Help STOP the destruction of the world’s most biodiverse savanna!

Picture this: colorful birds sail over a tropical savanna. In the tall grass and forests below, a jaguar stalks its prey. The Brazilian Cerrado is home to millions of unique, vibrant species. In fact, the Cerrado is a biodiversity hotspot containing 5% of ALL species on Earth. It’s also home to more than 80 Indigenous groups who depend on the land’s resources.

But this lush habitat is being DESTROYED! Greedy industrial agriculture corporations purchase crops and cattle from large landowners that FORCE Indigenous people off their land and BURN wildlife habitats. Much of this destruction makes way for industrial soy production to feed animals suffering in factory farms around the world. Under the guise of sustainability, the World Bank is financing several of the biggest corporations responsible for expanding this destructive system.

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To The World Bank:

One industry links several of the greatest crisis humanity faces – climate breakdown, biodiversity collapse, food insecurity and new pandemics. That industry is industrial animal agriculture, responsible for runaway deforestation, massive greenhouse gas emissions, degraded natural environments and cruel animal confinement practices that make new viruses like Covid-19 more likely to emerge.

Yet major development banks, such as the World Bank, which should be helping humanity create a more sustainable and safer world, are lending billions to prop up the worst forms of animal agriculture.

Experts project that the livestock sector will account for almost half of the world’s allowable budget for greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and 80% by 2050. Without urgent action, the industry will continue to drive climate breakdown, leading to more extreme heat, droughts, floods and poverty. Deforestation to make space for cattle ranching and to grow soy and maize to feed farmed animals is expected to keep destroying the Amazon, the Cerrado and other vital ecosystems that are biodiversity hotspots. Indigenous peoples and local communities living in these regions are increasingly facing displacement, criminalization, and violence.

Additionally, financing the use of land and other resources to feed animals instead of humans is worsening global food insecurity and malnutrition while driving the overconsumption of animal products, which is increasing rates of diet-related diseases in developed and emerging economies.

According to the United Nations, the Covid-19 pandemic is “a reminder of the gravity of biodiversity loss and of our unique interconnection with nature”. Its Environmental Program (UNEP) highlights that around 3 out of 4 new infectious diseases are zoonotic, meaning that they are generated by viruses that jump from animals to humans. If ecosystems keep being degraded and forests keep being destroyed, the natural barriers between our societies, nature, and wild animals are removed, thus creating conditions for wider spreads of viruses.

To make matters worse, almost everywhere in the world, animals like cows, pigs, and chickens are raised in crowded and cruel factory farms that pollute local water sources and help spread diseases link the H1N1 influenza virus. They also perpetuate antibiotic resistance by irresponsibly overusing some of the most important antibiotics for human medicine.

The World Bank’s historical support of destructive industrial agribusinesses and the bank’s continued failure to address these operations’ negative impacts during the project categorization and Performance Standard (PS) assessment processes is undermining the Bank’s commitment to global climate and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The World Bank is also contributing to increased concentration in the food sector, which heightens inequality.

The livestock industry is big business – multi-billion dollar corporations, with interests and activities all over the world, dominate this concentrated sector. Instead of supporting these agribusiness giants, international development banks can promote diversified, agroecological food systems that support food sovereignty.

I stand with the many organizations and individuals around the world who are coming together to tell the World Bank that financing factory farms isn’t acceptable and needs to stop. I urge the World Bank and the IFC to stop financing industrial animal agriculture and honor its commitment to aligning the Bank’s investments with the SDGs and the Paris Agreement. I also urge the Bank to apply much more rigorous screening, classification and assessment methodologies as part of its due diligence processes for all of its lending.

Sincerely,
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