Protect the Amazon – Stop deforestation and human rights abuses!

Deforestation in Brazil has increased in every month in 2020, in relation to the rate detected by for the same month in 2019, increasing by 109% in January, 34% in February, 30% in March and 64% in April (source: DETER satellite-based monitoring system). And the fire season is looming.

Watch my plenary speech on the 2019 Amazon fires.

The current situation is already dramatic, and an agreement like the EU-Mercosur trade deal would increase pressure on forests, and reward the Bolsonaro governement for its destructive policies. The agreement must be stopped.

Read our in depth study of the EU-Mercosur agreement.

The Amazon plays a critical role in regulating the global climate and water cycles. But the forest is near an irreversible tipping point. Scientists believe that if deforestation continues, the Amazon will stop being able to produce enough rain to sustain itself and start collapsing – and this as soon as by the end of the decade.

Read our letter to the Commission on deforestation and the landgrabbing law (May 2020)

In 2019, seven Brazilian indigenous leaders were murdered, the highest toll in twenty years. These murders are not isolated events, but are part of a broader pattern of attacks against indigenous people and protected territories in Brazil. Those attacks are enabled by aggressive rhetoric from political leaders, the practical dismantling of Brazil’s indigenous agency FUNAI, and anti-deforestation enforcement agency IBAMA, police repression against organizations and individuals protecting the forest, impunity for illegal loggers and miners, and a constant array of laws slashing Brazilian environmental legislation.

Read more on the murders of Brazilian indigenous leaders and human rigths violations (April 2020)

The time to act is now!

Anna Cavazzini MEP