Amazon nations end summit without shared deforestation goal

Eight Amazon basin nations announced an agreement Wednesday on preservation of the rainforest to “avoid the point of no return” but fell short of a shared goal on deforestation.

The declaration comes at the conclusion of a two-day summit this week of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) member states Brazil, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela.

The Belem Declaration, named for the Brazilian city where the summit took place, instead includes provisions allowing each of the eight nations to develop personalized targets. It would also create a scientific body along the lines of the United Nations’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to produce annual scientific reports on the state of the forest. 

“ACTO is the only intergovernmental coordination body of the eight Amazonian countries for the joint development of projects and actions that produce equitable and beneficial results for the Amazonian countries, due to its institutionality, its extensive knowledge of the region and the relevant experience of its Permanent Secretariat in coordinating dialogue and implementing development cooperation initiatives,” according to the document. 

Other provisions include acknowledgment of Indigenous sovereignty and further law enforcement cooperation to address the organized crime groups operating in the Amazon.

The agreement also does not include a deal on ending all oil and gas development in the Amazon, an action sought by Indigenous groups and Colombian President Gustavo Petro.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who took office earlier this year, has reversed many of the pro-industry Amazon policies of his hard-right predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro. But Lula has hedged on oil development in the forest, particularly since the discovery of oil off the country’s northern coast. About 60 percent of the rainforest is in Brazil.

The declaration comes after preliminary data from the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research indicated deforestation in Brazil has fallen to a six-year low.