Advisory: Climate Week events about protecting the Amazon rainforest

Virtual events to focus on new ‘Amazonia For Life: 80% by 2025’ initiative, role global banks play in ending oil & gas financing in region

NEW YORK — International environmental advocacy organization Stand.earth is supporting two virtual Climate Week events on the Amazon rainforest, one focused on the new “Amazonia For Life 80% by 2025” initiative, and one focused on global banks’ role in ending oil & gas financing in the region.

Climate Week runs September 20-26, 2021, with both in-person and virtual events. The following events will be held virtually.

VIRTUAL EVENT: The Urgent Need for an Amazon Exclusion

WHEN: Tuesday, September 21, 2021, 11 a.m. – 12 p.m. ET

WHO: Hosted by Stand.earth and Amazon Watch, with speakers including:

• Moderator: Tzeporah Berman, International Programs Director, Stand.earth
• Andrés Tapia, Director of Communications, CONFENIAE (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon)
• Nanki Wampakit, Director of Territories, CONFENIAE (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon)
• Nemo Andy Guiquita, Women and Health Director, CONFENIAE (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon)
• Angeline Robertson, Senior Investigative Researcher, Stand.earth
• Pendle Marshall-Hallmark, Climate & Finance Campaigner, Amazon Watch

RSVP: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_rr8gilrFSiOzPFCZnqsD9w

LANGUAGE(S): English and Spanish

MORE INFO: The Amazon is home to thousands of Indigenous and frontline communities, and critical to global climate regulation. Yet due to the continued financing of industrial oil and gas activity in the region from major European and American banks, the rainforest is now at a tipping point, poised to become a climate change accelerator as it converts from being one of the world’s largest carbon sinks to a carbon emitter. 

Similarly to Indigenous activists who successfully campaigned for major banks to exclude financing for oil drilling in the Arctic, Indigenous leaders and environmental activists are now calling on banks to immediately adopt an Amazon Exclusion policy: a commitment to end financing for any oil and gas activity in the Amazon biome, in line with the need for a global shift out of fossil fuels. Hear from Indigenous leaders and environmental activists about their push for an urgent adoption of an Amazon Exclusion policy from the world’s leading financial institutions. 

VIRTUAL EVENT: Amazonia For Life: Protect 80% by 2025

WHEN: Wednesday, September 22, 2021, 2 – 3 p.m. ET

WHO: Hosted by the Congress of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA), with support from Stand.earth, with speakers including:

• Moderator: Alicia Guzman, Amazon Advisor, Stand.earth
• José Gregorio Diaz Mirabal, Member of the Wakuenai Kurripaco people of Venezuela, and General Coordinator of the Congress of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA)
• Thomas Lovejoy, Senior Fellow at the UN Foundation, and  founder and president of the Amazon Biodiversity Center and the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project
• Carmen Josse and Marlene Quintanilla, from the Amazonian Network of Georeferenced Socio-Environmental Information / Red Amazónica de Información Socioambiental Georreferenciada (RAISG)
• Mauricio Mireles, FAO Indigenous Peoples Officer in Americas/Oficial de Políticas para Pueblos Indígenas e Inclusión Social FAO

RSVP: https://stand-earth.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_0tVxd4I_SXa_91IDewjSRQ 

LANGUAGES: English and Spanish

MORE INFO: The latest science shows that the Amazon rainforest is in danger of flipping toward a savanna, due to extractive activities, like oil and gas exploitation, development of road infrastructure, and agricultural activity. But we still have time to avert this tipping point. That’s why COICA (Coordinating Body of the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin) & a group of supporting organizations are pushing for a much more ambitious & urgent protection goal for the Amazon: 80% by 2025.

This webinar brings together a relevant group of panellists to discuss this initiative and contributes to the discussion with an evidence-based analysis about the lands that should become protected or sustainably managed, and the range of solutions at hand to achieve a sustainable pathway for the Amazon, meeting climate goals at the same time.

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Media contacts: Tyson Miller, Forest Programs Director, tyson@stand.earth, +1 828 279 2343 (Eastern Time)