Roads built through untouched forest in a bid to find oil deposits or start logging. Vast areas cleared to make way for plantations and farmland. Trees cut down to become furniture, buildings and charcoal.
Brazil and Southeast Asian countries are in the midst of intense struggles against the destruction of their rainforests. And while these forests lay thousands of miles from Japan, environmentalists and economists alike say investor, company and consumer behavior are all indirectly responsible for clearing forests, polluting indigenous communities and hastening climate change.
And one organization is showing where many of these destructive investments and loans are coming from. Comprehensive datasets made available by Forests & Finance, an initiative by a coalition of environmental groups, reveal thousands of investments and loans made by Japan’s top lenders and investment funds that are impacting rainforests around the world.
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