Bogota, Colombia (AP) – Presidents from South America Amazon nations gathered on Friday Together with the indigenous leaders, they will agree on a common plan to protect the world’s largest rainforest – a huge region considered to be essential for slowing global warming.
Gathering in the Colombian capital Bogota, presidents Colombia, Brazil and Bolivia joined the vice president Ecuador and other highest officials from the Amazon nations.
“There is no individual departure from the climate crisis,” Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said during his statement. “We need a new global administration with the power to get the country to keep their promises.”
They have signed up on the “Bogota Declaration”, a political plan to be formally accepted by Amazon nations, and sets a common vision for deeper cooperation throughout the region, which spills over 2.5 million square miles (6.7 million square kilometers).
Ecuador vice president María José Pinto urged the leaders to exceed the “good intentions” to “specific behavior” to protect the Amazon and call it the responsibility of the region and its legacy to the world. She said that the work must be led from the territory, listening to communities and respecting the ancestors’ knowledge, and stressed that the rainforest should be a central point for the global agenda because “what happens here determines everyone.”
On the eve of the Summit, Foreign Ministers approved the eight members of the Amazon Cooperation Organization-Malá, ten-year intergovernmental bodies connecting all countries of the Amazon pelvis-by 20 resolutions. They are coated from the new regional mechanism of indigenous people to the initiatives of food safety, climate risk and institutional strengthening.
Scientists say Amazon acts as a massive carbon absorbing more carbon dioxide than releases and plays a key role in the regulation of rainfall patterns far beyond South America. Its loss could accelerate global warming and disrupt agriculture to the US Midwest and parts of Europe, while threatening the survival of thousands of species that are nowhere else on Earth.
On Thursday, the highest officials also met to review progress in the area of commitments made in BELEM Declaration, an agreement on 2023 signed in Brazil, which promised to coordinate the protection of Amazon, including policies of deforestation, climate change and indigenous rights.
Each country of ACTO will be appointed two government delegates and two indigenous delegates that meet every year and can convene extraordinary sessions. The decision must be made unanimously.
Oswaldo Muca, who represents the Colombian indigenous Amazon community, said The Associated Press on the outskirts of Friday’s event that his community is “determined to protect our territory and the Amazon, protect him and take care of him”. He said they were against oil mining and survey because “destroys our territory, destroys humanity and destroys life.”
Muca welcomed the approval of direct financing the ministers for indigenous people and called it “the only way to avoid reaching a point without a return” and notes that “we are now part of this mechanism of the treaty”.
Asked if they believe that the heads of state will follow, Muca said “they spoke a lot about the rescue of Amazon”, but insisted that “our words must be more than political manifestations … Must be real, specific actions.”
The Secretary General of ACTO Martin von Hildebrand said that political will and the unity between Member States are essential for the protection of forests, rivers and biodiversity of the river basin, which deposit a huge amount of carbon and help regulate the climate of the planet.
Peruvian native leader Julio Cusurichi, who participated in the event, said, “We ask countries to take immediate action because deforestation and pollution are proceeding and the impact of climate change are serious.”
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(Tagstotranslate) Amazon rainforest
