"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...
Mining Out of the Amazon
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.
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.
Statement: Bolsonaro Delivers Racist and Untruthful Speech to U.N. General Assembly
"Bolsonaro's speech is outrageous, undemocratic, racist, and deeply violent against the indigenous peoples of Brazil... Bolsonaro must be held responsible for the destruction of the Amazon and the brutalizing of indigenous peoples underway in Brazil today."
Brazilian Indigenous Leaders Denounce Bolsonaro Before UN Speech
Open letter decries "colonialist and ethnocidal policies"
The Guardian | "Not content with its attacks on indigenous peoples, the Brazilian government now seeks to legitimize its anti-indigenous policies by using an indigenous figure who sympathizes with its radical ideologies."
The Amazon Is Still on Fire. Conservation Groups Blame Illegal Logging and Criminal Networks.
"I think it is fundamental that the government sends a signal that illegality is not allowed anymore in the Amazon," one expert said.
NBC News | Supporting Indigenous people and protecting their rights is another important route toward protecting the environment. "If you look at maps of the Amazon, there are these islands of intact forest and the vast majority of those islands are indigenous territories," said Moira Birss, Finance Program Campaign Director at Amazon Watch.
Amazon Watch is building on more than 25 years of radical and effective solidarity with Indigenous peoples across the Amazon Basin.
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."
Amazon Tribe in Brazil Patrols Territory, Braces for Fight
Washington Post | "Land grabbers, miners, loggers have taken their lands and they've reacted by trying to protect it," said Brazilian lawmaker Edmilson Rodrigo.
Amazon Fires: Indigenous Peoples Mobilize to Save Their Territories, and the World Steps Up in Solidarity
The crisis is not over, but we also need to prevent the next emergency now
The current crisis is not the beginning of the assault on the Amazon rainforest and its indigenous guardians, and unfortunately, it will not be the last. Long before Brazil's current far-right government took power, local and global industrial interests set the stage for these fires, and they will not change their behavior unless they are...
Amazon Watch Statement on Brazil-U.S. Amazon Plan
"It is absolutely preposterous to assert that private-sector 'development' in the Amazon is the way to protect the rainforest. To the contrary, private-sector 'development' is the cause of Amazon destruction. Further industrial expansion in the rainforest will undoubtedly drive further deforestation, pushing the Amazon closer to the ecological...
Amazon Fires Inspire Global Day of Action to Hold Politicians and Corporations Accountable
Oakland, CA – Following dozens of demonstrations across six continents advocating for the protection and preservation of the Amazon rainforest and its indigenous peoples, Amazon Watch today released a video with highlights from the Global Day of Action for the Amazon and launched a challenge to the global community to continue supporting the...
Amazon Watch Statement on the "Amazon Pact" Issued Today by South American Leaders
"Responses to the Amazon fires will never be effective in protecting the rainforest unless they confront the key driver of Amazon deforestation: profit-seeking at the expense of the rights of forest peoples and environmental protection."
Global Day of Action for the Amazon
Today, Amazon Watch, the Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), and Extinction Rebellion mobilized dozens of demonstrations in over twenty countries across six continents in a Global Day of Action for the Amazon. These non-violent, peaceful demonstrations around the world shine a light on the cycle of political corruption and...
Follow the Money to the Amazon
Who is profiting from the development that led to these fires?
The Atlantic | This isn't just about one rogue head of state. To get to the underlying forces of much of the world's deforestation, from the lush Amazonian rain forest or the carbon-rich peatlands of Indonesia, you need to follow the money: Who is profiting from the development that led to these fires?
Why It's Been So Lucrative to Destroy the Amazon Rainforest
G7 countries offered $20 million to combat fires in the Amazon. But it’s nowhere near enough to stop the deforestation.
Vox | The recent alarming fires in the Amazon rainforest raised the perennial concern of how to protect something that has value to the whole world but is contained within the borders of a few countries.
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...
Amazon Watch and Allies Issue Call for Global Day of Action for the Amazon on September 5th
Washington, DC – Amid the unprecedented raging fires across the Amazon, Amazon Watch is turning international outrage into action. Together, with Extinction Rebellion and the National Indigenous Association of Brazil (APIB), Amazon Watch, the leading global organization in defending the Amazon rainforest and the rights of its indigenous peoples...
Forest Offsets Not a Solution to Brazil's Fires
"These policies are the 21st century version of colonialism, resulting in the exploitation and eviction of indigenous communities from their homes all the while those in California can feel good about their continued emissions at home," said Kevin Koenig, Amazon Watch's Climate and Energy Director.
Note of Condemnation from the APIB
We need immense national and international solidarity to face this dark time. We are asking for help and support from national and international institutions to ensure that laws, justice and international treaties that Brazil has signed are respected.
How Beef Demand Is Accelerating the Amazon’s Deforestation and Climate Peril
Brazil’s cattle ranchers are clear-cutting and burning the rainforest amid a surge in beef exports
Washington Post | Cattle ranchers in the Brazilian Amazon are aggressively expanding their herds and willing to clear-cut the forest and burn what's left to make way for pastures. As a result, they've become the single biggest driver of the Amazon's deforestation, causing about 80 percent of it.
The Land Battle Behind the Fires in the Amazon
The Amazon fires could fuel the decades-long fight that indigenous people have waged for their land
The Atlantic | "As long as the state doesn't demarcate, we are under threat of invasions and explorations, so demarcation is our minimum legal protection to avoid these things,"says Sônia Guajajara, one of the most well-known indigenous leaders in Brazil.
Amazon Watch Calls on World Leaders to Take Shared Responsibility for Amazon Fires
""While the raging fires in the Amazon have rightfully grabbed the attention of the G7 leaders, we must ensure a long-term global response that lasts long after these headlines pass," said Christian Poirier, Amazon Watch Program Director.
We Are Facing a Global Emergency in the Amazon. Here's What We Can Do.
CNN | Now that the world is finally paying attention to the Amazon Basin, it's important to also understand that governments and companies around the world are emboldening the Bolsonaro regime's toxic policies when they enter into trade agreements with his government or invest in agribusiness companies operating in the Amazon.
Statement on Murderous Invasion of Brazilian Indigenous Territory
On Saturday July 26, dozens of heavily armed wildcat gold miners invaded the remote Amazonian territory of the Waiãpi indigenous people in the Brazilian state of Amapá, driving out residents by threatening violence. This invasion followed the miners’ murder of local leader Emyra Waiãpi on Monday July 22nd, who was stabbed to death before his body...
Amazon Gold Miners Invade Indigenous Village in Brazil After Its Leader Is Killed
Brazil's police have been urged to investigate a “very tense situation” in Amapá state
The Guardian | Kureni Waiãpi said Brazil's far-right president Jair Bolsonaro had encouraged invasions like this. “It is because he, the president, is threatening the indigenous peoples of Brazil,” he said.
Miners Kill Indigenous Leader in Brazil During Invasion of Protected Land
The New York Times | Several dozen heavily armed miners dressed in military fatigues invaded an indigenous village in remote northern Brazil this week and fatally stabbed at least one of the community's leaders.
Indigenous Tribe Halts Oil Drilling in Amazon – for Now
WhoWhatWhy | "The Achuar and the Wampis communities have an opportunity now to convince GeoPark that this project is fatally flawed, before the company attempts to push it forward and exacerbates socio-environmental conflicts in the rainforest."
Peru Native Groups Use New Legal Strategy to Push Back on Oil, Mining Plans
Reuters | Indigenous groups in Peru are turning to the courts with a new legal strategy for keeping mining and oil projects off their land, racking up victories that could make it harder for companies to secure permits in the major minerals producer.
“Resisting to Exist”
Indigenous women unite against Brazil's far-right president
Mongabay | "The policies adopted by the current government... violate all our rights and aim to destroy us," said Maria Eva Canoé. "But we are strong, we are resistant. And we are here in this... the 15th encampment, to show to the government, and to all society, that we are alive, that we are resisting to exist."
Statement Regarding Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
"This sobering report shows that the time for protecting biodiversity is running out. From the Amazon to the Arctic, dirty industrial development and human greed is destroying critical ecosystems and harming the communities that depend on the land. As indigenous peoples have reminded us for years: our own survival as human beings is fundamentally...
