São Paulo, Setembro 10 2022.
Closing the week in which Amazon Day is celebrated, the Interfaith Rainforest Initiative - IRI Brazil, together with national religious entities from various spiritual traditions and social organizations that work in the field of faith, held an interfaith meeting and signed an Open Letter to the candidates of the 2022 elections, asking them to make public commitments for the preservation of the Amazon rainforest.
The event highlighted the importance of the ecological values present in all religious traditions and presented an Open Letter, aimed at the candidates for the Presidency of the Republic, the governments of the states of the Legal Amazon and the candidates for the Senate and the Federal Chamber.
The letter asks the candidates to make a public commitment to stop the process of destroying the Amazon rainforest and violating the rights of indigenous peoples, quilombolas, family farmers and local communities. It also calls for the region to develop sustainably.
In the document, the religious leaders stressed that "we cannot accept that the destruction of the forest and all that it represents for us is treated with indifference by the people who intend to govern this vast territory of fundamental importance for planet Earth and for all of humanity".
In another excerpt, the Open Letter reinforces how much we need to change the scenario of human rights violations in the region. "Contrary to those who say that deforestation is necessary to develop the region, the loss of the forest has been accompanied by suffering, pain, misery and hopelessness for the majority of the population. Devastation goes hand in hand with an increase in violence, crime and human rights violations, especially against indigenous peoples and local communities. The top 20 municipalities for deforestation from 2019 to 2021 are also the champions of poverty, inequality and low social progress."
Finally, the religious leaders ask that the candidates for the Presidency of the Republic, the governments of the states of the Legal Amazon and the candidates for the state and federal parliaments commit to resuming and updating the Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Amazon and that a National Strategy for the Sustainable Development of the Amazon be created, with the bioeconomy of the forest, education, scientific development, valuing traditional knowledge and cultures and encouraging entrepreneurship as its main axes, as proposed by the Amazon Scientific Panel and other existing initiatives.
The letter was signed by religious leaders from the following institutions and organizations: Brazilian Evangelical Christian Alliance (ACEB), Israelite Confederation of Brazil (CONIB), National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB), National Council of Christian Churches of Brazil (CONIC), Religions for Peace Brazil, National Islamic Union (UNI), Brazilian Spiritist Federation (FEB), Casa Galiléia, Instituto Clima e Sociedade (ICS), Instituto de Estudos da Religião (ISER), Instituto Vladimir Herzog, Movimento pela Ética Animal Espírita (MOVE), Nós na Criação, Perifa Sustentável, Rede Cristã de Advocacia Popular (RECAP), Renovar nosso Mundo, Rede Eclesial Pan-Amazônica (REPAM), TEARFUND and Visão Mundial.
The meeting was also attended by climatologist Dr. Carlos Nobre, a world reference in the study of climate change in the Amazon context, indigenous leaders such as the Legal Advisor of the Indigenous Council of Roraima Dr. Ivo Macuxi and the poet and indigenous activist Márcia Kambeba.
