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.
For everyone that hosted a fundraiser, shared our videos and posts, or did something creative to spread awareness and protect the Amazon, thank you. This movement requires all hands on deck. We need to maintain the same sense of urgency in order to protect it and its Indigenous peoples. Onward together!
A coalition of some of the nation's leading climate, youth, and Indigenous organizations launched a major new mobilization, Stop the Money Pipeline, that will pressure banks, insurance companies and asset managers to stop financing fossil fuels and deforestation and start respecting human rights and Indigenous sovereignty.
As the Amazon rainforest falls victim to the criminal Bolsonaro regime, forest defenders – from indigenous peoples and traditional communities to local NGOs – are being targeted by an unprecedented wave of violence and intimidation.
BBC News | "All those countries are here making declarations about cutting emissions, Ecuador and Peru are making declarations about protecting the Amazon but what we are seeing is a whole different plan to expand extraction, there's a gap between what countries are committing too and what they are actually planning to do in terms of fossil fuel expansion."
"At a time when the world needs to be racing to protect the Amazon, a new oil boom in the headwaters of the mighty Amazon River in Ecuador and Peru puts this area, known as the Amazon Sacred Headwaters, in great peril."
At a time when the world needs to be racing to protect the Amazon, a new oil boom in the headwaters of the mighty Amazon River in Ecuador and Peru puts this area, known as the Amazon Sacred Headwaters, in great peril.
This afternoon, an unidentified individual shot and killed two indigenous chiefs, Firmino Prexede Guajajara and Raimundo Guajajara, and injured two others.
The Star | "We can't accept Belo Sun in our region, not in Brazil," indigenous leader Bel Juruna told the thousands of carnival-goers in attendance that day. "We demand that this company leave us alone on our lands, that the government respects us and respects our nature."
Earlier today, members of the Guajajara people's Forest Guardians, a volunteer land and environmental monitoring force, were ambushed by a group of illegal loggers in the Araribóia indigenous territory, leaving one Guardian dead and another gravely wounded. Forest defender Paulo Paulino Guajajara was killed by a shot to the face, while the attack...
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...
"The companies you represent bear part of the responsibility for the threat we Indigenous People are facing in Brazil. Be conscious about your responsibility. Everything is at stake, the rainforest, the climate and our survival," said Sonia Guajajara, one of the ten Indigenous leaders from APIB visiting Europe.
The Guardian | "I believe that peace triumphed," said Patricia Gualinga, from the Amazonian Kichwa community of Sarayaku. "But I feel a knot in my throat about the loss of the lives of indigenous brothers. There is a lot of pain to be healed and the government should be aware of this."
"How can we talk about 'development', when our territories where we've lived for hundreds of years are being exploited, are being auctioned off, turned into new oil concessions. This undeniably affects us!"
The New York Times | Under the agreement, Mr. Moreno pledged to withdraw from an International Monetary Fund-backed program, known as Decree 883, that raised fuel prices, and the Indigenous leaders agreed to call off more protests. The two sides agreed to work together to put in place a new economic policy of government spending cuts and taxes to increase revenues.
"For centuries, we have protected our lands in the mountains and the Amazon, and we will not allow indigenous peoples, indigenous territories, and our global climate to pay the cost for the government's mounting debt to China and international lenders. Once again, we are putting our bodies and our lives on the line to protect our families, rights...
Brasília, Brazil – A delegation of Indigenous leaders will visit twelve European countries between October 17 and November 20 to report serious violations against Brazilian Indigenous Peoples since President Jair Bolsonaro took office. Led by the Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), in partnership with civil society organizations...
"We need a real commitment from Bolsonaro's government to protect Brazil's forests and their indigenous and traditional communities, who are the true guardians of the Amazon. Bolsonaro has promised 'zero tolerance' for explosive deforestation and subsequent widespread arson; however, his policies and rhetoric have actually encouraged such crimes."
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.
"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."
"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...
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."
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.
"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."
Washington Post | "Land grabbers, miners, loggers have taken their lands and they've reacted by trying to protect it," said Brazilian lawmaker Edmilson Rodrigo.
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...
"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...
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...
"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."
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...
