The Amazon is the largest tropical rainforest in the world. It spans nine countries and has the longest river in South America – the Amazon River.

It is crucial to the safety of our planet and the fight against global warming, but it’s under threat.

The Amazon is home to 10% of all plant and animal species and stores billions of tons of carbon, preventing it from being released into the air and making our atmosphere hotter. More than 400 Indigenous Peoples live in the Amazon and have been the guardians of nature for centuries. [1] 

Right now, life in the Amazon is threatened. 

Deforestation, fossil fuel extraction, and mining are polluting the soil, air, and water. Their effects cause further deforestation, endanger animals and precious habitats and ecosystems, and the lives of the people and communities that live there.

Despite warnings of the dire consequences this is bringing to the Amazon, the governments of the countries with the largest Amazonian territories—Brazil, Colombia, and Peru—are endorsing new projects extracting oil, gas and raw materials. That’s happening while President Gustavo Petro (Colombia) and Lula da Silva (Brazil) are trying to position themselves as global climate leaders. 

New oil exploration projects have just been approved in Foz do Amazonas and the equatorial margin of Brazil, and in Putumayo. In the Andean Amazon region of Colombia, a copper mine is starting production. [2]

It is time to send a clear message: we demand an Amazon free from harmful extractivism, which threatens not only the largest rainforest, but also the wellbeing of the entire planet. 

Join us in calling on Presidents Lula, Boluarte and Petro, and their ministers to halt new oil and mining projects in the Amazon and commit to abandoning harmful drilling and mining in the lungs of the planet. 

Now is the time to act! 

Sources:

1.Why is the Amazon rainforest important? | WWF and About the Amazon

2. Lula advocates for Ibama to authorise oil exploration at the mouth of the Amazon (Portuguese)  - Agência Brasil & Whether or not to extract copper in Putumayo, where the Andes and the Amazon meet (Spanish) - El Espectador