"For the sake of cheap soya: railway and waterway threaten the Amazon", 29 September 2021

...Burning forests and deforestation, displaced indigenous communities: these are the impacts of the production of soya and other agricultural products in the Brazilian Amazon. Now, a railway and a waterway are planned to transport the goods abroad even faster. This would result in massive damage to the environment and indigenous rights would be violated. Depending on the project managers, Swiss banks are also involved.

Huge infrastructure projects are planned in the Brazilian Amazon: the Tapajós water project, which consists of a waterway, seven large-scale dams and 29 small hydroelectric power plants, as well as the “Ferrogrão” railway line, which extends for approximately a thousand kilometres. They are intended to transport goods such as soya and beef abroad much faster and cheaper...Additionally, the railway project would require a displacement of the boundaries of the Jamanxim Nature Reserve. This would open up the previously protected area for economic use and cause massive environmental damage...

However, the directly affected indigenous population has no say in the planning of the projects...This is in disregard for the rights of indigenous communities to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC)...

The STP’s report initially discloses which financial institutions fund these potential participants. There are several Swiss banks among them. For example, UBS and Credit Suisse together extended loans worth almost 7 billion US dollars to several of the energy companies interested in building and/or operating the water projects...

Human rights activist Alessandra Munduruku is explicit regarding the responsibility of the financial institutions: “The banks are complicit in the death of the Amazon rainforest. Without them, there would be no railway, no waterways and no power plants”...

The indigenous communities and the STP are demanding immediate action from the financial institutions...