BWI Global Day of Action for the Amazon
The climate emergency is one of the greatest challenges of our time, threatening the very existence of life on Earth, including humanity itself. At the heart of this global issue lies the Amazon.
The Amazon rainforest is crucial for maintaining global climate stability. As the largest tropical rainforest in the world, it harbors some of the richest biodiversity on the planet. However, the Amazon is not just a vast, empty space—it is home to millions of people. The Amazon Basin houses 48 million inhabitants (ACTO, 2024), people who work, fight, and build their lives in this unique environment.
Promoting sustainable and inclusive development in the Amazon is essential for the world to meet its environmental commitments, preserve biodiversity, and improve the quality of life in one of South America's poorest regions. However, a closer look at the recent dynamics of the Amazon’s labour market reveals significant obstacles to sustainable development in the area.
On this Global Day of Action for the Amazon, 5 September, the Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI) seeks to highlight the struggles of the Amazon's population under the banner #ListenToAmazonianVoices. Any proposal for socio-economic development in the Amazon must begin with an analysis of its labor market's performance. Despite the potential of its youthful workforce, the region currently faces a challenging employment and income situation, with nearly all indicators showing higher levels of precarity compared to the rest of South America.
The Amazon's labour market is characterized by greater precarity, with higher levels of informality than other regions in South America. This is particularly evident in Brazil, where the informality rate in the Amazon is nearly 20 percentage points higher than in the rest of the country. As a result, income in the Amazon is 40 percent lower than that of workers in other parts of Brazil. The Amazonian labor market is marked by unstable job conditions, with a higher risk of workers slipping into lower-quality occupational roles over time. The region also has a significantly higher proportion of people living in poverty and extreme poverty. The Legal Amazon area has the lowest social progress index in Brazil, and the 20 cities with the lowest quality of life, including the 10 worst-ranked capitals, are located within the Amazon Basin (IPS Brazil 2024). The evidence clearly shows that deforestation and forest degradation have not led to improved employment and income conditions in the region. Instead, they have exacerbated the precarity of the local labor market.
Numerous multilateral initiatives aim to protect the Amazon rainforest, yet most focus solely on environmental aspects such as climate law violations, unsustainable cattle ranching, and illegal logging. To address the deeply interconnected socio-environmental challenges, we need to develop solutions based on an integrated approach. The labor market is a critical element in proposals that aim to boost economic growth, create more jobs, increase income, and reduce inequalities. Through sustainable forestry management, forest restoration, and a substantial increase in afforestation, the Amazon can bring prosperity and a better quality of life to its people.
Tackling the Amazon's socio-environmental crisis requires an integrated approach. The key is to promote a sustainable, inhabited forest that secures the future of all who live there, based on the coordinated defense of both the environment and the peoples of the forest. The fate of the Amazon is inextricably linked to the fate of its people.
“We want the Amazon to be preserved, but we also want it to be economically viable.”
—Chico Mendes, trade unionist and environmentalist.
The Building and Wood Workers' International (BWI), through its Amazonian Trade Union Network (ATUN), calls on the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO), the governments of the nine Amazonian countries, and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to consider the following requests:
1. Take all necessary measures to avoid reaching the point of no return in the Amazon, including:
a) Ending all illegal deforestation by 2025.
b) Rehabilitating, recovering, and restoring deforested and degraded areas.
2. Ensure effective trade union participation in COP30.
3. Create an Amazon Decent Work Agenda (AADW) with trade union involvement in designing public policies for decent work, formalizing informal employment, job creation, especially in forestry and restoration/reforestation sectors.
4. Include the AADW in the updated Amazon Strategic Cooperation Agenda (AECA).
5. Reinforce the International Labour Organization's (ILO) fundamental labor standards in the region, including prohibitions on child labor, forced labor, and discrimination, along with guarantees for freedom of association, collective bargaining, and occupational health and safety.
6. Promote the application of the newly updated ILO Code of Practice for occupational health and safety in forestry work.
7. Implement effective protection mechanisms for Amazon defenders, including trade unionists, in line with international and national agreements.
8. Develop a regional cooperation framework for the certification and valorization of Amazonian products, promoting sustainable products from socio-biodiversity, with ILO conventions as prerequisites.
9. Establish an ACTO-SOCIAL framework for the effective participation of Amazonian peoples in planning, management, and governance processes for implementing the Amazon Cooperation Treaty.
10. Allocate 30 percent of Amazon Fund and Climate Fund resources for sustainable forest management and the recovery of degraded areas, with a focus on creating decent work opportunities.
11. Ensure trade union participation in labor inspection actions.
12. Secure 100 percent of indigenous, Afro-descendant, quilombola, and traditional community territorial claims with legal and physical security, respect for isolated indigenous peoples, and a gender perspective in land distribution and titling.
13. Demand increased Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) from Amazonian countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, aligning with deforestation elimination and oil exploration goals.
14. Promote the development of Amazonian cities in harmony with nature, ensuring democratic planning, healthy environments, public land regulation, adequate housing, water and sanitation rights, mobility, food security, and climate and environmental justice.
15. Guarantee trade union participation in assessing the impacts and planning of infrastructure projects for pan-Amazonian integration.
16. Ensure free, prior, informed, and good faith consent of Amazonian peoples for projects and production chains with significant impacts, in accordance with international agreements like ILO Convention 169.
17. Urge Global North governments and funding bodies to cease subsidizing, granting credits, and investing in projects that destroy the Amazon and redirect resources towards the well-being of its people and the conservation of nature.
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