Anglican News reports that eight South American Anglican bishops have spoken up against deforestation:
The bishops, representing indigenous people in churches in Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Perú and Uruguay, described the fires as evidence of “human pride and disobedience against God’s command to be stewards of His creation.”
Representing the largest indigenous church membership in Latin America, each of the bishops, said their members had seen homes burned and their biodiversity being destroyed. They state: “We believe that without genuine repentance on the part of all of us, we will continue to pay a huge price with greater disasters than those we have recently seen in our countries.”
The declaration, issued last week, asked local and international governments to implement a policy of Zero Deforestation through the passing and fulfilling of effective laws and programmes of protection, action and restoration of the damaged and threatened ecosystems. Their hope is that the new protections will be concrete outcomes of the next international Climate Change Summit, COP25, to be held in Chile in January 2020.
The full statement can be read here, and more information is at the Anglican News link above.
Image from NASA via the Washington Post.