Further action needed to protect the Amazon, says Cafod

Cafod is calling on the UK government to pass laws to regulate companies’ supply chains, to hold businesses to account for the environmental and human rights impacts of the products they use.

Cafod invited representatives of their partner organisations in Peru, Bolivia and Colombia to meet parliamentarians in Westminster on 30 June, to tell them about their work protecting the Amazon from deforestation, environmental damage and illegal gold mining.

“They described the threats, violence, and criminalisation they have faced for defending the forest and its rivers,” said ABColombia, one of the organisations that joined the panel, which was moderated by Fabian Hamilton MP.

“They also warned that climate change and large-scale agriculture are driving droughts and forest fires across the region.”

On 23 June, the UK government announced it would implement new regulations to prohibit the consumption of goods produced from illegally deforested land. 

Lucy Brill, private sector policy lead at Cafod, told The Tablet that Cafod fed into the consultation for this law and raised some concerns, calling for a more comprehensive piece of legislation.

“If you ban products from illegal deforestation, some countries will hastily repeal their legislation against deforestation, so that the deforestation in question no longer counts as illegal,” Brill explained.

“This means that the supply chain law doesn’t end up actually reducing deforestation. A cannier way to do it would be to ban products associated with the destruction of traditional forests.”

Brill encouraged individuals and parishes to ask questions about where things come from, “whether that’s a gold wedding ring or some chocolate”.

She said that customer and voter pressure can be very effective ways of creating change, making it important to always keep asking questions, whether of companies or of MPs.

She also encouraged parishes and schools to get involved with Cafod’s Live Simply awards, thinking through the challenges people are facing in other parts of the world and trying to live in solidarity with them.

“Integral ecology, which came out of Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato si’, is core to Cafod’s approach,” Brill explained.

“The cry of the poor and the cry of the Earth are completely interconnected. We hear that particularly clearly from the partners who are visiting us from the Amazon.

“If you want to protect the Amazon rainforest, you need to protect the communities who are living there. It’s not one or the other. They are desperate to protect their home and livelihood.

“It’s the same for campesino communities, the smallholder farmers of Latin America – they’re committed to their land and want to continue what they’re doing, but they’re facing growing challenges from climate change.”

The meeting in parliament followed a panel event Cafod co-hosted for London Climate Action Week, on the impact of the gold market on climate change and biodiversity, held at St George’s Cathedral on 25 June.

The panellists included a representative of Christian environmental charity A Rocha Ghana and of the Peruvian Indigenous Asháninka community, along with politicians and senior representatives of banks, including international development minister Anneliese Dodds MP.

They explained that, exacerbated by geopolitical instability, gold is the leading mineral driver of deforestation, fuelling climate change and biodiversity loss.

The Peruvian community shared their experience of trying to defend their territory against illegal mining, while getting very little support from the government, in a country where people who challenge illegal miners have faced human rights abuses, murder, and rape.

“The lack of transparency in the gold industry is quite striking,” Brill told The Tablet. “There’s space for the UK to do something.

“Rogue gold mining is poisoning water supplies and food chains, with severe health consequences. There is a risk that some of this gold is sold on London’s bullion market, the world’s largest gold trading hub, which has quite a lot of leverage over gold traders.

“We believe the upcoming UK-hosted Illicit Finance Summit in December, the UK’s presidency of the Financial Action Task Force and the G20 are defining opportunities to act.”

Just transition ‘must take into account’ effects of mining on communities and ecosystems

Stay updated — add us as a preferred news source on Google: