Tag Archives: brazil

“As long as there is one of us standing, there will be a fight to protect the forests”

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Today, Brazil celebrates Indigenous Peoples Day. However, on a day that is supposed to celebrate their ancestors, culture and stories, many of Indigenous Peoples are instead fighting for their lands and their rights.

According to a survey by CIMI (Indigenous Missionary Council), there are no less than 452 government development projects currently underway in Brazil, 201 of which directly impact Indigenous Lands. Illegal logging and ranching continues to encroach on Indigenous Lands andconflict and violence is prevalent in the Amazon region.

Accorind to CIMI, an average of 50 murders of Indigenous Peoples occur annually in Brazil. Even more shocking, in the state of Mato Grosso, a leading state for deforestation, there is an average of four deaths per month. From 2003 to 2012, 315 Indigenous Leaders were murdered in connection to forest destruction. Continue reading →

Brazilian slaughterhouses sued for Amazon destruction

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Cattle ranch located in Figueirópolis d’Oeste, Mato Grosso State, Brazil.

Life is about to get a whole lot harder for the slaughterhouses in Brazil who are still tied to a business model based on forest destruction and violation of indigenous and labor rights.

IBAMA, the Ministry of Labor, the Federal Public Ministry in the states of Amazonas, Mato Grosso and Rondônia, and the Federal Prosecutor in Amazonas and Rondônia sued 26 slaughterhouses for buying cattle from farms involved in illegalities. The fines for the slaughterhouses total US$ 280 million. Continue reading →

Good News: Brazilian companies to cut ties with deforestation and slave labor

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Illegal charcoal camps fuel production of pig iron, the primary ingredient in steel

Only a few weeks ago, Greenpeace activists occupied the anchor chain of the Clipper Hope, a barge filled with pig iron, the primary ingredient for steel used by the world’s leading auto brands. This pig iron was processed using wood charcoal made from natural rainforest, which is often illegally logged. To make matters worse, the pig iron is ‘cooked’ in clay ovens by workers under conditions that can only be compared to slavery (see our infograph below).

Our two-year investigation, launched the same day as the action, documented the devastation the region experiences at the hands of the pig iron industry. Greenpeace exposed the way this industry has been throwing the forests into its furnaces, destroying indigenous lands, and forever altering a globally important biological reserve to help produce the cars and appliances we buy. Continue reading →

Video: The Amazon approaches its moment of truth

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I’ve written a few blogs since I’ve been on the Rainbow Warrior, but my time in Brazil has given me enough material for thousands more. I worked as a journalist before Greenpeace and that is how I have approached this trip, trying to tell you the stories that happen every day in this magical country and do some justice to the people who live in it. Continue reading →

Flotilla Assembly to demand an end to Amazon destruction

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By Jess Miller

Amazon floating general assembly

The Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior served as center stage on wednesday for a flotilla assembly deep in the Amazon. Boats travelled, some for more than a day, to join the assembly and give testimonials of the destruction threatening their survival in the forest. The riverboats tied lines between them to create a floating platform around the Rainbow Warrior and passed a microphone between the families as they demanded implementation on the laws governing their already protected land.

Continue reading →

Illegal Farm in the Amazon: Not For Sale

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Blogpost by Jess Miller

verde para sempreActivists from the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior joined local community members from the Resex Verde para Sempre Reserve today to declare an end to the sale of an illegal farm inside the protected area. The “Not for Sale” sign installed on the land wrongfully up for auction reads “Verde para Sempre” or “Forever Green”.

A 7.200 hectare logging farm located inside the reserve is up for auction by a public bank (Caixa Economica Federal) to collect a debt owed from years ago by the logging company, “Medida Certa Madeiras”. The fact that the courts are willing to allow a public auction on an illegal logging farm inside the reserve proves that lack of governance has left the creation of the reserve without implementation.

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Brazilians demand President Dilma protect the Amazon

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Jaguar in the Amazon rainforest

Blogpost by Jess Miller, Greenpeace UK

The Forest Code is in danger, and with its future lies the fate of the Brazilian Amazon. Today, after another delay to the vote on the new law, thousands of Brazilians demonstrated in Brasilia, demanding Dilma veto the new law. Continue reading →