US firms fund deforestation in Amazon

Rio de Janeiro: Major US financial firms are helping fund environmental destruction and indigenous rights abuses in the Amazon with billions of dollars in investments in questionable companies, according to a report published Tuesday.

Six top firms -- BlackRock, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Vanguard, Bank of America and Dimensional Fund Advisors -- have invested more than $18 billion over the past three years in mining, agribusiness and energy companies involved in a "series of abuses" in the world´s biggest rainforest, found the report by the environmental group Amazon Watch and the Association of Brazil´s Indigenous Peoples (APIB).

"Major financiers... are using their clients´ money to enable the wanton behavior of companies linked to indigenous rights violations and the devastation of the Amazon rainforest," said Amazon Watch program director Christian Poirier.