Brazil Summit Produces Pledge to Protect Amazon But Fails to Adopt Vow to End Deforestation by 2030
HAVANA TIMES – In Brazil, eight South American leaders agreed to form an alliance to protect the Amazon as they met during a high-profile summit hosted in Belém by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela signed on to a declaration which includes pledges to end deforestation, crack down on criminal activity in the Amazon and lift up sustainable development. But the group stopped short of agreeing to a key Indigenous demand for all countries to join in Brazil’s pledge to end deforestation by 2030 and in Colombia’s pledge to halt any new oil exploration. On Tuesday, Indigenous groups took to the streets of Belém to voice their demands.
Protester: “Because if there is no consent, we are not going to authorize public policies in every government to carry out extractivist, mining or oil projects in forests, in nature. We, Indigenous peoples, say no to that. We, the Indigenous peoples, say yes to life, because the Amazon is where everything is.”