Here are some of the speakers from the webinar this morning. I really enjoyed this talk and I wish the Q&A session could have been longer. Many of the viewers had some reeaaally good questions.
I learned a lot from this webinar and I will admit that a lot of what was shared bothered me. Such as learning that there are parts of the Amazon in Ecuador where tribes have been misplaced due to their homes being destroyed and their rivers being so polluted that there are no longer any fish. Because of this, they have had to rely on tourism just to buy canned goods for food.
I also learned that these governments, if they don’t blatantly ignore what’s in their constitutions, they find loopholes. Such as the Ecuadorian government “allowing” indigenous tribes to keep their land, yet claiming ownership over what is BELOW the surface of indigenous land, and therefore displacing tribes because of this. The government is not upholding the parts of the constitution that say to protect the rights of nature. Instead they extract more oil as a way to help meet the country’s financial debt.
There is so much going on, yet the head honchos don’t care. The Ecuadorian government has green lit more oil drilling. The Brazilian government has green lit more burning and illegal logging. And the American government ignores and allows oil drilling coming from companies based in Canada, which violates actual treaties with our Native communities.
The most we can do now is keep speaking out about this. If the head honchos that govern our countries don’t care, we can at least reach out and speak to the corporations that our governments do care about and that’s banks!
Many banks have ongoing relationships with oil companies and traders that operate in the Amazonian region by investing in or completely financing these oil companies. If we can get them to create an Amazon exclusion policy, we can be that much closer to protecting at least 80% of the Amazon by 2025. Many of these banks have Arctic exclusion policies, so why not an Amazon exclusion policy?
We need to start thinking more about how we can strengthen the Amazon and that’s by halting all exploitation or else we won’t have an earth to live on. Don’t wait until Amazonian animals are going extinct! Don’t wait until almost all indigenous tribes are going extinct! This can be stopped now and if you are reading this, I hope you will consider helping in any way you can.
Sign the petition to call on the high risk banks to commit to an Amazon exclusion policy for Amazon oil:
Replay of today’s webinar:
Other links: