Lisa Kiefer: [00:00:01] This is Method to the Madness, a bi-weekly public affairs show on K-A-L-X Berkeley celebrating Bay Area Innovators. I'm your host, Lisa Kiefer. And today, our first show of 2020 will feature Layla Salazar-Lopez, the executive director of Amazon Watch. Most people know what Amazon Watch is, but for some people who may not know, can you review the mission?

Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:00:31] Sure. Thanks for having me. Amazon Watch is a Bay Area based nonprofit organization. We were founded in 1996. Our mission is to protect the Amazon rainforest and advance the rights of indigenous peoples throughout the Amazon basin. The Amazon rainforest is the biggest tropical rainforest on the planet. Most people know and think of the Amazon as the lungs of the earth. All those trees, all of that life, absorbing carbon and producing rain for not just the Amazon, but for the world. This massive rainforest, an ecosystem, actually helps to create the weather systems throughout South America and also around the world. So it is a vital organ of the earth's ecosystem. And so we're working to protect the rainforest to avert climate chaos. And our theory of change is that the best way to do that is by working with, standing with, supporting the rights and the voices in the territories of indigenous peoples.

Lisa Kiefer: [00:01:44] And is that because they live there, they are on the front lines of i?

Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:01:48] Of course! indigenous peoples have been living in the Amazon rainforest for thousands of years, over 400 distinct nationalities, groups and even uncontacted peoples. Indigenous peoples in the Amazon and throughout the world are the best protectors of the natural places that we still have left on this planet. Eighty percent of the biodiversity around the world is on indigenous people's lands. So if we are concerned about climate change or chaos, I would say, or if we concern about the extinction crisis that we're facing, one of the best ways that we can do all we can to protect what we have left, is to support indigenous people's territories being protected. Those are the places that have the biodiversity and have the trees that create the much needed rain.

Lisa Kiefer: [00:02:43] Well, you just got back from the Madrid climate summit, the 25th summit, and it was supposed to be in Brazil. And Bolonaro nixed that. And there have been many challenges, but it did come off. I wondered if you could give us sort of a a summary of what what you talked about.

Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:03:00] You know, as you mentioned, COP 25, which is a conference of parties on climate change, world leaders, government leaders, elected leaders, negotiators that represent governments. Nearly 200 governments around the world attend the cops, plus civil society, NGOs, affected communities and also corporations. Unfortunately, the COP for decades has been primarily dominated by governments and corporations. That's why we've had 25 years of inactivity, really, of doing the minimum. And yes, we could praise the Paris Climate Agreement. Amazon Watch was there with indigenous peoples from around the world, from the Amazon to Alaska, to ensure that the voices of of the community that are most affected are heard. Our focus at COP 25 was to amplify the voices of indigenous peoples. There are very few spaces for indigenous peoples, people who are protecting biodiversity on our planet, for them to speak, for them to share their concerns and share their solutions. And so our mission is to ensure that they have a space not only to have space, but they are promoting their solutions and their solutions are heard. And one of those solutions is the Sacred Headwaters Initiative. So we released a report, at COP, a threat assessment on the sacred headwaters. And we spoke to global media and got a lot of attention on this region. It's in Ecuador and Peru, which is the most biodiverse part of the Amazon. It's Yasuni National Park. The scientists, the conservationists who are on the ground in the Yasuni, the indigenous peoples who live there, say that this is the most biodiverse part of the Amazon. It's under threat by massive oil development. This region, the tropical Andes region of the Amazon, is mega-biodiverse. We need our governments and true leaders to really take the action that's needed, right now, which is to make commitments to really take us off fossil fuels.

Lisa Kiefer: [00:05:05] So what does the COP 25 conference hold people to?

Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:05:08] All of the governments, 196 countries have made commitments to reduce emissions. I mean, that's really the language spoken at COP, to reduce emissions, to deal with mitigation, adaptation. Governments have made commitments to reduce emissions. The big elephant in the room is what about stopping extraction? What about a phase out, a full phase out of fossil fuel extraction and a complete commitment to a transition to renewable energies, to renewable energy economies, green jobs? Like what we're talking about in the Green New Deal. The Green New Deal is a recipe for what, not just the United States, but world governments can be doing around the world to do what's really, really needed. Because if we only focus on reducing emissions, we are not going to get below 1.5 degrees.  1.5 degrees is really what we need to aim for. We've already surpassed 350 parts per million. We're on a track to go way beyond 2 degrees and way beyond 2 degrees is is what we're seeing. We're seeing the signs of it now. We're seeing Australia. We're seeing California. I mean, right here in our own backyard for three years, for three summers and falls, we have felt the effects of climate change and climate chaos. We have had massive wildfires, massive forest fires. And not just in the forest. Right? They've all also affected communities, you know, from Santa Rosa to Paradise. We're not just seeing fires, you know, in forests in California. We're seeing fires in the Arctic. We're seeing fires in the Amazon. We're seeing fires in Australia right now. It's not 10 years away. It's not 20 years away. It's now.

Lisa Kiefer: [00:06:59] I'm curious if Black Rock was at the COP 25 conference. Do they show up?

Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:07:05] Representatives of Black Rock. Representatives of Exxon. Representatives of agribusiness or the fossil fuel and agribusiness industries? The financiers. I mean, they're definitely there.

Lisa Kiefer: [00:07:17] And do you feel that you had success this time or is it just sort of a stalemate?

Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:07:21] I think COP 25 was a major failure for the state of the planet right now. Major failure for global governments, considering the urgency of what we're facing.

Lisa Kiefer: [00:07:32] We have so many distractions right now, the assassination of Soleimani, the impeachment proceedings, those are attention grabbers. With those challenges of distraction, what is your strategy at Amazon Watch for 2020 to keep you in the news cycle?

Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:07:48] At the end of August 2019, the world woke up to what was really happening in the Amazon. It's what we've been seeing for decades, which is, the Amazon is under major, major threat by governments, including, you know, the Bolsonaro government in Brazil, by corporations, primarily agri-business in Brazil, and the fossil fuel and mining industries in the western Amazon and also by the banks that invest in these destructive projects and destructive practices. You know, warning after warning, report after report, protest after protest, we were doing everything that we could to sound the alarm. And it wasn't until the news story broke that the Amazon is on fire. And the visuals people saw the rainforest on fire, that people started to say, what is happening? You know, not only the Amazon is on fire, we should stop the fires, but why? Why is Amazon on fire? The Amazon is not on fire because it was an accidental wildfire. The Amazon was set on fire. The Amazon was set on fire by intentional government policies to set the fires, to clear land, to make way for agri-business. And that's why over 3 million hectares of forest burned in Brazil and over five million burned in Bolivia. And while people will say there's always fires, yeah, there's always a dry season and a wet season in the Amazon. But the fires are not like this. And the reason they're not like this is because, one, there is a drought-- for many years. And two, there was an intentional, deliberate, malicious intent behind this.

Lisa Kiefer: [00:09:31] If you're just tuning in, you're listening to Method to the Madness, a bi-weekly public affairs show on K-A-L-X Berkeley celebrating Bay Area innovators. Today, I'm speaking with Leila Salazar Lopez, the executive director of Amazon Watch, an organization that protects and defends the bio cultural and climate integrity of the Amazon rainforest.

Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:10:00] There's always been fires in in Australia during the dry season and they're wildfires. They're not intentionally set. But why have millions of hectares of Australia burned and are burning at the same time? Because there has been a massive drought caused by climate change. Basically what I'm saying is making the connection between the Amazon and Australia's drought caused by climate change and there's governments behind policies that are ignoring the reality of what's happening.

Lisa Kiefer: [00:10:28] Bolsonaro's argument is to the world that 'this is my country. Don't tell me how to run my country.'

Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:10:35] Well, he prides himself on calling himself the Trump of the tropics. Bolsonaro is a far right president who was elected last year in Brazil. You know, we're talking about a fascist, a leader, and, you know, I hesitate to say that because I think, you know, a leader should be thinking about all of their people they're representing. People like Bolsonaro were elected on a platform of stability and security. The prior government was deemed corrupt, inefficient. And so what the government ran on was, you know, we need security. We need jobs and we need to better our economy. And under the Lula administration, under the prior socialist, the Worker's Party platform, the government of Brazil was on top. The National Development Bank had money and they were, you know, constructing and building and had plans to have zero poverty, zero hunger, zero deforestation. They had a soy moratorium. They had lots of policies in place. But they also, because there were the Workers Party, they also were promoting jobs that were mostly engineering construction jobs like huge industrial construction, including the Belo Monte Dam, which is the third largest mega dam in the world. And it was built in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. So, you know, while we had many, many concerns, environmental and human rights concerns, with the prior government. They are nothing in comparison to what's happening with this government. The Bolonaro government is in an all out attack on civil society, is an all out attack on indigenous people, on human rights, on women, on Afro-Brazilians across the country, the environment. And we've seen it since day one in office. A year ago when Bolsonaro was elected, he immediately merged ministries, the agriculture, the environment ministry. He defunded the FUNAI, which is like the Bureau of Indian Affairs, de-funded IBAMA, which is the Environmental Agency, like the Environmental Protection Agency. How is IBAMA and FUNAI going to do their work in protecting the rainforest and defending indigenous people's rights if they don't have any funding? And it was intentional, if you defund them yet there's no forest guards, there's no there's no monitoring. I mean, Brazil is the most dangerous place to be an indigenous or human rights activist. And that was even before Bolsanaro. But now it's even worse. On a weekly basis, we're getting reports of indigenous people primarily being assassinated, not only threatened, but assassinated on their lands for protecting their lands, for protecting forests from cattle ranchers, from people paid by agri-business, people paid by corporations, to take their land and land grabbers.

Lisa Kiefer: [00:13:29] So what do you, as an organisation, what are you going to do about this?

Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:13:32] So Amazon Watch has been working since 1996, protecting the rainforest, defending human rights, indigenous rights. And our mission isn't going to change. Our strategies are really to hone in on the major threats and who's causing those threats. So, for example, we are naming and shaming the governments, companies and banks that are responsible. We actually released a report last April with ipb, which is the articulation of indigenous peoples of Brazil, because remember, Brazil has the world's largest rainforest, tropical rainforests, the world's largest tropical savanna and the world's largest wetlands, the Amazon, the Sahado and the Pantanal. It is a massive, interconnected ecosystem protected by indigenous peoples and very threatened by industry and government. And so we are organizing campaigns, organizing actions, coordinating with our NGO allies, with indigenous allies, with human rights organizations around the world to act for the Amazon. And immediately after the news of the fires broke at the end of September, we called upon allies around the world and said, let's all work together. Let's all work together. This is the time to work together.

Lisa Kiefer: [00:14:48] And who are those allies?

Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:14:50] Extinction rebellion, Greenpeace, Avaaz, Rainforest Action Network, and here locally in the Bay Area, Brazil Solidarity Network. Every month, there's an action at the Brazilian consulate since Bolsonaro was elected, there's been actions to respond to the attacks on the rainforest,  attacks on indigenous people, attacks on Afro-Brazilians. Attacks on women. And so if we continue to coordinate actions at the Brazilian consulate, the government, we continue to organize actions at BlackRock, which we have done many times over the last year. And we also engage with the governments and these corporations when possible. We're writing them letters. We're going to their headquarters. During the U.N. Climate Week in September with a delegation of, you know, over 50 people, we went into BlackRock's corporate headquarters in New York and delivered over 500000 thousand letters from around the world to say BlackRock stop investing in the destruction of the Amazon, the destruction of our climate. BlackRock is an asset manager that is the biggest investor in climate destruction around the world. They invest in oil and gas. They invest in mining. They invest in agro business. And so there's a network called "BlackRock's big problem" that we're a part of, that is organizing, you know, writing reports and writing letters to BlackRock and engaging with BlackRock, going to their shareholder meetings. Before two years ago, no one had ever been to a BlackRock Shareholder meeting. It was just 30 people sitting around a table in suits. And over the last two years, they've had to face criticism. They've had to face indigenous peoples in their boardrooms. They've had to face, you know, NGOs and questioning.

Lisa Kiefer: [00:16:36] Has this resulted in any changes?

Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:16:38] Not yet, to be totally honest. You know, Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock every January, puts out a letter to clients saying how they're committed to the environment, how they're committed to equality. You know, we're going to continue to call him out on that and hold him to those words, because if you're saying you're committed to the environment and climate change, we don't want minimum action, as Greta Thunberg so eloquently says. You know, we have to act as if our house is on fire because it is. We are responding to the needs and requests of our partners, primarily in the Amazon.

Lisa Kiefer: [00:17:18] So how often do you go down there?

Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:17:20] I go a couple times a year to to meet with our partners and actually be in the forest and get inspiration for, you know, why we're doing this work. And we also lead delegations down to the Amazon. We have field coordinators in the Amazon, in Ecuador and Peru and Brazil. And we're a pretty small organization. And our strength really lies in the partnerships, the long term partnerships that we have with the indigenous communities, organizations, national organization, national indigenous organizations and regional organizations, and as well as our NGO allies throughout the Amazon. So those long term partnerships are what help us define like what we need to do this year. You know, respond to the fires, respond to new oil development projects, respond to China in the Amazon, and then from there develop strategies. Also work with local movements such as the Sunrise Movement that is really led by the youth. The youth right now are really showing the leadership.

Lisa Kiefer: [00:18:22] Who do you think of all the candidates is the most, would be the most reliable partner in terms of climate mitigation and adaptation?

Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:18:31] Amazon Watch doesn't officially endorse, but personally, there's only two candidates that even come close. And that's Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Lisa Kiefer: [00:18:40] Well, they're the only ones who even talk about the Green New Deal.

Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:18:43] Yeah. Think about how much energy and resources governments put into war. We invest a lot of our tax money in, you know, it's all in. But when it's time to think about the future of our children, grandchildren, seven generations and all life on this planet, what we need is a war effort to turn, not only turn emissions around, but turn extraction around and a complete commitment by government and civil society and the private sector and companies. If we have any kind of future left on this planet, we need to really turn around the way that we're living our daily lives. And, you know, that may be scary for people to hear. But when I say we need to, we need to change our economy, we need to change our daily way of life. It's not inconceivable to think that civil society can mobilize a new economy, a new way of life, new policies that could protect us and and our future. Nationalism and the rise of nationalism is the opposite of what we need to be doing. You know, we need to be looking at planet Earth like a system. We're all on this earth together. We have no other, even though there's some people who want to build, you know, space stations and think they can get away from our problems. The majority of the people can't. We are the Majority. We're way more than them. We can demand and make the changes that we need.

Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:20:04] I'm curious how you got involved in the Amazon. Was there a moment where you were inspired to do that?

Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:20:10] Well, I grew up in Southern California, near the border. My family's from Mexico. I grew up pretty traditional Mexican family. We grew up near the beach. And one summer there was a medical waste spill on our beach. We couldn't go on the beach for a while. And that was my kind of wakeup call to environmental awareness. You know, because the beach was like, oh, you know, it's where we go to to play, to rest, enjoy. And it's free and it should be open and accessible to everyone. And when it wasn't, that was my wake-up call. And then from there, you know, we we started up an environmental group on our high school campus and, you know, started doing beach cleanups. And that was kind of the beginning of activism. We started our environmental group and we started or organizing our own Earth Day festivals and Earth Day events. One of the guest speakers I will always remember because he gave a slideshow about the rainforest and it was so beautiful. And I'd never seen anything like that. And I just thought one day I want to go there. Fast forward a couple years. I'm at UC Santa Barbara and student advisor says, you know, you're going to need to do an internship in your second year. And, you know, you could volunteer at a local environmental organization or a local government representatives office. And I said, well, I wanna go to the rainforest. I said, okay, that's pretty far and pretty expensive. And I said, well, I'll take out a student loan. And I did that. And that changed my life. That changed the path and the direction of my life. Because, one, I'd never been to South America. I'd never seen the rainforest. I'd never seen the beauty and also the destruction and the threats. The summer of 1995 was when I connected with the forest and realized that it was indigenous peoples who were protecting it and that they were a library of knowledge that could not be replicated in any way. You know, just walking in the forest with someone who has lived there all their life and has a spiritual connection to the forest. I mean, you could walk 30 meters and they will know every single plant that you walk by and know what its properties are. Know what it's used for and whether it's used to build a house, or to cook with, or to use as medicine, or to build a canoe. They know how to use everything and they do it with respect. And that, just that, was like a huge lesson in what is really needed to protect the forest. On my way out of the forest, I saw an oil spill. The trans Ecuadorian pipeline had ruptured and crude oil from the north east Ecuadorian Amazon was just spilling into the river, into the main water source of the city of Quito, the capital city of Ecuador. It was my, you know, my second kind of wake-up call to how could this be happening? Who did this? Why is this happening? Who allowed this? Why aren't they shutting it off? Why isn't it stopping? That really enraged me. And I found out that it was Texaco who had set up the infrastructure, who had basically found oil in the Amazon, set up the entire infrastructure, convinced the government in the 1960s to allow them to set up the infrastructure and drill and dump. And there were no environmental or human rights or indigenous rights laws in the country or even in the world. At that time, there weren't conventions on, there was a declaration on human rights, but there wasn't the declaration on indigenous rights. But still, during this time, Texaco drilled and dumped on the indigenous territories of five indigenous nationalities. And also where uncontacted peoples are and created what we called a rainforest Chernobyl. And still to this day, even though Chevron, which Texaco is now Chevron here in the bay, even though Chevron was found guilty in 2012, they still have not paid a dime, and probably have paid more in legal fees in the last 25 years to fight this than to resolve it. They've never denied that they did it, that they drilled and dumped. They don't wanna set a precedent that if you do this, you'll be held accountable. When I got back from the Amazon the first time, I said, I'm going to dedicate my life to doing everything I can to prevent this from happening again. And I will do everything I can to hold this company accountable. And so in 2002, when I first started working for Amazon Watch, we launched a campaign called the Chevron Cleanup Ecuador Campaign. And so we've been doing a lot of.

Lisa Kiefer: [00:24:34] That was very successful.

Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:24:34] The Chevron lawsuit was a major, major victory when we heard news of of the judgment. It was one of the proudest moments of...

Lisa Kiefer: [00:24:46] We can do this.

Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:24:47] We can do this. Like this is one of the biggest just a very typical David Goliath story. Right. We're going up against one of the biggest corporations on the planet. We beat them. Also another Oil victory was Occidental Petroleum. Occidental Petroleum did very similar to what Chevron, Texaco, now Chevron did in the Peruvian Amazon. And after seven years of attending their shareholder meetings, also filing a lawsuit against them with the Otwar people of Peru.  We we actually settled a lawsuit with Occidental Petroleum and they agreed to pay a settlement to the Otwar people for the contamination that they had caused in the Peruvian Amazon and also with Oxy, one of the first and most proudest victories of Amazon Watch, is working with the Ottawa and a whole network that wide defense coalition around the world to get Occidental Petroleum out of what territory in Colombia. Many of our victories, the last one I'll mention is in Brazil. Actually, it's the Tapajos dam and we were not able to stop the Belo Monte mega dam construction. The following dam proposal was Tapajos mega dam on one last free flowing blackwater rivers in the Amazon, in Brazil. And just a few years ago, the Brazilian government announced that they were not going to build it. They were actually going to change their dam building policy and begin to invest in renewable energy. That's now all changed with Bolsanaro.

Lisa Kiefer: [00:26:18] Are the dams back on the table?

Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:26:20] Everything's back on the table. I mean, their policy is the Amazon is open for business. And I think that's shameful. It's completely shameful.

Lisa Kiefer: [00:26:28] What are some of your immediate plans as an organization?

Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:26:32] Funny that you mentioned it. Amazon Watch has been a pretty small organization for the last 23 years. I mean, we've been around 10 people plus field consultants plus, you know, working with our partners across the Amazon. One result of the attention on the Amazon is that there's been a lot more interest in supporting organizations like ours. And so we are growing. There is a lot more attention on organizations such as Amazon Watch and a lot more offers for financial support and a lot more offers for volunteers and people who across the world who want to volunteer, who want to help. And so right now, we're at a moment, we're actually at a moment of strategic planning to really envision what we want the next five to 10 years, the focus of our next five to 10 years, to be. Our mission is to protect the rainforest, defend indigenous rights and advance climate justice. We're going to continue to focus on those strategic areas with campaigns, but we have to do it with more urgency because the Amazon is at a tipping point. Scientists say that the Amazon will reach its tipping point when the deforestation and degradation is over 20 percent. It's about 17 to 18 percent now. And so what we need for the Amazon is a full scale commitment to protect, defend and restore it. Protect means protecting what's left. Anything that's still left standing, whether it be indigenous peoples territories, whether it be protected areas, national parks, private lands, anything that's still left standing needs to be protected and defended. And promote solutions of indigenous peoples, promote on the ground solutions for restoration, for alternative energy. We need to invest and increase the use of solar energy, the use of renewable energy.

Lisa Kiefer: [00:28:19] And show some solutions.

Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:28:21] And show those solutions. And so we are working on promoting indigenous led solutions, promoting protection and defense of indigenous territories with our people in Peru. We're fighting Geo Park to get them off territory this year and in years to come. Our focus really is going to be on protecting and advancing the sacred headwaters and beyond. Who is complicit in the destruction of the Amazon? Let's call them out. Let's engage with them. Let's pressure them. We're also getting ready for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, the establishment of the environmental movement around the world. I'm a UC Santa Barbara alumni. It's where the first environmental studies department was in the whole world. And why was that? Because there was a giant oil spill in 1969 in Santa Barbara. And what that sparked was a movement, that sparked environmental studies department at UC Santa Barbara. It sparked environmental laws across this country. It sparked Earth Day. When we reflect on 50 years ago and everything that's happened, we've made progress and we've also majorly rolled back progress with the Trump administration. Here in the United States, we need to defend all of the achievements over the last 50 years. We need to defend our laws. We need to defend our rights and our democracy. And that's very similar to what Brazilians are saying. We're at a turning point, a very important election that, you know, could really turn things around. We have to do everything we possibly can.

Lisa Kiefer: [00:29:55] If you could just tell people how they might get a hold of you?

Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:29:57] Amazonwatch.org. Follow us on social media for all the latest reports and news and updates and opportunities to get involved. We're located in Oakland. You can call us up, visit us. We would really encourage youth and students and anyone who wants to get involved to make the connections between California and the Amazon. The oil and the Amazon, while it comes from the Amazon, the majority that's exported comes right here to California. We are very connected to the Amazon. It's it's it's real. Learn more. Go to our Web site. We have to do this together.

Lisa Kiefer: [00:30:36] Thank you, Leila, for coming on the program.

Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:30:38] You're welcome. Thank you.

Lisa Kiefer: [00:30:41] You've been listening to Method to the Madness, a bi weekly public affairs show on K-A-L-X Berkeley celebrating Bay Area innovators. We'll be back again in two weeks.

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