Earth Day Message to Bank of America, Citi and JPMorgan Chase: Protect The Amazon

On Earth Day, the Forests & Finance coalition delivered a petition signed by tens of thousands of people to major Wall Street banks — including Bank of America, Citi and JPMorgan Chase — calling on them to take urgent action to protect the Amazon rainforest.

The petition urges banks to condition their financing of companies operating in Brazil’s soy sector on a clear commitment to uphold the criteria of the Amazon Soy Moratorium, a landmark agreement that has helped curb soy-driven deforestation for nearly two decades.

To mark the moment, Rainforest Action Network, Amazon Watch, and Friends of the Earth partnered with renowned activist projection collective The Illuminator Project to stage a dramatic visual action in Manhattan. 

Giant projections of Indigenous-led protests and images of Amazon forest destruction were cast onto iconic New York City buildings, bringing the realities of the Amazon crisis directly into the financial capital of the world.

Bank of America, Citi and JPMorgan Chase are some of the largest financiers of Brazilian soy traders including Bunge and Cargill. The traders are represented by an industry group – ABIOVE – which walked out of the Amazon Soy Moratorium in January this year.  

Without urgent action by banks to hold their clients accountable to an agreement that has protected the Amazon and its people for almost twenty years, the Amazon may be pushed to an irreversible tipping point. 

Read the press release and view the full collection of images.