Animal rights activists and environmentalists gathered together on New Year's day in more than a dozen cities around the world to speak out against newly-inaugurated Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his plans to, essentially, privatize parts of the Amazon rainforest.

In downtown Toronto, protesters blocked off the intersection of Bay and Bloor, near the Brazillian Consulate, to stage a "die-in" and perform a play called "If the Amazon rainforests dies, we all die!"

"Stop Bolsonaro!" they chanted. "End Animal Agriculture in the Amazon, Go Vegan!"

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Bolsonaro, who's been nicknamed "Trump of the Tropics" has drawn widespread international criticism in recent months for supporting such ideas as scrapping environmental protections for the Amazon, building massive highways running through the Amazon, turning control of its Indigenous lands over to the government and constructing nuclear power plants in the world's largest rainforest.

"If President Bolsonaro signed up for Veganuary and committed to going vegan, he would reverse his intentions to destroy the Amazon rainforest and instead preserve the precious rainforest and restore degraded areas," said Anita Krajnc of Climate Save, whose Toronto chapter co-hosted yesterday's protest at Bay and Bloor.

"The Amazon is a vital home to indigenous peoples and 10 million species. The Amazon is the lungs of the Earth. It acts as a carbon sink, absorbing carbon out of the atmosphere while supplying 20% of the global oxygen supply."

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So, to illustrate their message, protesters handed out cards asking members of the public to go vegan for the month of January.

"We also ask that President Bolsonaro and members of his government sign up for Veganuary," reads a press release from The Save Movement.

"Go vegan or we die."