2023-08-08 15:39:05
A two-day summit to save the Amazon forest has begun in Brazil. The meeting of representatives from eight Amazon countries was “pioneering,” said Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in online services on Tuesday before it opened in the city of Belém. It marks a “watershed moment in the history of Amazon conservation and ecological change.”
The conference in the city of Belém, at the mouth of the Amazon, is the first summit of the organization of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty (Octa) since 2009. The treaty was signed in 1978 by Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela been closed. Germany and Norway are also represented in Belém as the main supporters of the Amazon fund.
Lula attended Tuesday’s meeting along with his colleagues from Bolivia, Colombia and Peru, while ministers represented Ecuador, Guyana and Suriname. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was briefly replaced by his Vice President Delcy Rodríguez.
The Amazon is considered the “green lung” of the planet. Its rainforest absorbs gigantic amounts of carbon dioxide from the earth’s atmosphere and thus counteracts global warming caused by this greenhouse gas. However, scientists warn that the Amazon forest is nearing a tipping point, following which its trees would die and the stored carbon dioxide would be released back into the atmosphere. This would have catastrophic consequences for the earth’s climate.
Meeting with her colleagues ahead of the summit on Monday, Brazilian Environment Minister Marina Silva warned that the Amazon is “reaching a point of no return”. The states of the region are determined not to allow this. A fifth of the Brazilian rainforest has already been destroyed. Brazil, which contains around 60 percent of the Amazon forest, has pledged to eliminate illegal logging by 2030.
Lula wants other countries to follow suit following Brazil, under its far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, largely opted out of the global fight once morest climate change. Accordingly, the summit should adopt a joint declaration with an ambitious action plan to stop deforestation. The “Belém Declaration” was “negotiated by the eight countries in a record time of just over a month,” Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira said on Monday.
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