Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela sign declaration to safeguard the Amazon.
Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva attends the summit of the Amazon Cooperati
reaty Organization, in Belem, Brazil on August 8, 2023
Eight South American countries have agreed to launch an alliance to protect the Amazon, pledging at a summit in Brazil to stop the world’s biggest rainforest from reaching “a point of no return”.
Leaders from South American nations also challenged developed countries to do more to stop the enormous destruction of the world’s largest rainforest, a task they said cannot fall to just a few countries when the crisis has been caused by so many.
The closely-watched summit of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) adopted on Tuesday what host country Brazil called a “new and ambitious shared agenda” to save the rainforest, a crucial buffer against climate change that experts warn is being pushed to the brink of collapse.
But the summit attendees stopped short of agreeing to the key demands of environmentalists and Indigenous groups, including for all member countries to adopt Brazil’s pledge to end illegal deforestation by 2030 and Colombia’s pledge to halt new oil exploration. Instead, countries will be left to pursue their individual deforestation goals.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has staked his international reputation on improving Brazil’s environmental standing, had been pushing for the region to unite behind a common policy of ending deforestation by 2030.
The two-day summit opened on the same day the European Union’s climate observatory confirmed that July was the hottest month ever recorded on Earth. Lula emphasised the “severe worsening of the climate crisis” in his opening speech.
“The challenges of our era and the opportunities arising from them demand we act in unison,” he said.
“It has never been so urgent,” he added.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro urged a radical rethink of the global economy, calling for a “Marshall Plan”-style strategy in which developing countries’ debt is cancelled in exchange for action to protect the climate.
The failure of the eight Amazon countries to agree on a binding pact to protect their forests was greeted with disappointment by some.
“The planet is melting, we are breaking temperature records every day. It is not possible that, in a scenario like this, eight Amazonian countries are unable to put in a statement – in large letters – that deforestation needs to be zero,” said Marcio Astrini of the environmental lobby group Climate Observatory.
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