Amazonian nations Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela have signed a declaration to protect the Amazon. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva attends the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization summit in Belem, Brazil on August 8, 2023.
Eight South American countries have agreed to form an alliance to protect the Amazon, pledging at a summit in Brazil to stop the world’s largest rainforest from reaching a “point of no return”.
South American leaders have also called on developed countries to do more to halt the massive destruction of the world’s largest rainforest, a task they say cannot be left to just a few countries when so many have caused the crisis.
A closely watched Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) summit on Tuesday adopted what host country Brazil called a “new and ambitious shared agenda” to save the rainforest, a vital buffer against climate change that experts warn is being pushed to the brink . collapse.
The group’s members Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela signed a joint declaration in Belem, at the mouth of the Amazon River, setting out a nearly 10,000-word plan to promote sustainable development and end deforestation. and fight the organized crime that feeds it.
But the summit stopped short of agreeing to key demands from environmentalists and indigenous groups, including that all member countries accept Brazil’s commitment to end illegal deforestation by 2030 and Colombia’s commitment to halt new oil exploration. Instead, countries will be left to pursue their individual deforestation targets.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has staked his international reputation on improving Brazil’s environmental standing, has pushed for the region to unite behind a common policy of ending deforestation by 2030.
“The challenges of our time and the opportunities that arise from them demand that we act as one,” he said.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro has called for a radical rethink of the global economy, calling for a “Marshall Plan”-style strategy in which developing countries’ debt would be canceled in exchange for climate protection measures.
“If we’re on the brink of extinction and this is the decade where the big decisions have to be made … then what do we do except give speeches?” he said.
The failure of the eight Amazon countries to agree on a binding pact to protect their forests has been greeted with disappointment by some.
“The planet is melting, we are breaking temperature records every day. There is no way that in such a scenario the eight Amazonian countries would not be able to say – in capital letters – that deforestation must be zero,” said Marcio Astrini of the environmental lobby group Climate Observatory.
Brazil’s Amazon deforestation plummets in first half of 2023
In addition to deforestation, the “Belem Declaration”, the official assembly statement issued on Tuesday, also did not set a deadline for ending illegal gold mining, although the leaders agreed to cooperate on the issue and better fight cross-border environmental crime.
The Belem summit, said Lula da Silva hoped for a strong commitment from his colleagues at the summit to end deforestation in the Amazon.
“However, there seemed to be a greater sense of urgency among the eight leaders of the Amazonian nations. Deforestation of the world’s largest rainforest has already reached 17 percent, and scientists say the tipping point is almost here,” Newman said.
The vast Amazon is home to an estimated 10 percent of Earth’s biodiversity, 50 million people and hundreds of billions of trees, and is a vital carbon store that mitigates global warming.
Scientists warn that the destruction of the rainforest is pushing it dangerously close to a “tipping point” beyond which trees would die and release carbon instead of absorbing it, with disastrous consequences for the climate.
Seeking to pressure the assembled heads of state, hundreds of environmentalists, activists and indigenous protesters marched to the conference venue and called for bold action.
It is the first summit in 14 years for the eight-member group, which was founded in 1995 by the South American countries that share the Amazon basin. The summit is also seen as a warm-up for the UN climate talks in 2025, which Belem will host.
