RIO DE JANEIRO – A group representing Amazonian indigenous people has met with Brazil's National Development bank to urge that it stop financing projects which cause environmental damage.
The Ecuador-based group known as Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin says in a statement that its leaders also asked the bank to adopt policies that safeguard the rights of indigenous to ancestral lands.
COICA president Edwin Vasquez Campos says in the statement that the organization wants to have a say in decisions involving large-scale projects like hydroelectric dams and highways in the Amazon rain forest.
The organization represents 390 indigenous groups in Brazil, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela and French Guiana.
The meeting took place Wednesday at the bank's headquarters in Rio de Janeiro.
Fox News' "Antisemitism Exposed" newsletter brings you stories on the rising anti-Jewish prejudice across the U.S. and the world.