
Indigenous lands are protected by the Brazilian Constitution, and current attempts to change this regulatory framework represent a major threat to the rights of Indigenous peoples, to the integrity of their territories – which remain barriers against deforestation and the degradation of Brazilian biomes – and to the ecological and climatic balance...
The Association of Brazil's Indigenous Peoples and Amazon Watch issued a letter to mining giant Anglo American calling on it to make a public commitment not to conduct mining activities on Indigenous lands in Brazil, regardless of changes in Brazilian legislation.
We invite Anglo American to make a public commitment to refrain from carrying out any mining activities on Indigenous lands in Brazil, regardless of changes in Brazilian legislation, in line with its human rights and biodiversity protection commitments, in particular the Declaration of ICMM's position on Mining and Protected Areas.
"The mining companies are dividing our organization. They are harassing the leaders of the PSHA who oppose mining projects. For this reason, we are exercising our right to self-determination. We have decided not to allow large-scale mining projects in our territory. We demand that the concessions that have been granted in our territory without our...
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.
"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...
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...
"The political and economic interests behind the destruction of the Amazon rainforest – including Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro – are losing a powerful ally with Trump’s election defeat. This is unequivocally good news for the rainforest and her peoples, which are under a sustained assault," said Leila Salazar-López, Amazon Watch Executive...
As the network of Amazonian Women, we express our total rejection of violence and deprivation of liberty that Salomé Aranda – our sister, leader, and defender of the Amazon rainforest – is suffering. We demand her immediate release and that a transparent investigation be carried out on the situation of systematic violence that our sister has...
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...
Brasília, Brazil and Oakland, USA – U.S.-based financial institutions play a key role in enabling the destructive actions of companies linked to violations of Indigenous rights and conflicts in Indigenous territories in the Brazilian Amazon, according to a new report published today by the Association of Brazil's Indigenous Peoples (APIB) and...
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...
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...
Washington, D.C. – Alessandra Korap Munduruku, a prominent Indigenous community leader from the Brazilian Amazon, will be recognized with the annual RFK Human Rights Award on Thursday, October 22nd. This global recognition comes among mounting threats targeting her and the Munduruku community, driven by illegal miners, loggers, and land grabbers...
Amazônia Real | On September 17, Amazônia Real, in partnership with Amazon Watch, witnessed this attack on the rainforest, Indigenous peoples, smallholder farmers, and biodiversity from up above during a flyover. From the sky, smoke from the fires obscures the environmental destruction on the ground – a combination of extensive deforested areas, pasture farms...
CNN | 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...
International awardee APIB is a collective movement of indigenous populations across Brazil. Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro's politics are threatening to the well-being of Brazil's Indigenous, Afro-descendant, women and LGBTQ+ population, in addition to the health of the Amazon Rainforest and the planet. APIB represents the strongest Indigenous...
