The President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, called on Tuesday for the urgent resumption of cooperation in the Amazon, at the opening of the IV Summit of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO), in the city of Belém.
“It has never been so urgent to resume and expand this cooperation. The challenges of our era and the opportunities that present themselves demand joint action. That is why I announced the holding of this summit even before assuming the presidency, when I was at COP27, in Egypt. Today we meet for three main purposes”, said the Brazilian President, at the opening of the presidential meeting.
Lula da Silva, host of the event, said that the summit will work with “three main proposals.”
The first will be to promote “a new vision of sustainable development in the region”, which combines the protection of nature with “decent work” and the “defense of the rights” of the population that lives in the biome, close to 50 million of people.
The Brazilian head of state also highlighted the importance of “fighting organized crime”, which has spread its tentacles in recent years, transforming the jungle into a strategic route for drug trafficking.
Secondly, Lula da Silva affirmed that measures will be proposed to “strengthen” ACTO, created in 1995, “the only block in the world with a socio-environmental vision.”
In this way, the Brazilian president defended that it will be possible to guarantee that “the vision of sustainable development will have a long life.”
Finally, the Brazilian official indicated that the third objective is to ensure that the countries that have part of the Amazon rainforest in their territories can establish a joint position for the next United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP28), to be held in November. in the United Arab Emirates.
The head of state stressed that there are many Amazons “represented” at the meeting: “The Amazon of the forests, of the workers, of the indigenous peoples” and their “ancestral knowledge.”
“The fact that we are all here together – governments, civil society and academia, states and municipalities, parliamentarians and leaders – reflects our firm intention to work for these three great objectives,” he added.
The debates at the Amazon Summit will be promoted this Tuesday by representatives of the eight countries of the bloc and on Wednesday the talks will be extended to the invited countries, including Indonesia, the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, owners of large tracts of tropical forest .
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines will also be present at this expanded summit since it currently holds the ‘pro tempore’ presidency of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), as well as France, French Guiana, Germany and Norway, contributors to the Amazon Fund. , which promotes sustainable projects in the region.
The Amazon Summit is the fourth meeting of ACTO leaders, created in 1995 and made up of the eight Amazon countries (Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela), and the first since 2009.
Source: TSF
