- Open letter
Open letter to the UK Prime Minister: Take action to protect the Amazon
The destruction of the Amazon has dire implications for global efforts to avoid dangerous climate change but there is much the UK can still do. On World Amazon Day, we are writing to you as a coalition of NGOs, Indigenous Peoples’ groups, scientists, and academics, to ask that your Government take urgent action.
In the Environment Bill, your government has proposed a legal framework to address the overseas deforestation footprint of the UK’s consumption of ‘forest risk commodities’ such as soy, beef, palm oil, cocoa, coffee and rubber. While a welcome step forward, this proposal has several major gaps that limit its potential, and does not align with the recommendations set out by the Global Resource Initiative.
We call on the Government to amend the Environment Bill to strengthen its proposal on due diligence requirements for forest risk commodities by:
- ensuring that UK forest risk commodity supply chains are not complicit in any form of deforestation – not just deforestation which is defined as illegal under producer country laws;
- addressing the role of UK finance in deforestation;
- ensuring UK businesses act in accordance with the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities as set out under international law;
- strengthening the review mechanism to ensure that the due diligence framework, its implementation, and enforcement are progressively improved;
- adopting a requirement to introduce a target to significantly reduce the UK’s global environmental footprint by 2030.
Halting agricultural expansion into the world’s remaining forests and natural ecosystems is essential to meet the 1.5°C climate target, as well as to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. As the IPCC’s recent report makes clear, we are running out of time to prevent irreversible and dangerous climate change. This makes it even more important that world governments act now. Ahead of the UN climate conference in November, we need urgent action, not just warm words.
As President of COP26 and host of the conference, the UK has a unique opportunity to demonstrate global leadership and play an exceptionally important role in setting the global environmental agenda. The UK can also have a big impact as a major consumer and financier of forest risk commodities.
Given the dangerous legal reforms being pushed through the Brazilian Parliament and their dire implications for the future of the Amazon and its Indigenous Peoples, it is imperative that the UK Government reassesses its current approach and takes the bold action necessary. We are calling on your Government to make use of its world-leading position and take action to protect the Amazon and other climate-critical forests around the world.
Signatories
- Christine Allen, Director, CAFOD
- Amigos da Terra – Amazônia Brasileira
- Articulação Rosalino Gomes de Povos e Comunidades Tradicionais do Norte de Minas
- Sue Branford, Editor, Latin America Bureau
- Dr Josh Brem-Wilson, Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience, Coventry University, UK.
- Pedro Bruzzi Lion, Executive Superintendent, Fundação Pró Natureza – Funatura
- Abi Bunker, Woodland Trust
- Mercedes Bustamante, The Brazilian Science and Society Coalition
- Dr. Robert Coates, Assistant Professor | Sociology of Development and Change (SDC) group, Wageningen University, Netherlands
- Anna Collins, Coordinator, UK NGO Forest Coalition
- Barbara Davies-Quy, Deputy Director, Size of Wales
- Mike Davis, CEO, Global Witness
- Mark Dearn, Director, Corporate Justice Coalition
- Maria do Socorro Teixeira Lima and Kátia Favilla, Rede Cerrado
- Faith Doherty, Forests Campaign Leader, Environmental Investigation Agency
- Maiara Folly, Co-founder and Programme Director of Plataforma CIPÓ
- Michael Gidney, Chief Executive, Fairtrade Foundation
- Tom Griffiths, Coordinator – Responsible Finance Programme, Forest Peoples Programme
- Antonio Guerreiro, Departamento de Antropologia, IFCH CPEI – Centro de Pesquisa em Etnologia Indígena, Universidade Estadual de Campinas
- Nick Hesterberg, Executive Director, Environmental Defender Law Center
- Liz Hosken, Director, The Gaia Foundation
- Instituto Centro da Vida (ICV), Brazil
- Rodrigo Junqueira , Executive Secretary, Instituto Socioambiental
- Dr Anna Laing, Lecturer in International Development (Geography), University of Sussex
- Matt Leggett, Associate Director, Wildlife Conservation Society
- Dr Jerome Lewis, Director, Centre for the Anthropology of Sustainability (CAoS), University College London
- Professor Simon Lewis, Chair of Global Change Science, University College London
- Gustavo B. Malacco, Associação para a Gestão Socioambiental do Triângulo Mineiro (Angá)
- Professor Mark Maslin FRGS FRSA, Department of Geography, UCL
- Niki Mardas Executive Director, Global Canopy
- Dr Georgina McAllister, Asst. Prof. in Stabilisation Agriculture, Centre for Agroecology, Water & Resilience, Coventry University
- Carina Millstone, Executive Director, Feedback
- Dr. Nina Isabella Moeller, Associate Professor of Political Ecology and People’s Knowledge, Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR), Coventry University
- Hannah Mowat, Campaigns Coordinator, Fern
- Observatorio do Clima, Brazil
- Lucia Ortiz, President, Amigos da Terra Brazil
- Professor Oliver Phillips FRS, Chair in Tropical Ecology, University of Leeds
- Silvia Quiroa, Amigos de la Tierra América Latina y el Caribe (ATALC) Executive Committee
- Mark Rose, Chief Executive Officer, Fauna & Flora International
- 40. Yuri Salmona, Instituto Cerrados
- John Sauven, Greenpeace
- Maria Marlene Soares Nunes, President; and Avilmaura Ferreira dos Santos, First Treasurer; Núcleo Gestor da Cadeia Produtiva do Pequi e Outros Frutos do Cerrado (Núcleo do Pequi)
- Richard Solly, Co-ordinator, London Mining Network
- Beccy Speight, CEO, RSPB
- Tanya Steele, Chief Executive, WWF
- Heather Stevens, Chair of Trustees, Waterloo Foundation
- James Thornton, CEO, Client Earth
- Steve Trent, CEO, Environmental Justice Foundation
- Miriam Turner and Hugh Knowles – Co-Executive Directors, Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland
- Hein van der Voort, Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, Belém, Brazil
- Barbara Van Dyck, Associate Professor, Coventry University
- Fábio Vaz, Instituto Sociedade, População e Natureza (ISPN)
- Professor Peter Wade, Social Anthropology, University of Manchester