Investors Protest Deforestation As The Amazon Tipping Point Approaches

The Belém Investor Statement on Rainforests has been endorsed by 33 investment firms that in aggregate manage over $3 trillion as of the 20^th of October: it’s open to signatories until November first. Their goal is for COP30 to adopt in earnest a cessation of deforestation by 2030 and prevent further loss of ecosystems consistent with previous international agreements. We’re drawing nearer to ecological tipping points that will cause global and irreversible damage once crossed and this group of investors recognize our precarious, untenable situation.

Manaus, 4th Oct 2023 – A mixed area of fields and Amazon rainforest is burning uncontrollably, while nearby residents attempt to contain the flames. (Photo by Gustavo Basso/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

NurPhoto via Getty Images

One third of our preindustrial forest cover has been lost with another third degraded, and as this loss is driven largely by industry and agriculture, global capital can play its part if it wishes. The investors who signed this petition are imploring governments to take legislative action, while the signatories themselves avow to take their own initiative; to do their part these funds will research their relevant markets and select for partners that similarly prioritize the minimization and eventual eradication of deforestation. They explain how exposure to commodities produced on deforested land create material vulnerabilities across global investment and lending portfolios. They give some examples to which I’d personally like to add rubber: beef, soy, palm oil, timber, pulp and critical transition minerals. These are everyday products for many of us and the individual can only do so much to ultimately alter the broader ecological impact of our modern livelihoods.

When everything that we consume is produced on deforested land or with unsustainable methods, the individual consumer can at best mitigate their impact on their ultimately small scale. Big changes come from those with power, and in a capitalist world this means capital.

What can affect measurable change at scale is the mobilization of investors to the cause. Any reasonable person can appreciate the criticality of the Amazon Dieback Tipping Point which draws nearer with every economic land concession granted. Agriculture, industry, and power generation compete for land with each other, and with efforts to preserve the remaining stretches of dwindling forest.

Experts expect the Amazon Tipping Point to come around the 20-25% deforestation mark. We currently stand at 14-17% deforested and another 17% degraded. The situation could hardly be more dire and if this eventuality will be prevented, it will only be with the largest causes of deforestation addressed. We live in an interconnected world where rain from the Amazon helps water American fields, and local deforestation has global effects. Once tipping points are reached they’ll have further, cascading disruptions and from Amazonian deforestation we’ll observe altered rain and wind patterns globally. Every square meter of forest provides 4 liters of water per day, and with 6 million square kilometers of Amazon forest, the death of the Amazon will affect us all. This basic observation, and the impacts of similar fragmentation, degradation, and deforestation of the Congo and Southeast Asian rainforests have motivated these Belem Investor Statement on Rainforest Signatories to secure their future finances and incorporate deforestation into their investment strategies. Climate Change isn’t a buzzword or far off eventuality, but a reality that prudent individuals are planning for now. Any other investors with perspicacity would do well to sign on this declaration and take similar actions into the future. The countries at higher latitudes that currently ignore the dangerous reality of tropical deforestation will soon feel it directly. The collapse of the Amazon and near term inhospitability of the Tropical Belt will cause the largest migration in human history; this the developed world will not be able to ignore.