Members of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) have called on rich countries to help them develop a Marshall-style plan to protect the Amazon forest, the world’s largest rainforest.
This came as the two-day Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization summit, held in the northern Brazilian city of Belem, to address pressing challenges facing the rainforest, came to an end.
It was the first summit in 14 years for the eight-nation group, set up in 1995 by the South American countries that share the Amazon basin. The group’s members are Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela.
Marshall-style plan is strategy in which developing countries’ debt is cancelled in exchange for action to protect the climate.
In a joint declaration at the end of the summit on Wednesday, August 9, 2023, the leaders stated that ensuring the Amazon forest’s survival could not be solely up to them, as resources from the forest were consumed globally.
As such, they urged for debt relief in exchange for climate action, agreed to strengthen regional law enforcement cooperation to crack down on human rights violations, illegal mining and pollution, and urged industrialised countries to comply with obligations to provide financial support to developing countries.
However, the ACTO members were unable to commit to zero deforestation across the biome by 2030 amid divisions over oil extraction.
The leaders failed to take a united position on the role of extractive industries in the region such as beef, oil and mining, which are the primary drivers of its destruction.
President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, called for an end to the search for fossil fuels in the Amazon, which are the primary driver of global heating, but Brazil, Venezuela and other oil producers did not agree.
During a discussion on ways to help reforest pasture and plantations that have been previously cleared, Petro averred, “A jungle that extracts oil – is it possible to maintain a political line at that level? Bet on death and destroying life?”
Nonetheless, the leaders indicated that they would work together to ensure the forest’s survival through sustainable economic development, appealing for extra resources from industrialised countries to do so before COP28, the United Nations climate summit.
Brazilian President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told delegates at the closing of the ACTO summit, “The forest unites us. It is time to look at the heart of our continent and consolidate, once and for all, our Amazon identity.”
“The Amazon is our passport to a new relationship with the world, a more symmetric relationship, in which our resources are not exploited to benefit few, but rather valued and put in the service of everyone.”
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
“There Isn’t Much Concrete In There”
According to Marcio Astrini, the Executive Secretary of the Climate Observatory group, the declaration was not strong enough.
Astrini opined, “It’s a first step. It was important for [these leaders] to come together but there isn’t much concrete in there.”
“It’s a list of very generic promises. It was lacking something more forceful,” he added.
“We’re living in a world which is melting. We are breaking temperature records all the time. How can it be that in a 22-page declaration the Presidents of eight Amazon countries can’t clearly state that deforestation needs to stop?”
Marcio Astrini
The Amozon forest, home to an estimated 10 percent of Earth’s biodiversity, 50 million people and hundreds of billions of trees, is a vital carbon sink, reducing global warming.
Scientists warn that the destruction of the rainforest is pushing it dangerously close to a “tipping point” beyond which trees would die off and release carbon rather than absorb it, with catastrophic consequences for the climate.
