Demand Wall Street giant BlackRock stop financing deforestation!

Liberia’s forests -- known as the lungs of West Africa -- are critical to the planet. However, they are also the site of massive deforestation projects backed by BlackRock’s investments. Help hold BlackRock accountable for investing in environmental destruction!

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Dear Michelle Edkins,

This past February eight U.S. Senators urged BlackRock to disclose its due diligence in regards to the deforestation wrought by the palm oil sector. Two months later, Goldman Prize-winning Liberian human rights attorney Alfred Brownell delivered BlackRock a letter requesting a meeting to discuss the financing of Golden Agri-Resources, a company responsible for vast rainforest destruction, human rights abuses, and illegal activities. In May, BlackRock quietly released a statement on your stewardship team’s approach to engagement in the palm oil sector. But the statement does little to address the core issues raised by the eight U.S. senators – and does nothing at all to assuage the concerns of Mr. Brownell, who is deeply aware that the forests of his home country continue to fall to the axe of companies financed, in part, by BlackRock.

Mr. Brownell is far from the only victim of the abuses of this corrupt industry. But he is the one who, having been forced into exile under death threats from the industry, has chosen to ask you and your team at BlackRock to take responsibility for the conflicts your firm finances. And your firm, among the biggest companies in the world, has chosen to ignore him.

Environmental and human rights impacts – and climate impacts above all -- are increasingly recognized to drive material risks to investment. Until BlackRock chooses to engage with the people truly impacted by the abuses of your investee companies, I have no reason to believe that your rhetoric about sustainability and social purpose has any merit whatsoever.

I urge you to respond to the request by Professor Alfred Brownell to meet with him to discuss the ways your investee companies are devastating rainforests in his home country of Liberia, and around the world.

Sincerely,
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