The government of Brazil led by President Jair Bolsonaro has presided over and encouraged unprecedented deforestation of the Amazon. Deforestation threatens indigenous populations who live in the forest, loss of a precious and complex ecosystem and a massive carbon sink that slows the pace of global warming.

Researchers at the University of Sao Paulo estimate that forest areas in the Brazilian Amazon have decreased by 20 to 30 percent in the last 12 months. Bolsonaro's government has tacitly encouraged illegal logging, mining, and slash-and-burn livestock tending and agriculture in the Brazilian Amazon. Illegal burns are so prevalent in the Amazon that they are now clearly visible from space. In addition, the government continues to take steps to turn over the indigenous reserves within the Amazon to government agencies which can then eliminate protections for the hundreds of thousands of indigenous people still living in the reserves. This is effectively a campaign of genocide against hundreds of thousands of indigenous people.

The Amazon is an precious and complex ecosystem that is essential to human life on this planet. Our tropical forests (of which the Amazon is by far the largest) sink 25% of Earth's carbon, and is vital to protect humanity from the effects of climate change. The Amazon forest supplies 20% of our oxygen, contains 20% of all of the fresh water on our planet, and contains 1 in 10 of all known species on Earth. New species are discovered there every day. About 25% of the drugs in modern Western medicine have been derived from rainforest plants, and to date, we have investigated fewer than 5% of the plant species within the Amazon for medicinal value.

We ask our representatives in Congress to take note of the unprecedented destruction of one of Earth's most precious resources and to impose economic sanctions against Brazil until this destruction is halted. We ask our representatives to stand with us against the genocide of the indigenous people of the Brazilian Amazon and to impose economic sanctions against Brazil until this destruction is halted.