The idea is for the Amazon countries to commit to eliminating deforestation by 2030 at the Amazon Summit next week in Belém
08/03/2023
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Luciana Gatti — Foto: Divulgação
A group of 52 environmental, indigenous, scientific, youth, and social movement organizations advocates the immediate adoption of measures to prevent the Amazon from reaching the point of no return — when the forest can no longer regenerate due to deforestation and fires and becomes a weakened biome. The idea is for Amazonian countries to commit to eliminating deforestation by 2030 at the Amazon Summit next week in Belém.
If the Amazon reaches the point of no return, climate change with regional and global impacts will become all the more severe.
The document, submitted to the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) and Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Itamaraty), is, in fact, a proposal for a protocol to prevent the point of no return. It is the opening of a new multilateral negotiating process between the Amazon countries that would prevent the point of no return of the forest.
The proposal to establish a protocol was included in the suggestion text of the group to the Amazon Cooperation Treaty and the summit of heads of state that will take place next week in Belém.
The document indicates that 15% of the Pan-Amazon has already been deforested, including almost 20% of the Brazilian Amazon. In recent years, deforestation rates have exceeded 10,000 km2 per year in Brazil.
“In our research, we studied the emission of greenhouse gases from four regions of the Amazon and looked for why one emits much more than another,” said scientist Luciana Gatti of the National Institute of Space Research (INPE).
In a new study, which will be published soon, a group of researchers indicates that in the northeast of the Amazon, 40% of an area of 700,000 km2 has already been deforested. In the southeast of the forest, a region of two million km2, 30% has already been deforested. “In towns located between Santarém and Belterra, 70% has already been deforested, and the Forest Code sets a limit of 20%. Soybeans surround the Tapajós National Forest. That has to stop,” she said.
“The Amazon is our protection against climate change. Our barrier,” she said. During the years of the Bolsonaro administration, the Brazilian Amazon lost 45,000 km2.
“Deforestation occurs in two ways in the Amazon: the direct way, by cutting down trees, and the indirect way. With less forest, we lose rain, which kills the big trees,” she explained.
The eastern part of the Amazon is already 30% deforested and, on average, emits eight times more greenhouse gases than the western part, said Ms. Gatti. “The Amazon is our rain factory, our protection against climate change. It’s turning into soy, corn, beef, and timber,” she added.
Between 2019 and 2020, the first years of the Bolsonaro administration, carbon emissions from the forest increased by 120%, according to Ms. Gatti’s study. “We are deforesting like a bunch of leaf-cutter ants. The climate collapse is already here and will worsen,” she said.
“In 2020, the rainy season dropped by 23%,” she added. “It’s not a question of looking at the Amazon as a sanctuary. It is our precondition for life,” the scientist emphasized.
According to her, soybean plantations in the Amazon have increased by 70% in recent years, despite the soy moratorium. The area planted with corn has increased by 60%. Cattle herds have increased in the Amazon and decreased in the rest of Brazil. “The destruction of the Amazon is an agrosuicide,” she described.
“And the worst El Niño ever is upon us. Much worse than in 2015 and 2016. We are moving faster and faster toward collapse. The goals from back then are no longer useful to stop deforestation. We have to compensate for the chaos of the Bolsonaro administration and recover the lost forest,” she explained.
Although the Amazon Summit declaration document remains under negotiation, the Brazilian government has defended the commitment to zero deforestation by 2030 and expressed concern about avoiding the point of no return of the forest.
The Amazon Dialogues and the 405 summit events of civil society, academia, businesses, and social movement groups will take place on August 4-6. “So far, however, we don’t know how civil society participation in the summit will take place,” said Mr. João Paulo Amaral, environment and climate manager at Alana, an organization concerned with the rights of children and adolescents.
“Several parts of the Amazon are collapsing and not regenerating as a biome. Deforestation must be eliminated by 2030,” he said. “We are bringing the most vulnerable populations to the center of the issue. They are indigenous peoples, quilombolas, children, women, and the elderly,” he noted.
The NGOs document also proposes policies to monitor and oversee cross-border crimes, inclusion policies, the bioeconomy and the promotion of standing forests, and mitigate fires and air pollution throughout the Amazon.
It also states that it is necessary to recognize the knowledge of traditional and indigenous communities, recognize their territories, strengthen their rights, expand protected areas, and have effective measures to combat environmental crimes, such as illegal mining and mercury contamination.
*Por Daniela Chiaretti — São Paulo
Source: Valor International