John, It’s an area 115 times the size of Manhattan that disappears each year. More than half of the Cerrado savanna in Brazil, one of the world's most precious ecosystems, has been torn apart to make way for continuously expanding soy farms. This carnage is funded by a French giant: BNP Paribas. In spite of its great speeches on climate, BNP remains one of the world’s largest funders of deforestation. A few days ago, during a “zero-carbon” event in Paris, BNP boasted about implementing binding policies to stop deforestation caused by the soy industry. But it was all lip service. It is time to bring BNP's hypocrisy to light through mass mobilization. Facing a major public relations crisis, BNP will have no other choice but to put an end to its shameful complicity to save the face. Recently published investigative reports* exposed BNP Paribas’s bankrolling of soy traders to the tune of billions over the past four years. These investments are costly to the Indigenous populations who pay the price with their own lives. Big soy companies are destroying everything at a breakneck pace: their way of life, their rivers and their forests as well as all the biodiversity they harbor. But the disappearance of the Cerrado, of its unique biodiversity and Indigenous populations is avoidable! Bankers, insurers and investors can transform the soy industry to achieve “zero-deforestation”. Even when faced with the hard cold facts, BNP is still refusing to adopt binding measures that would forbid the importation of soy grown from deforestation. The bank, which built so much of its brand on its “climate friendly” image, will have to make a change if you force it to. Two months ago, during Climate Finance Day, your efforts forced top financial players to acknowledge their responsibility in deforestation caused by soy. And now, we are pushing the worst financial player of them all, BNP, into action. When it comes to the fight against deforestation, you have already pushed giants like PepsiCo and McDonald's to change their practices. Without your help, John, BNP will go unchecked, ignoring the alarm raised by the Indigenous communities, NGOs and other environmentalists, fighting to save our planet and its people.  Thanks for all that you do, (in French) Soja & deforestation: stop financial actors' complicity Feeding the European appetite for soy France falls short in ending deforestation linked to imported soy |
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