Lula to host South American summit on saving the Amazon

Subject :Environment

Section: International convention

Context:

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will host a regional summit with planetary stakes, as leaders of the countries that share the Amazon seek a roadmap to save the world’s biggest rainforest.

Details:

The meeting of the eight-nation Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization will be held in Belem, capital of the Amazon state of Para.
- It is the 28-year-old organization’s first summit since 2009.
The CoP30 of UNFCCC will also be held in Para, Brazil in 2025.
Norway and Germany, key contributors to Brazil’s Amazon Fund to protect the rainforest, are also invited, along with France, which has a share of the Amazon via the territory of French Guiana.
Brazil also invited tropical rainforest nations Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO):

Established: 25 February 1995
Headquarters:Brasília, Brazil
The Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) is an international organization aimed at the promotion of sustainable development of the Amazon Basin.
The Amazon Cooperation Treaty (ACT) was signed on 3 July 1978 and amended in 1998.
ACTO was created in 1995 to strengthen the implementation of the Treaty. The Permanent Secretariat was later established in Brasilia in 2002.
Group members — Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela.

Deforestation in Amazon rainforests:

With its hundreds of billions of carbon-absorbing trees, the Amazon is a key buffer against global warming.
The carbon emissions from the Amazon increased by 117 percent in 2020 compared to the annual average for 2010 to 2018.
Deforestation is pushing it dangerously close to a “tipping point,” beyond which trees would die off and release their carbon stores back into the atmosphere, with catastrophic consequences for the climate.
Brazil, which holds around 60 percent of the Amazon, has pledged to eradicate illegal deforestation by 2030.
Deforestation has already wiped out around one-fifth of the rainforest.

About Amazon Rainforest:

Comprising about 40% of Brazil’s total area, it is bounded by the Guiana Highlands to the north, the Andes Mountains to the west, the Brazilian central plateau to the south, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east.
These are large tropical rainforest occupying the drainage basin of the Amazon River and its tributaries in northern South America and covering an area of 6,000,000 square km.
Tropical forests are closed-canopy forests growing within 28 degrees north or south of the equator.
They are very wet places, receiving more than 200 cm rainfall per year, either seasonally or throughout the year.
Temperatures are uniformly high – between 20°C and 35°C.
Countries sharing Amazon rainforests are:
- The majority of the forest, 60%, is in Brazil, followed by Peru with 13%, Colombia with 10%, and with minor amounts in Bolivia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname, and Venezuela.