The meeting of the eight-nation Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization on Tuesday and Wednesday in Belem, capital of the Amazon state of Para, will serve as something of a dress rehearsal for the COP30 UN climate talks, which the city will also host in 2025.
It is the 28-year-old organization's first summit since 2009, as Lula seeks to deliver on his pledge that "Brazil is back" in the fight against climate change after a period of surging destruction in the Amazon under his far-right predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro.
With its hundreds of billions of carbon-absorbing trees, the Amazon is a key buffer against global warming.
But scientists warn deforestation is pushing it dangerously close to a "tipping point," beyond which trees would die off and release their carbon stores back into the atmosphere, with catastrophic consequences for the climate.
Already, carbon emissions from the Amazon increased by 117 percent in 2020 compared to the annual average for 2010 to 2018, according to the latest figures from researchers at Brazil's national space agency, INPE.
Veteran leftist Lula, who returned to office in January, said he planned to work together with the group's other members -- Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela -- to develop the Amazon basin "without destroying" it.
Leaders are due to discuss strategies to fight deforestation and organized crime, and seek sustainable development for the region, home to 50 million people -- including hundreds of Indigenous groups seen as crucial to protecting the forest.
The summit will conclude with a joint declaration, expected to be "ambitious" and set out "an agenda to guide countries in the coming years," said Brazilian foreign ministry official Gisela Padovan.
- Crime in the jungle -
Brazil, which holds around 60 percent of the Amazon, has pledged to eradicate illegal deforestation by 2030, and is pushing other countries to follow suit.
Deforestation is driven mainly by cattle ranching, though it is fueled by a murky mix of corruption, land-grabbing and organized crime whose tentacles extend to the illegal traffic in drugs, arms, timber and gold.
In Brazil, the world's top exporter of beef and soy, the destruction has already wiped out around one-fifth of the rainforest.
But after a 75-percent jump in average annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon under Bolsonaro (2019-2022) versus the previous decade, there are signs of progress.
From January to July, deforestation fell by 42.5 percent from the same period last year.
Ahead of the summit, more than 50 environmental groups called on the region's governments to adopt a plan "to stop the Amazon from reaching a point of no return."
The petition, published by the Climate Observatory, calls on countries to join Brazil's pledge for zero illegal deforestation by 2030, strengthen Indigenous rights and adopt "effective measures to fight environmental crimes."
Lula said Thursday he was confident that "for the first time, jointly and cohesively," the region would "accept its responsibility" to fight rampant crime in the rainforest.
- The world's problem -
Lula insists responsibility for saving the Amazon extends worldwide.
"The world needs to help us preserve and develop the Amazon," he said Wednesday.
"Investing is cheap if it's a matter of saving the rainforest."
Paola Arias, a climate scientist at the University of Antioquia in Colombia, underlined that the cattle and crops produced in the Amazon are often exported abroad.
Deforestation "is not just the Amazon countries' fault," she said.
"It's leveraged by a world agro-industry that generates profits for the global north. Those connections to Europe, North America and Australia have to be part of the debate."
Six presidents are due to attend the summit, with Ecuador and Suriname represented by cabinet ministers.
Norway and Germany, key contributors to Brazil's Amazon Fund to protect the rainforest, are also invited, along with France, which has a share of the Amazon via the territory of French Guiana.
Brazil also invited tropical rainforest nations Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Brazil records 66% drop in Amazon deforestation in July
Brasilia (AFP) Aug 3, 2023 -
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell by more than 66 percent last month from July 2022, officials said Thursday, crediting President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's push to protect the world's biggest rainforest.
July typically marks the start of peak deforestation season, with the onset of drier weather in the Amazon -- making the drop all the more significant, as Brazil prepares to host a summit next week on the rainforest, a key buffer against climate change.
Environment Minister Marina Silva said the numbers showed the Lula government's deforestation crackdown was paying off, after years of surging destruction.
"Impunity for environmental crimes is no longer the rule. That means those responsible for those crimes now think twice before committing them," she told a news conference.
Satellite monitoring by the national space agency's DETER surveillance program detected 500 square kilometers (193 square miles) of forest cover destroyed in the Brazilian Amazon in July, officials said.
That was a five-year low, down sharply from 1,487 square kilometers in July 2022.
Since veteran leftist Lula took over from far-right agribusiness ally Jair Bolsonaro in January, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has fallen by 42.5 percent from the same period last year.
Lula campaigned on a pledge to reverse the dismantling of environmental agencies under Bolsonaro (2019-2022), who presided over an increase of more than 75 percent in average annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon versus the previous decade.
Lula is next week scheduled to host the first summit in 14 years of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization, a group of eight countries that share the world's biggest rainforest.
"The fall in deforestation in the Amazon in July is an important sign that resuming command and control operations is working," Mariana Napolitano, head of conservation at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Brazil office, said in a statement.
However, there was bleaker news from the Cerrado, a fragile, biodiverse tropical savanna south of the Amazon, where July deforestation increased by 26 percent year-on-year, to 612 square kilometers.
Experts warn the Lula government's crackdown on environmental crime in the Amazon may be partly pushing it to the Cerrado, where deforestation over the past 12 months set a new record of 6,359 square kilometers.
Related Links
Forestry News - Global and Local News, Science and Application
| Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters |
| Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters |
