Land Grabbing, Deforestation and Your Pension: How to Take Action on TIAA-CREF!

Join the webinar Tuesday Feb. 7th at 11:00 am CST (today!) to learn whether your money is invested in deforestation and land rights abuses and what you can do about it!

Here is the link to register:

http://myaccount.maestroconference.com/conference/register/FXCXHTHSF0HSSB3

If you can’t register online, call in by phone: +1 (619) 309-1058  Pin: 643117 or  579317  (either pin works). If you have trouble joining the webinar, call 202-222-0754.

When you save for retirement, you dream of a better future. But if your retirement funds are invested in destructive companies, that very future is undermined.

Americans have over $4 trillion invested through 401k retirement funds. But did you know that some of your retirement funds could be invested in land rights abuses and dirty palm oil – an industry that is destroying tropical forests and wiping out orangutans?

Panel speakers:

Maria Luisa Mendonça, Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos
John Peck, Family Farm Defenders (National Family Farm Coalition member)
Jenny Bock, Friends of the Earth
Nancy Holstrom, City University of New York

For this webinar we will talk about the U.S. retirement fund company TIAA-CREF. TIAA-CREF, which manages retirement accounts for university professors and other knowledge professionals across the U.S., has over $500 million invested in some of the world’s worst palm oil companies and has over $2.5 million invested in farmland in the U.S. as well as other parts of the world that was acquired without proper consultation from local communities.

TIAA-CREF claims to be a socially responsible company, yet through their investments they are involved in environmentally and socially destructive activities including driving endangered species to extinction, burning carbon-rich peat lands, grabbing land from small farmers and indigenous peoples, and running massive plantations with dangerous, dirty, low wage labor. What’s more, they are dragging their feet and refusing to share key information about their investments in grabbed farmland and harmful palm oil companies.

Land grabbing –when land is taken without a local community’s consent—is likely happening right down the street as well as in many countries across the seas. In the U.S. as well as overseas, investment companies like TIAA-CREF are involved in buying up urban and rural land for the expansion of mono-cropping, implementing destructive private projects. Overseas, food producers, palm oil companies and cattle ranchers are some of the main perpetrators. The webinar will explain the land grabbing problem and tell stories of resistance from the U.S., to Brazil, Indonesia, Nigeria and beyond as well as how you can act in solidarity to make TIAA-CREF come clean on land grabbing!

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