CIPÓ, together with 38 other organizations, including the Forests & Finance Coalition, the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil and the Climate Observatory, sent a letter addressed to 80 financial institutions, alerting them about current approve bills in the National Congress that would weaken the country’s environmental protection framework.
The objective is to put pressure on these institutions, which have significant investments in Brazil, to publicly condemn these legislative proposals, which, if approved, would pose even greater risks to the Amazon Forest and indigenous peoples.
Among the bills being discussed in the Brazilian Congress which pose significant threats to social and environmental protections, the letters highlight:
Bill 490/2007, which would roll back constitutional protections on Indigenous lands. It is considered by the Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB) as a “genocide attempt”;
Bill 191/2020, which aims to allow industrial and artisanal mining, hydroelectric generation, oil and gas exploration, and large-scale agriculture on Indigenous territories, virtually removing their veto power from decisions that impact their lands;
Bill 3729/2004 (now in the Senate as bill No. 2159/2021) that weakens the requirements for the licensing of infrastructure and extractive projects, exempts 13 types of impactful activities from licensing, and allows for “self licensing” for an array of projects;
Legislative Decree 177/2021 that would allow Brazil’s withdrawal from Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO) (the main instrument in international law for the protection of Indigenous rights);
Bills 2633/2020 and 510 which pardon the occupation of public land in Brazil and would lead to a massive land grab of public lands, putting at risk some 620 thousand km2 of forest that does not have any legal protection. According to studies, grabbing of public lands in Brazil represents a third of all deforestation.
We strongly recommend your financial institution to take a hard line, in public and private, against this regressive legislative agenda put forward by the Bolsonaro administration and its allies in the Brazilian Congress. That includes taking a public stance against all bills that weaken protections for forests and Indigenous peoples, calling the attention of the political and economic actors behind them to your commitment to eliminating deforestation and protecting the rights of Indigenous peoples and other forest-dependent communities; and to encourage your peers and companies that rely on your funding to do the same”, states the letter.
