Mining in the Amazon has terrible effects on the livelihoods and health of Indigenous peoples and frontline communities as well as the overall balance of the Amazon’s biological diversity. Yet, mining giants with well-known track records of devastation and rights violations are eyeing Indigenous and traditional communities’ lands and other protected areas in the Amazon.
Despite committing to withdraw from all mining interests in Indigenous lands, multinational companies continue to bulldoze through communities and their territories to complete their mining projects. Banks and asset managers are once again behind this extractive surge by financing these company’s projects.
Financial Post | “We are putting any institution or company looking to invest in or acquire Belo Sun on notice: this is a bad actor selling a dangerous project. Anyone looking to get involved with it will be shouldering serious risk and will be complicit in the continued threats to the Amazon rainforest, Indigenous and traditional peoples, and the global climate.”
Montreal, Canada - Investors may be exposed to severe risks by maintaining their investments in the Canadian mining company Belo Sun, a new report published today by Amazon Watch shows.
Belo Sun's executives have repeatedly and publicly downplayed the social, environmental, and legal risks of the Volta Grande Project, thereby heightening risks for current and potential investors.
“Today’s action outside of the Royal Bank of Canada is meant to shine a spotlight on how the Canadian mining company Belo Sun poses grave, unacceptable, and irreversible risks to Amazonian biodiversity."
Amazon Watch is traveling to 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) as part of an Amazonian Indigenous delegation of multiple coalitions and nations to draw attention to the extractive industries, especially mining, threatening biodiversity loss in the Amazon rainforest and threatening human rights across the biome.
While Brazil's presidential contest forced a runoff vote scheduled for the end of October, the election saw the historic victory of members of Brazil’s Indigenous "headdress" caucus in São Paulo and the state of Minas Gerais, in a momentous advance for Indigenous representation in the lower house of the National Congress of Brazil.
After years of virtual events, Climate Week 2022 coincided with the gathering of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly, bringing thousands to New York City to hold leaders accountable for the escalating climate crisis and making the presence of Indigenous peoples more important than ever.
New York, NY – New York Climate Week sponsors, including BlackRock and Vanguard, were among the American financial institutions exposed for financing the destruction of the Amazon and Indigenous land at a press conference this week held by Indigenous leaders from the Amazon region and environmental and human rights group Amazon Watch.
“The Indigenous peoples of the Amazon are the true guardians of the forest, and our rights must be respected,” said Toya Manchineri of COIAB.
Gold is used in electrical connections and circuit boards for a multitude of electronic products, including cell phones, laptop and desktop computers, the servers of tech giants, and in electric cars. Research has shown that upwards of 47% of Brazil’s gold exports could be of illegal origin.
Ecuador’s Indigenous movement and the government of Guillermo Lasso have agreed to a temporary moratorium on all new oil and mining concessions. This major development puts the country’s plans to double oil production and significantly boost mining investment in question.
The forum strongly condemned the so-called development paradigm, in which governments and large corporations are complicit in destruction with projects that privatize profits and socialize losses over Amazonian peoples and territories.
“The problems in our region are not new but the violence has escalated to unprecedented levels because under Bolsonaro, illegal operations have gone unpunished.”
The attorney for The Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley, Eliesio Marubo, is traveling to the U.S. for meetings with members of Congress, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the State Department, journalists, and allies. The objective of his visit is to build Congressional support for action and accountability for Dom and...
Stanford Social Innovation Review | As the effects of climate change worsen and concern grows, financial regulators are turning their attention to how companies report on climate-related risks. One crucial factor that businesses and investors may overlook is Indigenous and tribal peoples’ rights.
Let’s remember Bruno and Dom alive, in the middle of the Amazon with Indigenous peoples, walking through the forest and singing the Kanamari song. Let us remember the courage of these men and their love for the Amazon and its peoples, their shared mission to defend the forest and life, tirelessly denouncing the criminals who plunder natural...
The heartbreaking disappearance of Brazilian Indigenous rights advocate Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips has once again revealed that under Bolsonaro the Amazon has been handed over to illicit networks and industries.
The Yanomami’s Hutukara Association has declared a humanitarian crisis in the wake of the reported rape and killing of a 12-year-old Yanomami girl by miners, the disappearance of a 3-year-old child, and attacks on the Yanomami’s Aracaçá village that have placed the Amazonian community “on the verge of disappearance” because of violence caused by...
We’re in the middle of the AGM season, which means corporations and financial institutions – including many complicit in Amazon destruction – will gather investors to discuss key business strategies and annual performance. Amazon Watch has historically strategized around these meetings to pressure them and demand accountability.
The ruling is the result of sustained efforts by civil society and institutional allies to prevent the installation of Belo Sun's massive gold mine and to seek redress for the illegal acts committed in the course of the project's environmental licensing process.
“The demarcation of lands of all Indigenous peoples in Brazil continues to be our main goal. But to guarantee the demarcation, the protection of our lands, we must also 'Indigenize politics' with the presence of diversity, of women occupying the positions of power and decision-making positions.”
Brazil’s President Bolsonaro is using a possible fertilizer shortage caused by Russia’s war on Ukraine to justify his attempt to ram contentious legislation through Congress.
On March 6, Indigenous women from across the Ecuadorian Amazon traveled to Puyo for the inauguration event of the Casa de Mujeres Amazónicas, a gathering and healing space for Indigenous women defenders of the Amazon. It is a safe space where women can strategize, create, share, and heal together, including work on programming to support women’s...
Indigenous peoples have repeatedly mobilized to oppose Bill 191/2020, and polls show that 86% of Brazil’s public is against mining on Indigenous lands. The Munduruku refer to it as "the project of death that is dividing our people and bringing violence [against those who] fight to defend our land."
As part of the 49th session of the UN Human Rights Council, more than 60 civil society organizations released a new report that evaluates 26 projects backed by Chinese companies and capital across nine Latin American countries. The investigation found a pattern of failure to comply with international standards on human rights and the environment...
“We have not committed any crime, we are defending our territory, the natural resources of all Ecuadorians. We guarantee food sovereignty, the protection of land and water”
Brazil’s President Bolsonaro is using a possible fertilizer shortage caused by Russia’s war on Ukraine to justify his attempt to ram contentious legislation through Congress.
Indigenous women across the Amazon are coming together like never before to protect and defend our lives, rights, bodies, and territories in the face of ever-increasing threats.
Mongabay | Major investment managers including BlackRock and Capital Group are among more than a dozen U.S. and Brazilian institutions heavily financing mining companies that are destroying Indigenous reserves and their inhabitants’ way of life in the Amazon.
