It is a weird and wonderful sight: millions of migratory insects funnelling through a single narrow pass high in the Pyrenees, looking like a dark flying carpet and emitting a low, deep hum.

A team of scientists from a British university that has been studying the phenomenon for the last four years has now concluded that more than 17 million insects fly each year through the 30 metre-wide Puerto de Bujaruelo on the border of France and Spain.

“It really is a magical thing,” said Will Hawkes, from the centre for ecology and conservation at Exeter University. “You sweep your net and it’s full of the tiniest of flies, all journeying on this unbelievably huge migration.”

The work has its origins in the discovery in 1950 by British ornithologists Elizabeth and David Lack, who “chanced upon a spectacle” – the migration through the pass, which sits at 2,273 metres.

Hawkes said: “They witnessed remarkable numbers of marmalade hoverflies migrating through the mountains. We went to the same pass to see if this migration still occurred, and to record the numbers and species.

“Not only were vast numbers of marmalade hoverflies still migrating through the pass but far more besides. These insects would have begun their journeys farther north in Europe and continued south into Spain and perhaps beyond for the winter. There were some days when the number of flies was well over 3,000 individuals per metre, per minute.”

As well as the marmalade hoverflies, they watched butterflies – including cabbage whites, dragonflies and house flies – whiz through the pass. The team used cameras, nets and keen eyesight to spot and record the insects.

There has been an alarming decline in insect numbers across the globe and the assumption is that the amount travelling through the pass has dropped since the Lacks first observed it, though the precise figures were not recorded 70 years ago.

The Exeter team hope that their findings may boost determination to protect their habitats. Hawkes said: “Insects are resilient and can bounce back quickly.”

Team leader Karl Wotton said it was a wonder of nature to see so many insects all moving purposefully in the same direction at the same time.

Wotton said: “The combination of high-altitude mountains and wind patterns render what is normally an invisible high-altitude migration into this incredibly rare spectacle observable at ground level.”

The researchers said that insect numbers peaked when conditions were warm, sunny and dry – just after lunch seemed the best time. The area is a tourist hotspot and visitors, who at first were a little upset at being bombarded with flies, cheered up when they realised what was going on.

Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, has said she is still “not doing great” but will continue to work, in her first interview since she was assaulted in a Copenhagen square last week.

Frederiksen, 46, suffered minor whiplash in the attack last Friday, which is not thought to have been politically motivated. A 39-year-old Polish man was detained on suspicion of assault.

“I’m not doing great, and I’m not really myself yet,” Frederiksen told the Danish broadcaster DR in an interview broadcast on Tuesday.

Frederiksen gave no details of the attack, but said “it was very intimidating when someone crosses the last physical limit you have. There is some shock and surprise in that”.

She said it was “probably also an accumulation of many other things. Threats over a long period of time on social media have got worse, especially since the war in the Middle East. Shouting in public space. Maybe that was the final straw”.

“As a human being, it feels like an attack on me,” Frederiksen said in the 10-minute interview. “But I have no doubt that it was the prime minister that was hit. In this way, it also becomes a kind of attack on all of us.”

“No form of violence has any place in our society.”

She continued: “I would rather have a Denmark where the prime minister can bicycle to work without being worried. I am Mette at my core, but I am the country’s prime minister. Thus, an institution that you must not attack, like the police.”

Frederiksen said the tone had changed in politics recently.

A 39-year-old Polish man was arrested and will be held in custody until 20 June on preliminary charges of violence against a person in public service. In Denmark, preliminary charges are one step short of formal ones but allow authorities to keep criminal suspects in custody during an investigation.

In court, the suspect, who was not identified, reportedly praised Frederiksen as “a really good prime minister”, and investigators suspect he was under the influence of drugs and intoxicated at the time of the incident that happened just before 6pm on Friday.

Media reports said the man walked toward Frederiksen and pushed her hard while she was passing one of Copenhagen’s main squares. He hit her upper right arm with a clenched fist.

Frederiksen has not appeared in public since the attack and did not participate in public party events as the results of Sunday’s European parliament elections started coming in. Her party, the Social Democrats, faced a loss in the vote.

Frederiksen became the youngest ever Danish prime minister when she took office in 2019. She won re-election in legislative elections in 2022.

International efforts to protect the ozone layer have been a “huge global success”, scientists have said, after revealing that damaging gases in the atmosphere were declining faster than expected.

The Montreal protocol, signed in 1987, aimed to phase out ozone-depleting substances found primarily in refrigeration, air conditioning and aerosol sprays.

A study has found that atmospheric levels of hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), harmful gases responsible for holes in the ozone layer, peaked in 2021 – five years ahead of projections.

“This has been a huge global success. We’re seeing that things are going in the right direction,” the study’s lead author, Luke Western from the University of Bristol, said.

The most harmful CFCs were phased out by 2010 in the effort to protect the ozone layer – the shield that protects life on Earth from harmful levels of ultraviolet rays from the Sun.

The HCFC chemicals that replaced them are expected to be eliminated by 2040.

The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, examined levels of these pollutants in the atmosphere by using data from the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment and US National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration.

Western attributed the steep decline in HCFCs to the efficacy of the Montreal protocol, as well as tighter national regulations and a shift by industry in anticipation of the coming ban of these pollutants.

“In terms of environmental policy, there is some optimism that these environmental treaties can work if properly enacted and properly followed,” Western said.

Both CFCs and HCFCs are also powerful greenhouse gases, meaning their decline also aids in the fight against global heating.

CFCs can last in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, while HCFCs have a lifespan of about two decades, Western said.

Even once they are no longer in production, the past use of these products will continue to affect the ozone for years to come.

The United Nations Environment Programme in 2023 estimated it could take four decades before the ozone layer would recover to levels before the hole was first detected in the 1980s.

Iceland has granted a licence to Europe’s last whaling company to kill more than 100 animals this year, despite hopes the practice might have been halted after concerns about cruelty led to a temporary suspension last year.

Animal rights groups described the news as “deeply disappointing” and “dangerous”.

Hvalur, an Icelandic company run by Kristján Loftsson, will now be permitted to kill 128 fin whales over this year’s hunting season. Last year, just 24 fin whales were killed after a government-commissioned report found harpooned whales took as long as two hours to die and new regulations were introduced, delaying the whaling season.

Iceland is the second country, after Japan, to allow fin whaling to resume this year.

Fin whales, the second-largest mammal in the world, are listed as vulnerable to extinction on the red list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Their numbers have recovered since bans on hunting were introduced in many countries from the 1970s.

In granting the permit, Iceland’s food, fisheries and agriculture minister, Bjarkey Olsen Gunnarsdóttir, said her decision was not necessarily in line with her views or those of her party, the Left-Green Movement.

“Nevertheless, I have to follow the laws and regulations, and this is my conclusion now,” Gunnarsdóttir told RÚV, the Icelandic national broadcasting service.

Campaigners claimed that a recent report by Mast, Iceland’s food and veterinary authority, had failed to demonstrate any significant improvements in animal welfare for the 2023 hunt compared with the year before, despite the implementation of new regulations aimed at reducing suffering.

Patrick Ramage, director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said: “It’s hard to fathom how and why this green light to kill 128 fin whales is being given. “There is clearly no way to kill a whale at sea without inflicting unthinkable cruelty.”

Luke McMillan, an anti-whaling campaigner with Whale and Dolphin Conservation, said: “It is unbelievable and deeply disappointing that the Icelandic government has granted [this], defying extensive scientific and economic evidence against such actions.”

The decision set a “dangerous” precedent for commercial whaling around the world, he said, as well as undermining global conservation efforts.

Iceland’s previous fisheries minister suspended whaling after a report concluded that the 2022 hunt did not comply with the country’s animal welfare legislation, as the whales took too long to die.

The report, by Mast, found that some harpooned whales took two hours to die and it questioned whether hunting large whales could ever meet animal welfare objectives.

An expert working group, set up subsequently to look into whether the hunt could be modified to meet welfare laws, concluded there were grounds for making improvements to hunting methods.

However, a Mast analysis of last year’s whale hunt, seen by the Guardian, concluded that while the efficiency of killing whales in 2023 appeared to be better than in 2022, the difference was not statistically significant, possibly due to the small numbers of animals killed in 2023. There were 148 whales hunted in 2022.

Last month, Japan announced that fin whaling could resume, adding the cetacean to a list of other species it allows to be caught commercially.

Although populations of fin whales are reportedly increasing, thanks to regulation of commercial whaling, they were still classified as endangered as recently as 2018 and also face other pressures, including climate change.

Emmanuel Macron has said he is “out to win” the snap legislative election he called after his allies’ crushing defeat to Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) in the European elections.

In his first interview since Sunday’s vote, he denied accusations that his decision to dissolve parliament was madness that could hand major political power to the far right and in effect neuter his ability to make domestic policy with three years of his term in office still to run.

“Not at all. I’m only thinking of France. It was a good decision and in the country’s interest. I say to the French: don’t be afraid, go and vote,” he told Le Figaro in an interview conducted on his return to Paris from commemorations of the 1944 Oradour-sur-Glane massacre, when a Nazi SS division killed 642 villagers.

“This is the spirit of our institutions: I have listened to the French people. Now is the time for clarification. Dissolution is the clearest, most radical and strongest gesture. A gesture of great confidence in the French people.”

The RN won about 32% of the vote on Sunday, more than double the 15% or so scored by the president’s allies, according to exit polls. The Socialist party, on 14%, came within a whisker of the Macron group.

Macron told Le Figaro he did not think the far right could repeat its European success in a domestic election.

“Politics is a dynamic. I’ve never believed in opinion polls. The decision I’ve taken opens up a new era. A new campaign is beginning and we mustn’t look at the scores per constituency by the yardstick of those at the European elections,” he said.

“The president must commit himself, it’s his correct place: the future of the republic, the institutions, the country and Europe are at stake.”

He said his position as president was not threatened, despite suggestions that the RN would call for his resignation if it wins the general election.

“It’s not the RN that writes the constitution, or the spirit of it. The institutions are clear, and so is the president’s place, whatever the result,” Macron said.

Jordan Hatmaker knew something was wrong as soon as she tried to open her parachute. “You’re meant to look up to check: is it there? Is it square? And is it stable?” she says.

It was none of those things.

This was the second time that day that she and her skydiving coach had leapt from an aircraft 13,500ft above the fields and farmland of Suffolk, Virginia. Hatmaker was 35, a fairly experienced skydiver, just 10 jumps away from securing her skydiving licence.

“When you’re spinning around while being pulled to the ground, it’s hard to know exactly what’s happening. I was in my own world. All I was thinking about was how to get out of the situation. I felt oddly calm.

“I do remember seeing the ground coming towards me really quickly and I thought to myself: ‘This is going to hurt.’”

Hatmaker has always been a thrill-seeker. “I’ve always loved rollercoasters, zip-lining, jumping off cliffs into water, climbing mountains – all that stuff,” she says. Remarkably, she had never so much as broken a bone before that day in November 2021. “I never worried about safety; I always figured everything would be fine.”

After graduating from college, she began working for a defence contractor, selling equipment to the military. She first tried skydiving with a tandem jump in 2015 and immediately fell in love with the sport. “It’s been my dream to fly since I was a little kid – if somebody asked me what animal I would like to be, I would always say a bird. Being able to tackle something so daring gave me a great sense of confidence and pride.”

Friends encouraged her to get her licence. “It allows you to dive solo, which is a lot less expensive, and you can jump in any drop zone in the world. It’s around $5,000 (£3,900) to get your licence – and $3,000-5,000 to buy your own equipment – so it was a lot of money. But once you have it, it’s $25 a jump.”

Her other passion is dog rescue, and on the day of the accident, her brother came along to watch her jump, bringing her two dogs with him. “When he got there, he told me not to jump because he thought the vibes were off. I thought he was being ridiculous.” Dogs were not allowed in the hangar, so her brother had to leave.

On the ground, she was assigned a coach she hadn’t jumped with before, but that wasn’t uncommon; there were lots of coaches and skydivers would jump with whoever was available. They ran through “drills” – exercises or movements they would aim to replicate during freefall – then boarded the aircraft. The first jump went without a hitch and, as they ascended for the second time, Hatmaker had no qualms.

She and her coach jumped out separately, as they had planned, and began running through the drills they had practised on the ground. It was going well. She was “hitting all of them perfectly”.

“We had planned to match each other’s levels – so if she floated up, I was supposed to float up – and everything was good.” They continued in freefall for about a minute, then moved away from one another, so they could activate their parachutes without any risk of becoming tangled together.

She and her coach had agreed to freefall to 4,000ft; as her training progressed, she was able to deploy her parachute at increasingly lower altitudes, and this was the lowest she had ever gone. Hatmaker activated her pilot chute – a small preliminary parachute – and immediately knew something was wrong. The force of the inflation is designed to trigger the release of the main canopy, but instead, the pilot chute became wrapped around her leg in a malfunction known as a “horseshoe”.

She tried to untangle her leg but she was spinning and falling at about 70mph. “I thought, ‘OK, I’ll remove my shoe” – but I couldn’t because I’d double-knotted [the laces].” A shoe had come off during a previous jump, and she hadn’t wanted it to happen again.

If a parachute fails to deploy properly, the reserve parachute is triggered automatically. “I felt it jerk me upwards and I got control for a few seconds,” says Hatmaker. There was a paved runway below that she was desperate to avoid, and during this brief moment of stability she steered towards the grass.

Then she felt another jolt – her main parachute had finally “wiggled loose” from its bag and inflated. With hindsight, she says, this is where she may have made a “huge mistake”: she did not cut away the main canopy, which would have disconnected it from the harness (although it is possible it would have remained attached to her leg anyway). With both canopies deployed, there was a secondary malfunction, something Hatmaker had not heard of before, known as a “down plane”. The parachutes pull away from one another in opposite directions, streamlining the airflow, accelerating the skydiver’s descent rather than slowing it.

Even as Hatmaker spiralled towards the ground, she says the thought she might die never crossed her mind. At most, she thought she might break a leg – jeopardising her plans to climb to Mount Everest Base Camp three days later, a trip that had been a goal of hers for a couple of years.

In seconds, she crash-landed “a few football fields from where I should have been”.

After the crash, Hatmaker lay alone on the ground. She remembers the blades of grass in her mouth as she prayed out loud and screamed for help. Her pelvis was burning and she thought it was broken. But a bigger reality began to dawn. “I tried to get up and couldn’t move anything below my waist. I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, am I paralysed?’”

It took just a few minutes for some of the other skydivers and the drop zone manager to reach her, although it felt like longer. They were frantic as they called the ambulance.

“I was in the middle of nowhere so it took a good 30 minutes for an ambulance to come. It felt like for ever. The paramedics cut off my rig and tried to put me on a backboard gurney, but it was the most excruciating pain you could ever feel in your entire life.” When an air ambulance helicopter arrived, she didn’t realise at first that it was for her. “I thought, ‘Huh, that’s a helicopter’ – then I thought, ‘Whoa, I guess that must be for me!’”

It took around 10 minutes to reach Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, where her brother and her boyfriend of four months were the first to meet her.

The next government must give Windermere greater protection from sewage pollution, campaigners including the naturalist Chris Packham and the comedian Paul Whitehouse have urged in an open letter to all party leaders.

The campaign group Save Windermere, which organised the letter, says the lake has huge ecological significance, is home to rare and protected species and brings in about £750m to the economy. But the signatories, who include the Wildlife Trust, the countryside charity the CPRE and WildFish, say it is being degraded by pollution.

As party leaders prepare to publish their manifestos this week, Matt Staniek, the founder of Save Windermere, said greater protection for the lake was urgently needed to make sure it was looked after for future generations forever. “This is not ideological, it’s non-contentious, and it is absolutely necessary to save Windermere whilst also setting an example for the treatment of our freshwater and our natural world on a national level,” he said in the letter.

The protections for the lake are contained in the EU-derived water framework directive, but Staniek said the system failed to address the ecological, cultural and economic stability of the lake and the surrounding area despite its national significance.

The letter says: “We urge you to commit with haste to granting greater environmental protection for England’s largest lake. The mechanism used to achieve this must have legal underpinning, whilst current legislation must also be enforced. Success will be defined as the long-term recovery of the lake, with it returning to, or as close as possible to, its natural oligotrophic state.”

Last month it emerged that millions of litres of raw sewage had been illegally pumped into Windermere in February, and that United Utilities had failed to stop the pollution of it for 10 hours. It did not report the incident to the Environment Agency until 13 hours after it started.

Suspected illegal sewage dumping into the lake also took place more than 70 times in 2022, according to analysis by the academic Prof Peter Hammond, and in June that year a serious pollution incident in a beck feeding the lake left hundreds of fish dead.

The letter says Windermere has been victim to decades of pollution and exploitation resulting from inadequate investment and substandard regulation, leaving the lake unadaptable to our changing climate.

“Over the last year alone, we have seen unprecedented rainfall which has increased sewage discharging into the lake,” it says. “This, combined with the threat of drought in the summer months, leaves our lake in a precarious position and at risk of extensive algal blooms which, at worse, can cause mass fish kills and leave its waters potentially toxic to the general public.”

A United Utilities spokesperson said that phosphorus levels in the lake had been steadily declining since the early 1990s, while the lake’s four bathing waters all consistently achieved the highest “Excellent” status. “Since 2020 United Utilities has halved the amount of phosphorus that is now entering the lake from our own processes. However, the factors affecting water quality in Windermere are complex and, without targeted action by multiple sectors, we will not see the changes we all want.”

The company said it did not recognise the Hammond figures. Regarding the February pollution, it said: “This incident was caused by an unexpected fault on the third party telecoms cable network in the area, which United Utilities was not notified about and which affected both the primary system and United Utilities’ backup. As soon as we discovered this fault was affecting the Glebe Road pumping station, our engineers took urgent steps to resolve the situation and we informed the Environment Agency within an hour of the pollution being confirmed.”

South Korea’s military has said it fired warning shots after North Korean soldiers briefly crossed the border this week, amid rising tensions after Pyongyang sent rubbish-carrying balloons into the South and Seoul retaliated with a loudspeaker propaganda campaign.

“Some North Korean soldiers working within the DMZ on the central front briefly crossed the Military Demarcation Line,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff [JCS] said in a statement on Tuesday, referring to the line of control in the heavily fortified border between the two Koreas.

“After our military issued warning broadcasts and warning shots, they retreated northward,” it said, adding the incident happened 9 June.

“Apart from the immediate retreat of the North Korean soldiers following our warning shots, there were no unusual movements observed”, the JCS said, adding the military was closely monitoring troops near the border.

South Korea’s military has assessed that the North Korean soldiers didn’t appear to have intentionally crossed the border because the site is a wooded area and MDL signs there weren’t clearly visible, JCS spokesperson Lee Sung Joon told reporters.

The mine-strewn DMZ is the world’s most heavily armed border, with hundreds of thousands of troops facing each other – a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean war, which ended with an armistice but not a peace treaty.

Tensions between the two Koreas – which remain technically at war – are at one of their highest points in years.

In recent weeks, North Korea has sent hundreds of balloons laden with cigarette butts, manure and toilet paper south of the border in what it calls retaliation for balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang propaganda sent by activists in the South.

The South Korean government this month fully suspended a 2018 military deal and restarted loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts along the border in response to the balloons, infuriating the North, which warned Seoul was creating “a new crisis”.

South Korea’s military said on Monday it had detected signs the North was installing its own loudspeakers.

North Korea had used loudspeakers along the border since the 1960s, typically broadcasting praise of the Kim family, but suspended their use in 2018 as ties improved.

Experts have warned that the decision to jettison the 2018 deal and restart loudspeaker broadcasts could have serious implications.

Previous propaganda tit-for-tat actions have had real-world consequences for inter-Korean relations.

In 2020, Pyongyang, blaming anti-North leaflets, unilaterally cut off all official military and political communication links with the South and blew up an inter-Korean liaison office on its side of the border.

With Agence France-Presse and Associated Press

Five of the world’s biggest banks are “greenwashing” their role in the destruction of the Amazon, according to a report that indicates that their environmental and social guidelines fail to cover more than 70% of the rainforest.

The institutions are alleged to have provided billions of dollars of finance to oil and gas companies involved in projects that are impacting the Amazon, destabilising the climate or impinging on the land and livelihoods of Indigenous peoples.

The banks say they follow ethical policies that help to protect intact forests, biodiversity hotspots, indigenous territories and nature reserves. However, the investigation says it has found geographical and technical limitations on their ability to monitor and achieve these stated goals.

The report was produced by the watchdog organisation Stand.earth and the Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA). The organisations mapped the extent of the environmental and social governance (ESG) commitments of five leading funders of fossil fuel operators in the South American biome. Those banks – Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, Itaú Unibanco, Santander and Bank of America – together account for more than half of the loans to companies in this sector.

The analysis found that on average, 71% of the Amazon is not effectively protected by the five banks’ risk management policies for climate change, biodiversity, forest cover, and Indigenous peoples’ and local communities’ rights.

The gaps ranged significantly from company to company. At one end of the spectrum is JPMorgan Chase, whose biodiversity protections, the report’s authors say, apply only to Unesco world heritage sites that cover just 2% of the Amazon and are, in any case, unlikely to be considered for oil and gas exploration.

On the positive side, the study commended the British bank HSBC, which was once a major funder of destructive projects in the region but has not provided any financing since it adopted a 100% Amazon exclusion policy in December 2022.

“So far, HSBC has been true to their word,” said Angeline Robertson, the lead author of the report. “This shows it can be done and has been done, even by a company that used to have a big stake”

Some banks argue they play a positive role by encouraging extractive industries to adopt more responsible policies. However, according to the authors of the report, while bank loan arrangements involve long-term relationships and potential influence, the majority of financing by the big five comes in the form of syndicated general corporate purpose bonds. These bonds, which are standard practice, are for broadly defined purposes and require little or no follow-up once an agreement is signed. This potentially makes it difficult to apply due diligence guidelines on specific environmental or social concerns.

The Spanish bank Santander – Europe’s largest financier of oil and gas in the Amazon and fourth largest worldwide with almost $1.4bn (£1.1bn) in direct financing between 2009 and 2023 – has one of the most extensive exclusion policies for oil and gas, covering 16% of the Amazon, but the report indicates that 85% of its transactions are in the form of syndicated bonds, which lack transparency and reduce the bank’s liability as a contributor to adverse impacts.

The authors examined 560 transactions involving oil and gas activities by 280 banks over the past 20 years in the Amazon using Stand’s Amazon Banks Database, to determine whether deal structures that bypass ESG exclusions and screens are common.

They found two North American banks, Citibank and JPMorgan Chase, have made the most capital available – $2.43bn and $2.42bn respectively – to companies that operate oil and gas projects in the Amazon. JPMorgan Chase recently withdrew from the Equator Principles Association, which serves as a common baseline for institutions to manage environmental and social risks when financing projects.

The third biggest financier over the past two decades is Itaú Unibanco of Brazil, which, the report claims, does not have any exclusions or screens that apply to oil and gas operations in the region. The database shows it has financed projects by Eneva, Frontera, Geopark, Petrobras, Petroquimica Comodoro Rivadavia and Transportadora de Gas del Perú.

Fifth on the list was Bank of America. Last year, it was the number one financier of oil and gas in the Amazon and extended 99% of transactions in the form of syndicated bonds, the report says, which means these deals would not necessarily have been subjected to enhanced ESG screening.

The report urges banks to adopt a geographic exclusion covering all transactions involving the oil and gas sector in the Amazon. The authors say this is essential because the rainforest is the world’s most important terrestrial carbon sink and home of biodiversity, yet it is degrading towards a point of no return.

“We are literally living in a rainforest on fire, our rivers are either polluted or drying up,” said Fany Kuiru, the general coordinator of COICA. “Our fate is your fate: the Amazon is critical for the future of our planet. The banks try to wash their hands of the blame through vague policies but must be held accountable for the damage their money is causing to Amazonian Indigenous peoples and the biodiversity of the rainforest. Not a single drop of Amazon oil has been extracted with the consent of Indigenous peoples. We demand Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, Itaú Unibanco, Santander and Bank of America to end oil and gas financing.”

Since Stand.earth launched its Exit Amazon Oil and Gas campaign, it says several banks including BNP Paribas, Natixis, ING, and Credit Suisse have promised to end their financing of trade in oil from ports in Ecuador and Peru, which covers much of the fossil fuel trade from the Amazon. HSBC and Barclays have also applied comprehensive geographic exclusion policies.

The authors say they want to work with the remaining funders of Amazon oil and gas to tighten their ESG policies and exclude petroleum projects in the rainforest from their portfolios.

Robertson said the five banks have policies that “seem very token; they appear to be more about risk to reputation than risks of impacts on the ground”. But she stressed this could change. “There are lots of opportunities for banks to respond adequately and to embody environmental risk in their portfolios because that is what the future holds. With climate change and biodiversity loss looming over us, we need banks making better decision for the sake of their clients and their own business interests. This is a reckoning here and a call to responsibility.

“We have tried to give a sense of the adverse effects on the ground. This is an effort not just to reveal banks’ greenwashing but to put voices front and centre of those most affected in the Amazon.”

Some in the financial industry dispute the methodology of the report, saying it was not appropriate to add up multi-year financing, lines of credit, refinancing and indirect financing and then suggest this amount was funnelled to a particular group. They said general corporate purposes loans have long comprised the vast majority of the credit markets and that it would be necessary to ask specific companies whether or how this capital is used.

Several banks said they apply ESG guidelines to general corporate purpose bonds.

Citibank said it had a “comprehensive enterprise security risk management policy, which outlines our expectations for clients and leads us to do enhanced due diligence around activities with elevated risks related to human rights, biodiversity, Indigenous peoples, critical habitats, community conflict and/or environmental justice. We engage directly with clients to evaluate their commitment, capacity, policies, management systems and staffing to manage these specific environmental and social risks.” The company updated its agricultural risk policy in 2022.

JPMorgan Chase said: “We support fundamental principles of human rights, including Indigenous peoples’ rights, across all our lines of business and in each region of the world in which we operate. Our 2023 ESG report reflects our policies and practices regarding environmental and social risks as well as human rights, including restricted activities and sensitive business activities. Client and transaction screening against our restricted activities and sensitive business activities subject to enhanced review includes GCP (general corporate purposes) financing activities. It is not limited to project finance.”

Regarding JPMorgan Chase’s decision to leave the Equator Principles Association, a spokesperson added that EPA membership was “not necessary for us to independently uphold best-in-class environmental and social risk management standards”, and that the company would remain aligned to the organisation’s principles.

Bank of America referred the Guardian to its environmental and social risk policy framework, which notes “enhanced due diligence for transactions in which the majority use of proceeds is attributed to identified activities that may negatively impact an area used by or traditionally claimed by an indigenous community”.

A spokesperson for Santander said: “We understand fully the importance of protecting the Amazon and supporting sustainable development in the region. All financing decision are guided by a strict policy framework approved by our board of directors, and our activities align with all environmental regulations in the region. We are also actively involved in several industry initiatives to protect the region and work proactively with clients, as well as other banks, governments, regulators and other institutions to help improve practices, recognising this is a highly complex challenge that requires a multifaceted, multilateral response.”

Itaú Unibanco had not replied to the Guardian’s request for comment at the time of publication.

Isobel Chetwood moved to her dream home on her birthday just over a decade ago. As she wound up a 40-year career in the NHS as a GP practice manager in Stockport, Greater Manchester, she was keen to return to her roots in Cheshire. She settled in a comfortable house in the quiet village of Plumley.

Chetwood, 68, lives alone. When she moved in, she found a gardener (“I don’t do dirt down me fingernails,” she says, laughing). He made her a raised bed for growing strawberries, alongside a fence that divided her garden from her neighbour’s. “It was beautiful out there,” she says.

All was well until – a little over two years ago – alien shoots began rising like spears from the soil around her strawberry plants, having somehow found a way through the heavy railway sleepers and bricks used to build the bed.