John,

For sale on Facebook: Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. 

A groundbreaking BBC investigation has just revealed that plots of Amazon rainforest -- including national forests and land reserved for indigenous peoples -- is being sold illegally via Facebook’s classified ads service, Marketplace.

And Facebook doesn’t seem to want to do much about it.

Fuelled by the cattle ranching industry, and in the knowledge that remote locations won’t be inspected by the authorities, ‘investors’ are clearing forest ready for farming and selling it off.

Facebook, once again, is hiding behind its usual excuse that it ‘requires buyers and sellers to comply with laws and regulations’. But really, does it expect land invaders willing to steal land from indigenous communities to care about its toothless policy?

Facebook: stop land invaders from selling stolen land on Marketplace!

Indigenous communities like the Uru Eu Wau Wau people rely on the land to hunt, fish and collect fruits.

But with deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon at a 10-year high, continued land grabs are described by community leader Bitaté Uru Eu Wau Wau as an attempt ‘to deforest our lives’.

To make matters worse, those involved in the illegal land market do so expecting the Bolsonaro government will declare an amnesty on the stolen land. Once they’ve deforested it they plead with politicians to abolish its protected status, on the basis it no longer serves its original purpose. Then they can legalise their claims.

And Facebook Marketplace has become their go-to site to sell plots up to the size of 1,000 football pitches.

Facebook: stop land crimes from being committed on your platform.

Tell Facebook it can’t look away while land invaders profit from their crimes on its platform.