| Dear Katy, The Earth's lungs are on fire. The record-setting destructive fires spreading quickly across Amazon rainforests are up 80% over last year and nearly all are human-caused, likely set by ranchers, loggers and fossil fuel interests emboldened by Brazil's extreme right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro, who has declared that the Amazon is open for business.1,2 BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, is cashing in on Amazon destruction by investing millions in the oil, mining and agribusiness industries in Brazil that are destroying rainforests and indigenous homes and worsening the climate crisis. Companies that are devastating the Amazon – and our planet – wouldn't be able to continue operations without the backing of BlackRock and other massive investment firms. We must demand that BlackRock divest completely from these operations immediately. Tell BlackRock: Stop financing the destruction of the Amazon. Click here to sign the petition. Bolsonaro campaigned on loosening restrictions on development and deforestation and promoting business interests in the Amazon, and he kept his promises: Since Bolsonaro took office and prior to the most recent fires, the Brazilian Amazon had lost a staggering 1,330 square miles of forest, a 39% increase over this time last year.3 In Trumpian fashion, Bolsonaro even promoted wildly false conspiracy theories to cover for his government's anti-environmental policies, blaming non-governmental organizations who work to protect rainforests for setting the fires.4 With Bolsonaro's Amazon deregulation campaign, BlackRock sees opportunity as the world's largest investor in fossil fuel extraction, especially in the Amazon.5 Yet, publicly, BlackRock and its CEO Larry Fink are on a campaign of their own: to greenwash BlackRock's role in rainforest destruction and climate change by offering "sustainable" investment products and marketing itself as a socially responsible model corporate citizen – all while the companies it invests in are causing untold destruction to the environment and the health and livelihoods of indigenous people living in the Amazon. It's clear that Bolsonaro won't end the massive deforestation activities wreaking havoc across the region. But if enough of us call out BlackRock's active role financing Amazon destruction, we can help stop it from getting any worse. That's why we must speak out now. Tell BlackRock: Stop financing the destruction of the Amazon. Click the link below to sign the petition: https://act.credoaction.com/go/33567?t=9&akid=33755%2E12967895%2E5cGbB5 Thank you for speaking out. Heidi Hess, Co-Director
CREDO Action from Working Assets Add your name: References: - Jessie Yeung, "Blame humans for starting the Amazon fires, environmentalists say," CNN, Aug. 23, 2019.
- Leila Salazar-López, "Bolsonaro Wants to Plunder the Amazon. Don't Let Him." The New York Times, Jan. 29, 2019.
- Letícia Casado and Ernesto Londoño, "Under Brazil's Far-Right Leader, Amazon Protections Slashed and Forests Fall," The New York Times, July 28, 2019.
- Tim Marcin, "Brazil's President Bolsonaro Is Now Spreading Conspiracy Theories About the Amazon Fires," VICE, Aug. 22 2019.
- BlackRock's Big Problem, "BlackRock's Sustainable ETFs:Green Business or Greenwash?" accessed Aug. 23, 2019.
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