Indigenous leaders request action by South American leaders on the Amazon Summit

Bogota, Colombia (AP)-indigenous guides from all of the Amazon are asking for this week in Bogota, promising to transform into concrete measures.

The fifth presidential summit of the Amazon Cooperation contract organization, which officially begins on Tuesday in the Colombian capital, will bring leaders together with indigenous representatives and scientists. The agenda comprises public forums, cultural events and high -ranking meetings that culminate regional priorities for environmental protection and climate policy on Friday with a joint “explanation of Bogota”.

Indigenous groups from all eight Amazon nations made an explanation on Monday evening, in which the rainforest referred to a global lifeguard, which provides a fifth of the global fresh water and acts as one of the largest carbon sinks of the planet and absorbed large amounts of heat trapping carbon dioxide. They said that decades of deforestation, mining, bores for fossil fuels and large agriculture had pushed the region into a point without return.

Her demands include the legal protection of the indigenous countries, the recognition of their communities as the official decision-makers within the contracting authority and a ban on new oil, gas and mining projects in the rainforest. They also propose a working group for a “fair transition” – a shift to clean energy and path of coal, oil or natural gas – and an observatory to pursue threats to environmental defense lawyers.

The groups found that many obligations in the Belem declaration 2023 – a common promise of the Amazon to work with the protection of the rainforest – were still implemented and warned of another round of “empty promises”. They emphasized that violence against activists continued to increase in the Amazon and demanded regional protective measures.

The one-week program includes an “Amazon dialogue” that brings civil society, scientists and indigenous leaders. A panel over the “flying rivers” of the rainforest, which contribute to regulating the South America climate. And a “street to Cop30” was to shape the Amazon voice at the next UN climate conference in Brazil in November.

“There is no solution to the threats with which the Amazon is exposed to without its communities,” said Raphael Hoetmer, Senior Advisor at Amazon Watch, a non -profit organization based in the USA that takes part in the summit.

“There is a historical opportunity to create a mechanism for permanent and direct dialogue and participation in the indigenous peoples through the ATCO,” he said, referring to the Amazon organization for cooperation, a block of eight Amazon countries.

Managers from Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela are expected to participate, with the hope that it will be the first time that local representatives will hit the top of the state during the summit.

“There will be no future without indigenous peoples at the center of decision -making,” said the groups in the explanation.

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