Solidarity letter supporting the NY TREES bill

June 20, 2024 

The Honorable Kathy Hochul 
Governor 
New York State Capitol Building 
Albany, NY 12224 

Dear Governor Hochul: 

We are individuals and organizations from across Latin America, Asia and Africa who are devoted to principles of human rights, environmental restoration, social justice, peace and human dignity, and we are writing to urge you to sign New York’s historic TREES Act for tropical forest protection (Bill # A.9711/S.8898) into law. With this law, New York can exert significant economic leverage in support of the international movement to combat climate change, and help ensure the world’s irreplaceable tropical forests can continue to play their crucial ecological role. 

New York has long been a home of cultural diversity, economic opportunity, and policy that faces the future. In this, New York is an inspiration, and in fact, a literal home to countless of our brothers and sisters. Your cities have ties to every country in the world – and by signing this historic bill you will show that New Yorkers still today are living out the values for which you are known worldwide.  

In our work, we have dedicated our lives to promoting environmental and social justice, and to halting the destruction of our lands, our forests, and in many cases, our lifeways — and we have been watching the progress of this and similar legislation around the world. In Europe, the EU Deforestation Regulation, which has taken a decade to become encoded in law, is the first law in the global North to recognize that what wealthy nations purchase for everyday consumption — coffee, lumber, palm oil, beef — wreaks devastation in our home territories, every day. 

Last year we saw more than 9 million acres of rainforest land burned, slashed and turned into industrial wasteland. Half of the world’s forests are gone, and this devastation is a critical contributor to the climate emergency, a global existential threat that should unite us all in a struggle to change the way our societies consume goods and extract resources. At this moment, with our lifeways and our very lives at stake, we have no choice but to change the way we manage our relationship with our Pachamama, our Mother Earth. And we must ask you to do what you can to help.  

As you have said yourself, New York is a magnet for people fleeing their homelands from the impacts of environmental destruction. The climate emergency, the deforestation crisis, the droughts and wildfires and crop failures and floods that are ravaging our nations and territories — all these are major factors in driving the waves of people leaving our villages, towns and cities for what they hope is a better life elsewhere. Our brothers and sisters from Honduras, from Haiti, from Congo, are fleeing their homes not only because of economic collapse and social unrest, but because the heat and the floods and the desertification of their lands is making their homes unlivable. Many of them aspire to reach physical safety and economic safety on your shores.   

And, as you know too well, after great trial and tribulation, if they make it, they are ending up as refugees at Floyd Bennett Field, in Albany’s West Hill neighborhood, on Buffalo’s West Side, in the packed emergency shelters of Manhattan, on Brooklyn’s inhospitable winter streets and in the crowded basements in Queens. 

While the crisis of climate migration is among the great catastrophes that we face today, it is also an opportunity for the world to come together. To say it simply, Governor Hochul, our problems are your problems; your economy and our economy are part of a global system that requires global attention; the people in your cities and towns are the children and grandchildren and brothers and sisters of the people in ours. 

We need solutions that are global in their vision — but that build on actions taken at the local level everywhere in the world.  

Through the TREES Act, you and other New Yorkers can take actions that bring us hope. As you have your Adirondacks, your Niagara Falls, your Hudson River, we have our rainforests — natural wonders that help sustain life and cannot be replaced. The TREES Act is an acknowledgment that what is decided at the state capitol in Albany or in the ports of Manhattan makes ripples that affect us in Brazil, in West Africa, in Southeast Asia. Quite literally, governor Hochul, our rainforests are your Brooklyn Bridge, your High Line, your hamburger, the creamer in your coffee, the chocolate in your ice cream. It is not an exaggeration to say that these come to you at great cost to our families and communities. That need not be the case, and once you sign this bill, it no longer will be. 

We applaud your Legislature for its vision in passing the TREES Act, not once, but twice. We understand that, like ripe fruit, any good law takes time to mature into something that will truly nourish our collective future. Like the kind of leadership we cherish, the TREES Act is at once humble and bold; it offers a relatively small and pragmatic change that, over time, will have a deep and indelible impact.  

Governor Hochul, we are hopeful that you will see the opportunity before you, for New York and for the world, and will sign this bill into law.  

In solidarity and respect, 

Marcel Gomes, Reporter Brasil (Brazil) 
Alfred Brownell, Green Advocates (Liberia) 
Zenzi Suhadi, WALHI/ Indonesian Forum on the Environment (Indonesia) 
Friends of the Earth U.S. 

On behalf of the undersigned 154 civil society and Indigenous Peoples organizations from Latin America, Asia and Africa, across 28 countries and territories in tropical forest regions: