Press Releases

Press releases and resources for journalists from Global Witness. For general media enquiries please call + 44 (0) 7912 517 127 or email [email protected]

Press release | Oct. 7, 2021
Household brands and global financiers including BlackRock linked to clearance of tropical rainforest, human rights abuses in Papua New Guinea

Undercover investigation reveals tainted palm oil has been sold on to household brands including Kellogg’s, Nestlé, and The Hershey Company
Press release | Oct. 6, 2021
US Congress must pass new bill to help end deforestation around the world

The US should seize the opportunity to be a leader in promoting good governance, protecting indigenous people, and end its complicity in the destruction of the world’s climate-critical forests.
Statement | Sept. 6, 2021
Open letter to the UK Prime Minister: Take action to protect the Amazon

The destruction of the Amazon has dire implications for global efforts to avoid dangerous climate change but there is much the UK can still do
Press release | June 14, 2021
Global Witness response to G7 Nature Compact agreement

The G7 leaders’ Nature Compact has rightly recognised they need to do more to safeguard forests. This must now be backed up by all G7 members, and other key consumer countries, bringing forward legislation to end their countries’ complicity in global forest destruction ahead of COP26.
Press release | June 7, 2021
Chinese banks are pouring billions into destructive agribusiness linked to global deforestation

Global Witness reveals today that Chinese banks are failing to take adequate measures to ensure their money is not contributing to environmental destruction
Press release | May 26, 2021
Cross-party support for UK Environment Bill to tackle role of UK banks in funding global deforestation, with £900m funnelled into forest-risk commodities in 2020

As the UK Environment Bill is debated in Parliament today, MPs, civil society and indigenous leaders in forest-rich countries are calling for the legislation to be strengthened to tackle the crucial role of the UK financial sector in bankrolling global deforestation.
Statement | April 23, 2021
World leaders must commit to holding climate-wrecking industries and their financial backers to account

The world can’t solve the climate crisis if leaders are unwilling to name the main culprits, let alone have the courage to take on these powerful industry interests.
Statement | Jan. 12, 2021
New report on finance sector’s response to deforestation shows failure of voluntary banking initiatives to tackle deforestation and need for government regulation

Voluntary banking initiatives like the Soft Commodities Compact have clearly failed to rein in banks’ financing of global deforestation, which is helping drive the climate crisis, biodiversity loss and human rights abuses around the world.
Press release | Dec. 2, 2020
Major global banks complicit in widespread destruction of the Amazon rainforest linked to Brazilian beef companies, and international audits flawed

Major Brazilian meat traders are failing to remove huge swathes of Amazon deforestation from their supply chains, which flawed audits by DNV-GL and Grant Thornton then did not pick up
Statement | Nov. 11, 2020
Global Witness response to UK government announcement on new deforestation law

While we welcome the UK government’s commitment to introduce legislation to tackle the UK’s role in global deforestation, the government’s proposals do not go far enough.