Amazon Nations Sign Rainforest Protection Agreement, but Don’t Agree on Deforestation Deadline

Representatives from the eight countries that share the Amazon river basin have signed the Belém Declaration, an agreement to work together to conserve the planet’s largest rainforest that includes a list of shared environmental measures and policies. However, the accord fell short of a consensus on ending deforestation.

The countries — Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela — were not able to agree on how to manage industries that are destroying and sapping the resources of the vital rainforest, like oil, mining and beef, reported The Guardian.

“The Amazon is our passport to a new relationship with the world, a more symmetrical relationship in which our resources will not be exploited for the benefit of a few, but valued and placed at the service of all,” said Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at the meeting, as The New York Times reported.

The Amazon rainforest extracts and sequesters an enormous amount of the human-produced carbon dioxide that is driving the climate crisis. But this oasis of biodiversity has been disappearing at an alarming rate, with around 17 percent having been decimated in the past 50 years.

Lula has been attempting to get the other countries in the region to join Brazil in stopping deforestation by 2030, reported Reuters.

While the Belém Declaration did help to foster a united front in fighting the destruction of the rainforest, it was left to individual Amazon nations to put together their own deforestation objectives.

As heat waves, flooding and water shortages ravage the planet, and land and sea temperature records continue to be broken, many scientists are frustrated with the pace of policymakers in acting on climate change.

“The planet is melting, we are breaking temperature records every day. It is not possible that, in a scenario like this, eight Amazonian countries are unable to put in a statement — in large letters — that deforestation needs to be zero,” said Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of Brazilian environmental lobby group Climate Observatory, as Reuters reported.

The final draft of the declaration maintained the protections and rights of Indigenous Peoples, as well as stated that the Amazon countries would work together on sustainable development, water management, health and shared negotiating stances at climate summits.

The declaration recognized the importance of Indigenous knowledge in the preservation of biodiversity and called upon the participation of Indigenous Peoples in decision-making and the formulation of public policy, reported Down To Earth.

“Indigenous People are under constant threats and land rights will not only give them better protection, it will also prevent deforestation and protect the rich biodiversity within these territories,” said Anders Haug Larsen, director of international advocacy for the Rainforest Foundation Norway, as Down To Earth reported.

The only Amazon countries that failed to sign a 2021 agreement made between more than 100 nations to work to stop deforestation by 2030 are Venezuela and Bolivia, reported Reuters.

Brazil has been considering the development of offshore oil near the northern coast, an area dominated by rainforest.

“A jungle that extracts oil — is it possible to maintain a political line at that level? Bet on death and destroying life?” said Colombian President Gustavo Petro at the meeting, in reference to reforesting cleared plantations and pasture, as The Guardian reported.

The Belém Declaration succeeded in establishing a science body that will meet each year and give reports on Amazon rainforest-related science, similar to the United Nations’ International Panel on Climate Change.