The archive · PR & Stunts · Marketing decision · 2021–2022
APIB requests asylum for an Amazon tree and plants the plea at 100+ embassies
APIB invoked the 1951 Refugee Convention's 'living being' wording to request asylum for an endangered Jatobá tree at 100+ embassies in Brazil.
APIB
What it had to solve
The Amazon is losing the war against illegal deforestation, and APIB, the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, needed the destruction treated as urgent by Brazil and by the foreign governments with embassies in the country. A conventional protest risked being one more environmental plea; the idea had to make diplomats formally respond.
How it works
The Amazon rainforest is losing the war against illegal deforestation, and APIB, the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, wanted the destruction of its trees treated as persecution rather than background noise.
In September 2021 the organization used a loophole in the 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention, which defines a refugee as any living being that is persecuted and whose life is at risk in its home country, and filed an asylum request for an endangered Jatobá tree. Agency Africa São Paulo sent the official request to more than 100 foreign embassies in Brazil and printed it across OOH advertisements next to the embassies, while a six-metre Jatobá was presented at the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Brasília.
The Norwegian embassy accepted the request and kept the tree on its grounds, which APIB described as making the Jatobá the first tree in the world to receive refugee status. The campaign credited its pressure for the Brazilian government's promise to bring illegal deforestation to zero by 2028, and the work entered the D&AD Awards archive and won One Show recognition.
Why it lands
- The Refugee Convention's 'any living being' wording made the asylum request legally arguable rather than merely symbolic, so embassies could not dismiss it as a metaphor.
- Addressing ambassadors directly turned a domestic environmental story into a diplomatic question that foreign governments had to answer.
- OOH boards beside more than 100 embassies placed the demand where its audience walked daily, turning letters into a public trial.
- Presenting an actual Jatobá at an embassy gave journalists a concrete scene and the story a followable outcome.
What it did
The Royal Norwegian Embassy accepted the request and planted the Jatobá within its grounds — APIB called it the first tree in the world granted refugee status. The campaign said the pressure helped push Brazil's government to promise zero illegal deforestation by 2028, and the work was recognized in the D&AD Awards archive and by the One Show.
What you can take
Borrow the institution's own rule instead of shouting: a formal asylum claim under the Refugee Convention's 'living being' clause made a symbolic protest legally arguable, so diplomats had to answer.
Since then
The Norwegian embassy accepted the Jatobá's asylum request, which APIB presented as a world first for a non-human refugee, and Brazil's government answered the campaign's pressure with a pledge to end illegal deforestation by 2028. The idea — borrowing an institution's own legal definition so a protest cannot be ignored — entered the D&AD Awards archive and won One Show recognition, and has since been cited as a template for climate campaigns that use formal mechanisms rather than slogans.
Sources
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