Encounter on the way to the top of the Amazon begins in Colombia

Leticia, capital of the Colombian Amazonas department, will be the venue for this event that will bring together environment ministers from the host country, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela.

According to the announcement, the Colombian President, Gustavo Petro, and the Brazilian President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, will attend the meeting, which also seeks to generate inputs, establish strategic conservation actions, create joint works and languages ​​that will go to the Amazon Summit in August in Belém de Barra (Brazil). ).

Colombia’s Minister of the Environment, Susana Muhammad, explained that participants will discuss how extractive frontiers can stop both the illegal mining and hydrocarbons that governments have promoted in the Amazon.

“Also in relation to G8-wide biome management, how civil society, indigenous authorities and knowledge are involved in building a comprehensive plan,” he stressed.

Likewise, he added to a local station, they will analyze the development of a bioeconomy so that the communities of the region improve their quality of life, but at the same time regenerate the forest.

The event will seek to strengthen the Treaty of Cooperation between States 40 years after its creation and will raise the issue of sustainable financing that allows the forest to become a climate pillar of humanity.

From Leticia, the Minister warned yesterday that if the Amazon exceeds 20 percent deforestation, it will reach a point of no return, which means it will not have the capacity to regenerate.

“Of those 20 percent, the Amazon rainforest has now reached 17 percent,” the minister stressed.

He warned that the consequences of the destruction or disappearance of the Amazon are incalculable in accelerating the climate crisis across the planet.

The Leticia Amazon Summit will bring together the voices and insights of Amazonian ministers, the civil sector, indigenous authorities, the private sector, scientists and researchers.

jha/otf