Religious and indigenous leaders appealed on Monday for better protection of tropical forests from the Amazon to the Congo basin, with a Vatican bishop likening current losses to a collective suicide by humanity. The Interfaith Rainforest Initiative was launched in Oslo on 19 June 2017, followed by a two-day roundtable to develop the initiative’s concrete goals, action plans and milestones. This process is expected to lead to a global interfaith rainforest summit to be convened in Brazil in the second half of 2018.
