Global Witness

Global Witness works to address climate breakdown and corporate and state capture, by confronting corruption and challenging the systems that enable it.

It is working towards a vision where all can thrive within the planet's boundaries, and governments and corporations act in the public interest. Global Witness campaigns to this end, carrying out hard-hitting investigations, communications and advocacy work to expose abuses and drive sustainable change.

For over two decades the organisation has been campaigning for transparency in the mining, logging, oil and gas sectors, so that citizens who own those resources can benefit fairly from them, now and in the future. One of its main areas of work is halting the deforestation of climate critical tropical rainforests in the Brazilian Amazon, the Congo Basin, and Papua New Guinea. These are the earth's front-line defence against climate breakdown.

Governments of forest-rich countries routinely strike secretive deals with companies for access to forested land. Often these companies are backed up by state or privately hired security forces. Communities are forced off land they've lived on for generations, some are even killed defending it, while irreplaceable forests and ecosystems are razed.

These abuses don't happen in isolation. The companies profiting from deforestation depend on a global network of banks and investors to back their business and on access to international markets to sell their goods.

Global Witness is working to expose the vested interests at the heart of the global forest economy and dispel its myths. It is campaigning for legislation to require companies and investors to conduct due diligence throughout their entire supply chain and investments. And it wants stronger rules for financial markets. It also works with local groups to strengthen forest communities' rights to land and forests, and ensure they can play an active role in monitoring abuses.

You can help Global Witness protect climate critical forests. For more information, visit their website www.globalwitness.org. To support their work, sign up to play People's Postcode Lottery.