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To the Brazilian Government and the Brazilian Congress:
We demand that Brazil act immediately to prevent further destruction of the Amazon Rainforest; we are horrified by the steep rise in deforestation and the threat of further forest fires. We urge for the preservation of the rights of children and indigenous peoples in Brazil who are put at particular risk by rainforest destruction. The future of our planet is contingent upon the thriving of the Amazon Rainforest and all of its inhabitants.
ACT NOW To Save the Amazon Rainforest
Forest fires in the Amazon Rainforest threaten to cause unprecedented environmental destruction and violate child rights.
Deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest is at an all-time high. Indigenous Amazonian peoples are reported to be at risk of ethnocide and genocide due to the destruction of their homes and violation of their rights with impunity.
The lungs of the world are being destroyed. There is a global climate emergency and action must be taken to protect the Amazon Rainforest, but the Brazilian government is failing to do so.
Sign the petition and make yourself heard!
Full Letter of the Petition
To the Brazilian government and the Brazilian Congress,
We, the undersigned citizens of the world, demand that the government of Brazil take immediate action to prevent any further destruction of the Amazon rainforest.
We are horrified by the steep rise in deforestation and underline that the imminent threat of further forest fires could cause unprecedented human and environmental devastation in the Amazon rainforest. We emphasise the “irreversible tipping point” that the rainforest is approaching and urge for the fulfilment of the rights of children and indigenous peoples in Brazil who are disproportionately affected by forest loss. The future of our planet is contingent upon the thriving of the Amazon rainforest and its inhabitants.
We are seriously concerned that since the outset of the Bolsonaro administration, the destruction of the Amazon rainforest has significantly escalated and continues to reach record-highs. Ongoing illegal activities such as logging, mining and forest fires are committed with impunity and contribute to the mass contravention of human rights linked to the Amazon rainforest’s destruction, which has been labelled a “public security emergency”. In spite of a fire ban and troop deployment, forest destruction continues to worsen and much more effective state action is needed. Rainforest fires exact considerable damage upon children’s health, threaten COVID-19 sufferers, and must be prevented from occurring. We compel Brazil to urgently fulfil its obligations to children in and around the Amazonian region whose rights are threatened by rainforest deforestation. These include the right to life, survival and development, the right to an adequate standard of living, the rights of child minorities including indigenous groups to practice their culture, the right to non-discrimination, the obligation to respect the best interest of the child and the right to the highest attainable standard of health. Where rainforest fires are concerned, this last right enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child explicitly obliges states to consider the dangers and risks of environmental pollution.
Furthermore, threats of genocide and ethnocide posed to certain Indigenous peoples of the Amazon that the ravaging of the forest under President Bolsonaro’s administration may exact are cause for serious alarm. There is a particularly urgent need to protect uncontacted indigenous peoples and human and environmental rights defenders of the rainforest, including children. We stand in solidarity with all Amazonian indigenous people and call on you to urgently ensure the enforced respect of their territories and uphold the “no contact” principle. We join Greta Thunberg in condemning your government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic as “failed” and further consider the protection of child environmental rights defenders and child environmental activists everywhere, and in Brazil in particular, of paramount importance for the de-escalation of the global Climate Emergency.
We deplore the continued stalling and cuts in funds for rainforest preservation and the ongoing environmental deregulation in Brazil. We insist that responsibilities of the National Programme for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) and the Ministry of Justice be urgently fulfilled to secure the protection of human rights and environmental defenders.
We ask that the Brazilian government take immediate action to:
- Preserve the Amazon rainforest by preventing that further deforestation take place with particular regards to fires.
- Ensure the urgent protection of human and environmental rights defenders, including children.
- Uphold indigenous people’s rights and enforce the protection of demarcated indigenous territories in Brazil.
- Sign the Declaration on Children, Youth and Climate Action.
Your decisive action will be linked to the survival of future generations at this historic moment for the climate of our planet and a failure to act effectively would likely impact countless lives. We underline the infallible and enforceable responsibility which you possess both as a government and as individuals. We further remind you that such petitions as this and other civil society expressions of discontent and demands for action are calls for accountability on your part as is intrinsic to the core of the democratic nature of your government and the positions afforded to you.
Yours sincerely,