Brasilia, Brazil, 27 March 2025 – The Building and Wood Workers' International (BWI) launched its Pre-COP30 Trade Union Summit in Brasilia, with a resounding call to put workers’ rights and the fight against forced labour at the heart of the climate negotiations. Bringing together more than 90 trade union leaders and representatives from 16 countries, the Summit is setting the stage for COP30 in Belém by demanding climate action that prioritizes both people and planet.

Opening the event, Ambet Yuson, General Secretary of BWI, declared:

“You cannot protect the Amazon without protecting the people who live and work in it. Decent work and forest protection must go hand in hand. Exploitation, of natural resources or workers alike, is incompatible with climate justice,”

The Amazon has become ground zero for a dangerous nexus of environmental destruction and human rights violations. According to ILO estimates, over 33 million people work in forest-related sectors, many under informal, unsafe, or exploitative conditions. In 2023 alone, nearly 3.7 million hectares of tropical forest were lost, much of it to illegal logging and fires set for land grabbing, crimes often enabled by forced labour and impunity.

Participants paid tribute to the legacy of Chico Mendes, the Amazonian trade unionist and environmental defender assassinated for his work linking labour and ecology. As Yuson affirmed,

“We hold this Summit in his memory, and we recommit to his struggle: protecting forests must mean protecting those who defend and depend on them.”

The Summit was convened to prepare a unified labour strategy for COP30, the pivotal UN Climate Conference to be held this November in the Amazonian city of Belém. Among the urgent demands emerging from discussions:

• End forced and child labour in forestry supply chains
• Formalize work in forestry and forest restoration sectors
• Guarantee union rights, social protection, and health and safety
• Ensure trade union participation in all climate adaptation plans
• Allocate climate finance towards decent work creation in forest regions

The BWI-led Amazonian Trade Union Network and Trade Union Rainforest Alliance, active in over a dozen countries, also called for a strong worker voice in the “Alliance for the Forests” to be launched at COP30.

Brazil’s major trade union confederations (CUT, UGT, Força Sindical, NCST), representatives from the Ministries of Labour and Environment, the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO), and other multilateral actors joined the call for climate action rooted in social justice.

“Protection of the rainforests and of its people must go hand in hand. It is not enough to protect one if we fail to protect the other,” said Raimundo Ribeiro, Chair of BWI’s Regional Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean. “Climate adaptation must mean end to forced labour and protections for outdoor workers facing rising heat. Mitigation must mean green jobs that lift workers out of informality and poverty.”

With forced labour and deforestation rising in lockstep, the Summit message is clear:

“Rainforests thrive with their people: Stop exploitation now!”

As governments gear up for COP30, BWI is demanding concrete commitments:
Promote decent work. Preserve communities. Protect the environment.