Dear John,
For two months, the world has watched as the Amazon Rainforest burned. But Brazil’s Cerrado region -- just as fragile as the Amazon, but not as well known -- has more fires than the Amazon. And, of course, they were set intentionally.
TIAA, the company that manages millions of retirement funds, owns thousands of acres of land in the Cerrado. And it’s turning these lands into industrial plantations for soy and sugar, contributing to the devastation of this incredibly biodiverse ecosystem.
Next week, Brazilian land defender Altamiran Ribeiro will deliver a simple message to TIAA -- stop buying up land in Brazil! But TIAA will only listen if it feels a groundswell of pressure to stop funding the Brazilian land grab. Can we count on your support, John?
Protect Brazil’s forests: Demand TIAA stop land grabbing in the Cerrado region!
TIAA’s farmland purchases are not limited to Brazil. The investment giant has pioneered a worldwide trend of buying farmland, and has become the largest investor in farmland across the globe. But these farmland purchases are not benign.
By perpetuating large-scale industrial plantation agriculture, TIAA’s land investments perpetuate the destruction of our environment. Allowing foreign investors to dominate the land market squeezes out family farmers and local communities, most egregiously in the fragile Cerrado region of Brazil.
Through its deals, TIAA is promoting a model of plantation agriculture reliant on chemicals, contributing to ecological destruction, water contamination and climate change. In the face of the climate crisis, farmland investments need to promote restorative agriculture practices, not the destructive processes of the past. Together, we can pressure TIAA to stop its disastrous land grabbing practices and human rights violations.
Take action now: Demand TIAA stop buying up farmland and respect human rights!
TIAA now owns almost 2 million acres of farmland on four continents worth as much as $10 billion. In the U.S. alone, TIAA owns more land in the Mississippi Delta than all the Black farmers in the region.
In addition to its own land holdings, TIAA’s investees are decimating rainforest to build palm oil plantations across the tropics -- stripping local communities of their lands, abusing human rights, and threatening endangered species. In Indonesia, palm oil companies’ widespread corruption is literally burning down the rainforest.
TIAA has a responsibility to use its ownership stake to stop these problems -- and it has failed to do so. Involvement in farmland speculation and investment in destructive industrial plantations is putting the retirement savings of people like you and me at risk. Now, we need your help, John, to rein in the investment giant and demand it return land to local communities and stop violating human rights.
Help send 30,000 messages: Demand TIAA return land to local communities immediately and stop violating human rights.
Because land is life,
Jeff Conant,
Senior international forests program manager,
Friends of the Earth
