Lula spoke with his Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro, at the conclusion of the “Road to the Amazon Summit” meeting, which has been taking place since Thursday in the city of Letícia, the capital of the Colombian department of Amazonas, where he declared that the countries in the region have challenges that they must face together.
“We must join forces so that our voice is heard in international discussions at conferences on climate, biodiversity and desertification and in debates on sustainable development,” said Brazil’s president.
In this sense, Lula defended the institutional strengthening of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO).
ACTO “has not received the attention it deserves” and that is why the Amazon Summit, which will take place on August 8 and 9 in the Brazilian city of Belém do Pará, for which this meeting in Letícia is a preparatory meeting, “will be a time to adjust course” as it will be open “to local authorities and society,” Lula said.
“To translate this political impulse into practical terms, we want to institutionalize the Amazon Regional Observatory, which will systematize and monitor data from all countries to make public policies more effective” and better deal with phenomena such as droughts, floods, rains, fires and water pollution, he said.
Lula also suggested the creation of a committee of Amazonian experts “to generate knowledge and make science-based recommendations” so that it also “protects intellectual property, genetic heritage and traditional knowledge.”
“We can do a lot if we give ACTO clear guidelines and sufficient resources through a coalition of development banks and the mobilization of public and private resources,” defended Lula.
According to the Brazilian president, “taking care of the Amazon is a privilege and a responsibility” because it is “a biome that matters to all of humanity”, but it must be the eight countries in that basin – Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador , Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela – who must “decide how to give our people a dignified life and how to preserve our forests and our biodiversity”.
Lula stressed his government’s commitment to eliminating illegal logging by 2030 and urged Amazon countries to “make this commitment” at the summit.
“To talk about the Amazon is to speak of superlatives: it is the largest tropical forest in the world, it is home to 10% of all animal and plant species on the planet, it has 50 million inhabitants with 400 indigenous peoples who speak 300 languages, it has the largest water reserves on the planet, including a real subsurface ocean,” the Brazilian president explained.
Source: DN
