Links
The following organisations provide further detailed information on the rights of indigenous peoples as well as about the state of the Amazon.
COICA was founded in 1984 and is the umbrella organisation of the indigenous federations of the Amazon Basin countries. It advocates for indigenous peoples’ rights of 511 nationalities and groups that live in the Basin which include close to 100 uncontacted communities. COICA is the lead organization advancing the Amazonia for Life: 80% Protection by 2025 campaign.
Read more about their work their recent publication
Member organisations of COICA:
Sign COICA's declaration to protect
80% of Amazonia by 2025
The Initiative 'Amazonia for Life 80% by 2025' seeks to avert the tipping point in the largest forest on the planet. The indigenous peoples across the basin and allies are raising their voices to make a call to protect the Amazonia and safeguard our future.
COICA and Stand.earth co-coordinate a steering committee dedicated to advancing the 80×25 vision and is working in partnership with Amazon Watch, OneEarth, IntAct, RAISG, AVAAZ, Artists for Amazonia, and NooWorld.
This initiative is working to help build a worldwide shift in awareness and advocacy around protecting 80% of the Amazon by 2025 — the level science says is necessary to avoid catastrophic tipping points that would transform the Amazon biome as we know it. And the moment is urgent — we are now just two percent away from that threshold.
Cuencas Sagradas Amazonicas
The Amazon Sacred Headwaters Initiative​​
The Amazon Sacred Headwaters Initiative is building a shared vision among indigenous peoples, NGOs, the philanthropic community, social entrepreneurs and governments towards establishing a bi-national protected region – off-limits to industrial scale resource extraction, and governed in accordance with traditional indigenous principles of cooperation and harmony that foster a mutually enhancing human-Earth relationship.
The Initiative is led by Amazonian indigenous federations CONFENIAE (Ecuador), AIDESEP (Peru), ORPIO, and COICA, in partnership with Pachamama Alliance, and Fundación Pachamama.
The Amazon Network of Georeferenced Socio-Environmental Information (RAISG) is a consortium of civil society organizations from the Amazon countries, supported by international partners, concerned with the socio-environmental sustainability of Amazonia.
RAISG produces and disseminates knowledge, statistical data and geospatial socio-environmental
information on Amazonia developed through protocols common to all the countries of the region. RAISG enables a view of Amazonia as a whole, including the threats and pressures the region faces. RAISG produces the most comprehensive socio-environmental intelligence reports on Amazonia so that the region can be better understood, appreciated and looked after.
RAISG is the outcome of cooperation between eight civil society organizations from six Amazon countries: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.
Climate Alliance - COICA's partner in Europe
Climate Alliance’s work was founded on the recognition that fighting climate change requires a global perspective and local solutions. This is demonstrated in their long tradition of promoting climate action amongst European municipalities as well as the indigenous peoples of the Amazon River basin. [..] The range of activities covered by Climate Alliances' work in the field of climate justice is broad. In addition to direct institutional aid for COICA, they provide political assistance, strengthening the involvement of indigenous peoples in key international processes. Climate Alliance also supports a variety of community-led projects in the Amazon River basin. Importantly, these projects are built on ideas coming directly from the people rather than on ideas imposed externally.
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Find out more about the work of Climate Alliance in the Amazon in their video and publication
Amazon Frontlines
Amazon Fronlines story begun with a question: "How can we - people raised in the cities of western civilisation - best support the struggles of indigenous peoples?" We started in 2011 by asking leaders and elders of the Kofan, Secoya, Siona and Waorani peoples in the Ecuatorian Amazon that very question. “Our water has been poisoned,” they said. “Water is life. We must defend life.” We listened and started the ClearWater project together with indigenous leaders to ensure that every Kofan, Secoya, Siona, and Waorani family affected by oil pollution had safe access to clean water.
Our team is comprised of an international group of human rights lawyers, environmental activists, forestry specialists, environmental health scientists, filmmaker, journalists, anthropo-logists, and farmers. We live and work in the western Amazon. Our mission is to support the struggles of indigenous peoples to defend their rights to land, life and cultural survival in the Amazon rainforest.
Amazon Watch
Amazon Watch is a nonprofit organization founded in 1996 to protect the rainforest and advance the rights of Indigenous peoples in the Amazon Basin in Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, and Brazil. We work in solidarity with Indigenous and environmental organizations in campaigns for human rights, corporate accountability, and the preservation of the Amazon’s systems. [..] Our unique expertise is the combination of on-the-ground experience and long-term relationships with Indigenous leaders and communities, with in-depth reporting and media campaigns in the Global North, engaging the governments and corporations that foment Amazon destruction.
Co-authored by Amazon Watch and the Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil
The reports gathered on this platform disclose data that demonstrate the financial links between international corporations and companies in various sectors, such as agribusiness, extractive industries and large infrastructure projects, which are contributing to the destruction of the Amazon and the violation of human rights.
Banking on Amazon Destruction
In Amazon Watch and Stand.earth’s latest report, Banking on Amazon Destruction, researchers compare the Environmental and Social Risk (ESR) policies of target banks to their actions. Together, we are calling on banks to exclude all types of finance (including investment) for any company engaging in the oil industry in the Amazon, setting markers to end new financing by 2022 and existing financing by 2025. The report found that banks investing in Amazon oil are failing their own ESR commitments and remain highly exposed to the risk of fueling: Corruption, Human rights violations, Environmental harms​.
The Amazon Exclusion Policy is a commitment to end financing and investment for any oil and gas activity in the Amazon biome. The push for an Amazon Exclusion Policy follows a precedent set by the successful Indigenous-led push for major banks to exclude financing for oil drilling in
the Arctic. The geographic nature of the Arctic exclusions, as well as the climate change, biodiversity, and Indigenous rights rationale behind them, are an example and a broad roadmap for a similar commitment in the Amazon.
An Amazon Exclusion Policy includes the following three commitments:
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An immediate commitment (as soon as possible and by the end of 2022 at the latest) to not finance or invest in the expansion of any oil or gas activities in the Amazon biome.
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A commitment to end, by 2025, financing for any and all companies currently engaged in oil or gas activities in the Amazon biome, for the purpose of facilitating the responsible wind-down of operations.
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A commitment to exit all loans, bonds, shareholdings, letters of credit, and revolving credit facilities for all oil and gas activities originating in the Amazon biome by the end of 2022.
If Not Us Then Who is a US registered charity, that supports a global awareness campaign highlighting the role indigenous and local peoples play in protecting our planet. We work in partnership with communities to make films, take photographs, curate content, commission local artists and host events. Our work aims to build lasting networks, target unjust policies, and advocate for greater rights for indigenous and local peoples to bring about positive social change.
Survival International exists to prevent the annihilation of tribal peoples and to give them a platform to speak to the world so they can bear witness to the genocidal violence, slavery and racism they face on a daily basis. By lobbying the powerful we help defend the lives, lands and futures of people who should have the same rights as other contemporary societies. Our vision is a world where tribal peoples are respected as contemporary societies and their human rights protected.
The Rainforest Journalism Fund's work in the Amazon provides critical support for reporting in the region with a special focus on building local reporting capacity. It is an initiative of the Pulitzer Center which raises awareness of underreported global issues through direct support for quality journalism across all media platforms and is a unique program of education and public outreach.
Mongabay is a nonprofit environmental science and conservation news platform that produces original reporting by leveraging over 800 correspondents in some 70 countries. We are dedicated to evidence-driven objective journalism. Our main beats are forests, wildlife, oceans, and the conservation sector. [..]
Mongabay’s readership includes officials in development agencies, natural resources management ministries, scientists, business leaders, and civil society, among others.
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Here you find Mongabay's collection of articles about the Amazon Rainforest.
Climate. Justice. Solutions.
Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Our goal is to use the power of storytelling to illuminate the way toward a better world, inspire millions of people to walk that path with us, and show that the time for action is now.