The South American countries of the Amazon have decided to consolidate their efforts against deforestation in the region by forming, on Tuesday August 8, a new alliance, during a summit in Belem, Brazil, described by Brazilian President Lula as ” turning point” in the fight against global warming.
The creation of an entity called “Amazonian Alliance to Combat Deforestation” is stipulated in a joint declaration signed by Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela. These are the eight member countries of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (OTCA), created in 1995 with the aim of preserving this vast region which is home to around 10% of the world’s biodiversity.
The alliance “aims to promote regional cooperation in the fight against deforestation, to prevent the Amazon from reaching the point of no return”. If this point of no return were reached, the Amazon would emit more carbon than it absorbed, which would aggravate global warming.
The summit opened on the day that the European service Copernicus confirmed that July was the hottest month ever recorded on earth.
“It has never been more urgent to resume and expand our cooperation,” Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said in his opening speech, referring to a “new Amazonian dream.”
Do more than talk
His Colombian counterpart Gustavo Petro for his part called for the speeches to be translated into concrete actions as soon as possible. “If we are on the brink of extinction, if this is the decade to make decisions, what are we doing but talking? “, he launched.
Lula and Gustavo Petro are accompanied to Belem by their counterparts from Bolivia, Colombia and Peru. Ecuador, Guyana and Suriname are represented by ministers, and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, suffering from an ear infection, was replaced at short notice by his vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez.
The summit in Belem serves as a dress rehearsal for this port city of 1.3 million inhabitants in northern Brazil, which will host the UN Climate Conference COP30 in 2025. Other non-OCTA countries have been invited to the summit, including France, which has Amazon territory with Guyana and will be represented on Wednesday by its ambassador in Brasília, Brigitte Collet.
“It is urgent to put an end to deforestation,” French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday on X (formerly Twitter), calling “to protect vital reserves, carbon and biodiversity, in the interest of forest countries, of their peoples and of the whole world”.
Demonstrations for an “oil-free Amazon”
Returning to power in January, Lula pledged to end deforestation by 2030, which had risen sharply under his far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro. Deforested land is often turned into pasture for livestock, but destruction is also caused by gold miners and timber traffickers.
But Colombian President Gustavo Petro claimed that “zero deforestation” would be “not enough”. “Science has shown us that even if we cover the whole world with trees, it will not be enough to absorb CO2 emissions (…). We must abandon fossil fuels,” he insisted. According to him, this responsibility is above all “of the countries of the north”, while “we [the Amazon countries] must protect the sponge”, as he describes the rainforest.
But this energy transition is a more sensitive subject for major hydrocarbon producers in the Amazon region, such as Venezuela or Brazil. This issue was also discussed last weekend, during a meeting of civil society representatives in Belem entitled “Amazonian Dialogues”, with demonstrations calling for an “oil-free Amazon”.
These slogans reappeared on Tuesday, during a procession that gathered around 1,500 people in the streets of Belem, including indigenous activists, who held up banners with messages like “We have been here forever”.
On Wednesday, the summit will continue with the participation of non-OTCA member countries invited to Belem, such as France, but also Germany and Norway, main donors of the Amazon Fund. Indonesia, the Republic of Congo and Congo-Brazzaville, which are home to vast rainforests in other continents, have also been invited.